NotJustBikes is getting dragged on Twitter for this post.
What do you think? Is he right? Wrong? Not wrong, but an asshole?
When I see how hard advocates and sympathetic planners have to work in 2023 to get a halfassed facility that would never make it off the drawing board in the Netherlands, it's hard for me to say he's wrong.
Easy to say for some rich dipshit whose job took him around the world and picked his favorite place to live.
What was his old job again? Some kind of sales?
Also yeah he's not really a leftist IIRC.
If I remember right, he worked for NVIDIA, not sure what he did there.
From what I've gathered he seems somewhere between slightly left of centre and socdem
he's human. i'm pretty sure we all feel like this sometimes. yeah, sure, leaving isn't a real option, but a LOT of leftists have days where they just want to say fuck it and give up on everything because it all looks impossible - the difference is that most of us don't have our doomery breakdowns broadcast to thousands of people
he's not having a moment though, this is just what he believes, as far as I can tell. And he's saying this not as someone who fought for better urbanism and failed, but from Amsterdam, as someone with a cushy job and the ability to move wherever he wanted who just left and didn't fight. And that's not to say he's wrong. US/Canada are not particularly responsive to pressure on this issue, but he's also only considering the activism of going to council meetings and putting up yard signs, and maybe in the extreme case a little rally outside city hall, he's not considering urbanism as part of a socialist movement that goes beyond petitioning the liberal government.
I can certainly understand why living in a low-density stroad hellscape is undesirable from a personal perspective, however from a macro one getting North America out of its status as a per capita carbon glutton is pretty essential. You can’t just up and move to idyllic European city and then pretend the place you moved from doesn’t exist anymore.
agreed, but realistically, I just don't see North America doing that. it's barely part of the conversation, much less being seriously pursued
Only part of the conversation is "Why can't I hit the cyclist for inconveniencing me"
Well, as a person who lives in North America I'm definitely low on hope for the US at least. There is a sort of "just leave" vibe to his particular phrasing though that's kind of off-putting in an out-of-touch way. Like, if I could just fucking leave I probably would have at this point, my guy.
NJB's typical viewer is an upwardly mobile rich yuppie shopping around for the best urban center to get a 200k consulting job.
I don't know if that's true
That's who he is but I wouldn't assume that's his whole audience.
I'm just being flippant but the whole "just give up on North America" thing is only really possible for those sorts of people. There are hundreds of millions that are essentially trapped here forever.
: the bugs bunny solution to florida (unrealistic, goofy, requires comically large saw the size of which does not currently exist)
: The Escape from New York solution to florida (realistic, cool, tough, sexy, hot, smart, cool)requires comically large saw the size of which does not currently exist
Bugs Bunny did it with a regular saw, so i refuse to believe anything other than willingness and good cardio is necessary.
IIRC he gave up on Canada and moved to the Netherlands because he wanted to raise a family and Fake London was hostile to human life. That's very understandable, and I'll probably end up doing something similar. However, he creates urbanist propaganda so it's pretty weird to tell his audience to give up. I thought the point of his videos was to change things? I think he's just having a heated urbanist moment, it's OK.
Anyway it's pretty ironic that his kids will have to move out of the Netherlands to raise a family. Cause, you know, the Netherlands won't exist in a couple generations.
I thought the point of his videos was to change things?
I don't think I've ever heard a call to action in one of his videos; he just does "this is bad" content for the most part
his call to action is basically "move somewhere better peasant" because he's a lib, but one that recognizes that bourgeois liberal governments (he doesn't call them that ofc) aren't responsive to the advocacy of citizens so you might as well just go somewhere that already has the urbanism you want. This is of course quite difficult and generally dependent on having money and being
but he doesn't really address that, presumably sees it as a necessary evil at best, or keeping out the brown hordes at worst. no idea how racist he is or isn't but the vibes aren't the best and neither ontario suburbs nor the netherlands are the best about thatIf he weren't a lib he might have hope that more radical change is possible, given the right organization and situation, or find a way to recognize that most people simply can't give up on their life and move because they can't afford it, and maybe aren't such an alienated capitalist subject that they'd want to abandon their whole life and move across the world
I have watched pretty much all his videos. I don't think he is racist since he does acknowledge the racist nature of suburbanization and has even talked about the racism in the car friendly infrastructure in Bahamas. He is also one of the few YouTubers to point out the success of that "abandoned" metro station in Chongqing.
But you are correct about the rest.
yeah idk where I got that idea tbh. honestly I think it was just seeing his face in this video combined with his very... gentrified perspective. He slobbers all over amsterdam but amsterdam is incredibly unaffordable and the cheaper areas in the country aren't necessarily so good from an urbanist perspective depending on who you ask.
Its not fair to call him racist just based on him looking like a an albino white devil but idk I just can't shake the feeling
I mean he pretty regularly makes arguments in favour of why the US/Canada can actually improve, which I guess isn't directly a call to change, but putting that much effort into showing that kinda feels like that's the goal
Burgeritis is a contagion that does not respect borders. Europe is the second most susceptible target for Burgerization after Canada. Just ask the Ukrainians.
We can't go anywhere else. It costs 4,000 dollars to renounce your citizenship in the US.
Well even before that you need a sponsored work visa and good luck getting one unless you're in finance or tech with 5+ years of experience. Only other option is teach English and hope you make enough connections to get a work visa after the contract is up. I really want to get out of here but I work manual labor and dropped out of university due to depression/anxiety/other undiagnosed mental illness so I only have an associate's degree. I though about joining the French Foreign Legion as a last resort but I'm anti-imperialist to the core so I would probably end up fragging an officer.
I also could possibly get citizenship in a European country through grandparents or great-grandparents but there's like no family tree so I have no idea if I would qualify. I would need to hire someone to go through records to figure it out.
Oh, yeah, and on top of that if you have any kind of disability what-so-ever you're barred from immigrating to almost every country, because fuck you eugenics rules!
Canada is relatively doable for skilled trades jobs. Not exactly easy, but easier than most places.
If you're Canadian, please marry me so I can leave this hell. Or really anywhere north or south of 50 degrees latitude. Trying to not die of heat stroke or dehydration.
Anyone know how easy it would be to work at some tour company in Ushuaia and just never leave? Asking for SWIM (someone who is me).
Oh, I also should have mentioned, learning French to a high-ish level also helps a lot with PR.
Now ask the Dutch how they feel about north african or southeast asian people who have a business and a steady income for years in the country.
In the same boat, skilled construction trade but no school higher than my apprenticeship. If I could leave I would and not look back but I didn't have the privilege of being able to go to university for some degree that could get me out. As far as I can tell my best hopes are 1) marriage, 2) work for a company like Microsoft with data centers and shit globally, or 3) Canada. I put Canada last because if I manage to emigrate I may as well shoot for something better than USlite.
That's the story for almost all immigrants from the Global South. Overstay your visa, work cash-in-hand, escape from the police constantly, and apply for residency whenever you can. It shouldn't be that way for anyone, but it is sadly normal for the largest segment of the immigrant population.
Yeah, I've had that happen to me and many people I know, too. They know you don't have much recourse so they'll fuck you over whenever they feel they can.
You don't need to renounce your citizenship to the US to leave.
It's still not easy.
I should have clarified that one is still required to file income taxes
you don't need to renounce US citizenship to leave. As for the taxes you still owe I'm not sure about this but I don't think America has any ability to actually enforce that if you don't go back
I'm not sure about this but I don't think America has any ability to actually enforce that if you don't go back
Well if you have family you wanna visit
In the same vein I would love to leave but I have quite a few family obligations in my home town that I would feel very bad about abandoning. In the mean time I try to make my community better as best I can. I know I’m not going to change the world but I’m doing right by my family and friends and that’s as much as I feel I can reasonably expect here
I've known people who came from India with nothing and don't even speak English that emmigrated you could emmigrate you just don't want to enough to deal with the hassle which is fair enough it means giving up your current life and starting again somewhere you have no friends or family
It's not actually an option for the vast majority of people. You can't just apply to a job in another country and then move there, it's not that simple.
I think many Americans genuinely believe that they can show up to whatever country they want, flash a US passport, and be given residency.
Residency as a permanent visa? Yeah no.
But it goes a long way to giving you a head start on job hunting abroad and having a job offer guarantees a visa anywhere, some fields discriminate in favor of westerners specially English speaking natives a lot.
he's right. the suburbs are already built. what is supposed to happen? so much of the nations wealth is tied up in these multi-hundred thousand dollar, single family homes. you're not destroying that and moving people into higher density areas. My civil engineer friend said "well we'll zone 10,000 square miles for higher density and let the City grow into the suburbs and extend the public transport there" and felt this would be easy enough to redevelop all American homes into 5-over-1s within a few years.
But we can destroy multihundred dollar single family homes. You need to have a critical mass of high density population, then you fold the suburbs into the city itself, increase land property taxes steeply, zone for unlimited density contingent on guaranteed infrastructure, greatly limit car use, streamline eminent domain, and eventually people will either be priced out of their homes or, if they're very rich they'll either be eminent domained or annoyed that they can't use their cars anymore.
It can be done. The single family homes are all shoddily made piece of shit that won't last. They're barely wealth as it is and will be a liability in 15 years time. The land is what's valuable, the houses are a crappy consumer good made to the lowest standard the building code will allow full of glued fiberboard and cheap drywall. American houses themselves aren't wealth, they're consumables.
The cities the US has now were the result of bulldozing their urban centres to build highways, suburbs, and parking lots. Those were already built too. Why should one be fait accompli and the other be unthinkable?
seems like it would divert an unrealistic amount of construction material for a post-industrial, declining country entering a climate apocalypse to rebuild homes that people already have.
the context does make this slightly better. Having realistic expectations is good, and I do think it's realistic to say that the US isn't going to get to where the netherlands is in one generation, or even two, but "you should be giving up" is a bad way to term it. I don't blame anyone for moving to somewhere a bit more hospitable like amsterdam, but no matter who he claims his channel is "for", I guarantee most of his viewers don't have the option to "just move", so he should address them too, not just well off people like himself. He wants to be the urbanism channel for richy rich but he's not
He also did an entire series partnering with Strong Towns, which was arguably what really solidified his channel as a strong urban-planning type channel. Seems a bit counter to "my channel is only geared to those who can leave amerikkka"
he kinda frames it as "I tried to send people who haven't/won't/can't give up on america to those other channels so I can have my circlejerk about how much better amsterdam is in peace" tbh
KKKrackas:
- comes to the Americas
- wipes out indigenous peoples to steal their land
- builds inefficient and destructive monuments to consumerism
- refuses to elaborate
- leaves
the dutch are historically one of the most evil nations that has ever existed, any opinion from those subhumans must be regarded with a mountain of salt
edit:
People should just give up on North America...
Your advocacy and energy would go much farther in a better city.
no way this fucking bonobo did a "North America is my city"
even worse, any cracker who willingly goes to the Netherlands to live deserves to be keelhauled
Isn't the Netherlands the country which polls as the most proud of its colonial empire? Like somehow even higher than the UK
Ya I wanted to say this. I know enough Dutch who are cool. But the casual racism, the anti mask and vaccine shit, the rise of the far right... I don't love the Netherlands by any means.
the dutch are historically one of the most evil nations that has ever existed
Why tho? I know the Netherlands for their resistance against Germans in WWII
a big part of the spawning of capitalism itself within europe (src: :large-adult-son:)
colonized southeast asian countries like indonesia and taiwan
colonized south africa and created the afrikaaners, one of the most barbaric peoples to ever exist, they literally did apartheid
facilitated the atlantic slave trade with their ships
the people are generally assholes
they aint cool folks
And in more recent memory, they moved in the
to deny Southern/Eastern European countries any covid assistance, citing "well, if they weren't as lazy/spendy they'd have money to deal with an unknown pandemic". Then proceeded to have a half-assed lockdown and were one of the first nations to outright say "personal freedom and the economy is more important than your grandma living".They have one of the largest dairy/agroindustrial sectors in the world, continuously pushing for the deregulation of the global food production landscape, for further precarization of farm and food industry workers, and for the trivialization of any and all regulations that might make agriculture a bit less poisonous for everyone involved.
i work for a contractor that wins public improvement bids pretty often (road widening, bridge repair, etc). a sidewalk and a traffic-adjacent bike lane is all you're ever gonna get if you're lucky. shit, if the municipality comes into some federal funding, maybe you can get a flashing crosswalk. oh and shittons of roads for cars.
tbh I always thought of him as a massive lib that sees the EU as a succdem utopia
