I don't even mean in a "Ayy I'm walking here" kind of way. Today I was getting my airbags replaced for a couple hours so I was just walking around (Nowhere to go to because it was one of those near-the-highway places with nothing but department stores and car dealerships, but that's a different discussion.) Literally, it seemed like the entire layout of the area was saying "Fuck you, drive around" Like, there was barely even any sidewalks, which you'd think would be the bare minimum but nope.
The one place worth going to was this supremely out of place fountain, but to get there I had to do several different crossings of a very busy street, with nothing to help but those damn buttons you're supposed to push to, I think, make a red light (they didn't work, whoopity-do) and one crossing didn't even have that. Eventually I decided "Screw it", since there was no "official" crossing, so I just crossed the rest of the way from one of those tiny concrete islands. I didn't get run over, of course, but now I think about how comparatively easy it was for me, being able to walk on my feet; I can't even imagine how much worse it is in, say, a wheelchair. I guess America hates anyone not driving.
Suffice to say that the whole time I was thinking of this painting
Unintentionally funniest part of this post is that I couldn't even dox myself if I described it in more detail, since these places are literally everywhere in Amerikkka 🙃
The reason American cities and towns look so unappealing and built so poorly is that they were designed under capitalism, which exists to maximize profit, not to confirm to any cultural standard, ideas, or aesthetic.
it seemed like the entire layout of the area was saying “Fuck you, drive around”
You're not identifying something that seems this way. This is literally what the design and city layout is intended to shout at you in your face at all times. It was a conscientious and deliberate decision that was put in motion in the early 1900's by a collaboration between tire manufacturers, car manufacturers, gas companies, the companies that build roads, etc.
Having said that, I imagine that most folks in the USA aren't even aware of what they're missing because it's all they've ever known. As someone who has had the privilege of being able to visit Japan, it's a real fucking foundation shaker because getting anywhere by foot is not only possible, but it's the fastest and most convenient mode of travel around. Japan has major problems aside, of course, but their city layout is beautiful, functional, and vastly more humane. More people in the States would probably be more incensed by the state of things if they knew what existed just outside of their peripheral vision
I grew up in a walking city, I remember as a kid being very weirded out that there were no sidewalks in the suburbs.
We’re weird here in Australia, a loooooot of suburban places will only have pavement (“sidewalk”) on one side of the street. And it’s like, cool I have to zig zag from side to side if I don’t wanna walk in dirt (or someone’s literal front garden, we don’t really do picket fences here) half the time I’m walking (this is Australia we don’t have grass we have dirt)
hen the first cold war city designer part making suburb-city layouts maximize area to make potential nukes less catastrophic.
You got a source for that? Seems very interesting.
Yeah, it really sucks. Reminds me of when I was canvassing for bernard last year in Iowa, walking around in neighborhoods there were some sidewalks but they were really cracked and uneven, and flooded in many spots from melted snow. Trying to get from one neighborhood to another we were walking through mud 50cm from the edge of a busy road, and having to cross without right-of-way. These places were easily within walking distance of each other, but terrible to walk because of hostile design.
Ugh I feel you. I worked at a place where the nearest bus stop was on the shoulder of the highway about a mile down, and the side of the highway was thorny bushes and then a ditch, so you had to walk in the shoulder. I hated it so much that I started walking half an hour to another bus route with a sidewalk, even though it was a more roundabout route and added 40 minutes to my commute. Shit sucked.
The channel "Not Just Bikes" (run by a Canadian who now lives in the Netherlands) has a lot of good videos on this topic, including this one. And he's currently doing a series about the history of American suburbs and the myriad problems associated with them.
I was getting my car fixed and had to walk around for a while and I’d literally have cars honking at me as I used the crosswalk with a walk light on, because they wanted to turn right quickly and I wasn’t moving fast enough (as in, I’d just barely be stepping off the goddamn curb) and I’m not a slow walker by any means
I hate America, I hate Americans, I just wanna walk for gods sake and I hate all the stupid fucking cars on the road.
Where I live there's a major highway which divides an area of curvy, wide, 25 mile per hour suburban streets from the crowded, higher speed commercial streets. The bus stops are all on this highway, but if you should be so unfortunate as to actually work in the commercial area (where all the jobs are, naturally) you'll find yourself walking for up to a mile along these horrible streets with no sidewalks, no shoulders to speak of, no crossings at the many traffic lights, and spotty lighting. When it was developed it wasn't zoned to require sidewalks. The idiot township commissioners are elected by the powerful farming lobby here, who obviously don't care about people riding the bus out from the city to work.
So yeah, it's a cross-country walk for them if they want to live. I love democracy!i love how dumb think tanks like brookings are like " Well investing in public transportation is useless in a country with a 95 percent car ownership rate". You stupid motherfucker of course people need to buy a car when thats the only possible way to get around do you fucking think they got a car because they enjoy driving? Its cuz they have no other option
