this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
1095 points (92.9% liked)

Technology

59448 readers
3553 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
L3s
[email protected]
[email protected]
L4s
enu
1095
It’s time for Americans to embrace small cars (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 year ago by boem to c/technology
436 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] NuanceDemon 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Unfortunately it's zoning that caused most of this issue. Not size. Dense residential was disallowed for not entirely un-racist reasons, so it spread out enormously instead. On top of car companies lobbying in various ways to make cars essential.

[–] FlyingSquid 8 points 1 year ago

Suburban sprawl is also an issue. It takes 20 minutes or more just to walk out of my massive subdivision. It takes 3 or 4 minutes to drive out of the subdivision. And we're out of city limits, so no bus. It sucks. The only thing that I can say for it is that it's very safe in terms of crime.

[–] RaoulDook 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

People also spread out because they could - most people would prefer to have a house with land rather than live in a tiny apt

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Suburbs are subsidized by urban areas. Zoning in North America means medium and high density can only be built in limited locations, meaning demand often outstrips supply, increasing the price. The decision of "house with land" vs "tiny apt" isn't a direct comparison and price influences people's decisions. If these perverse incentives weren't in place, more people would consider living in higher density areas with more amenities vs having lots of land and being far away from everything.