“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”

Also, vote.

Nationalize the rail system and give us interstate high speed rail dern it

I don't think you understand the critique. The problem is all of the single-story and two-story construction. There's no way to fix that quickly. It took a century to build it all. It's going to take twice as long to migrate all of that low density into higher density construction and decrease the mileage required to live normal lives. Right now, the average suburbanite has to travel an insane number of total miles to do the basics of what they need to do for their families - food, healthcare, schooling, shelter, clothing, socializing, multi-generational relationships, work.

It's not like local governments can build light rail or even busses to even 50% of the necessary things. Plus they'd have to change zoning codes against all the NIMBY pushback, plus it would take decades to consolidate those activities into higher density buildings.

No, the USA is fucked and it's going to remain fucked for a long time.

Hey I won't probably live to see France be the Netherlands in biking, but we too move forwards!

I know all the enshittyfication/capitalism in social media pushes Trump(well you have a way choosing your presidents don't you...) Police murdering minorities, conspiracy theories etc etc etc so people get dopamine locked to their feed. It's quite infuriating to say the least.

Cheers for you!

A European friend.

I love how this entire post is written in a way that assumes that the US = North America.

In many ways, Canada is even more fucked than America. Many Canadian cities have been amalgamated with their surrounding suburbs in order to usurp urbanists from city governments.

Of course, there will always be a handful of awesome walkable neighborhoods, but they will continue rising in price until nobody can afford living in them. You can make arguments all you want at the local scale, but the macro scale says that we aren't building enough dense housing to keep up with population growth (in Canada at least), which means we are still not on a good trajectory. Until some of those indicators start moving in a different direction, it's reasonable to claim that North America is "doomed" in the sense that they aren't actually addressing the problem, and the problem gets worse the longer it goes unaddressed.

Let’s see… we could start enforcing laws that regulate the car industry and ownership. Impound the drunkards car. Impound the asshole’s car that parks in bus shelters. Impound the asshole car drivers that park on the sidewalk. Suspend the licenses of speeders, and other scofflaws. All parking or moving violation fines should be based off of the drivers total assets. So a 1 billion dollar parking ticket would be the norm for a billionaire. Build out more public transit options by using potential future parking fees as collateral. Use eminent domain to silence the nimby. Tie up the automobile industry in court by seeking financial reparations for the damage that they have caused…. It’s a start a least!

The pessimism comes because the overall trend looks bad, and people feel alienated politically and just in general.

It's because Not Just Bikes dug his heels in about his stance on "North America is a lost cause, I moved to Europe and you should too" and "If you can't move, go watch another YouTube channel, because I don't care about your shitty country".

Watch City Nerd. Dude's legit.

I used to have a local government

because people being as cynical as they can because they think it makes them sound smart has been the internet status quo for at least 10 years

It's bullshit. Not Just Bikes is the Dutch equivalent to a weeb--a Dweeb, if you will.

I live in the NW US, but I've visited plenty of places in Europe including Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and yes, the Netherlands. Nowhere is perfect. Seattle and Portland have flaws, as do Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

It's a real cynical bitch move to pretend that American cities can't be improved and aren't worth fighting for, especially when <100 years ago Europe was a smoldering warzone.

Anywhere can be made better, if people advocate and vote in ways that will make them better.

I wish you good luck, good sir

There are cities where you can go today in the US where you don’t have to own a car and can get around by walking.

And unaffordable to maybe 80% of the country.

NYC alone has 8.8 million people and could sure as shit fit way more.

If you want to live like cattle and pay $2-3k for a crappy studio, or getting well into your 30's and 40's while still having to share an apartment, sure.

Telling people to go to the already-dense areas is not the solution. The solution is to build the missing middle, preferably away from the big coastal cities which are already oversaturated.

So there is no widespred abuse of policing powers, no corrupt politics that is basically dysfunctional, and more gun deaths than any other civilized country in the world?

If you solved all those (and the other problems), then I take back my notion that the US is a lost cause.