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They probably assumed this is like a theme park or something and not an actual city that people actually live in year round. Cities having nice, people friendly places away from cars? Who’s ever heard of that?
Who would want to go there by car anyways? Going to a german Christmas market and not drinking tons of Glühwein seems like a waste
these people have not walked anywhere in their life have they?
Where would we walk? Most places are not set up for that.
Some people go on walks around their neighborhood for the sake of walking. But unless you live in the right area of the right city you can't just walk half a mile to get a muffin. The store is a 10 minute drive away.
I don’t want to sound flippant, but there are places to live in the US where you can walk to things. People choose to live outside cities and old town areas because it’s cheaper and bigger.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that this isn’t some nebulous countrywide “It’s everyone else’s fault” thing. People can and do choose to live close to things. We choose what we want.
You didn’t come off as flippant, but perhaps as sheltered… people live with the choices available to them. If you want to have kids, you have to choose a well funded school district or living in the suburbs driving everywhere. The “choice” to live in a wealthy walkable district, or to buy a bigger house in the city, or to pay tuition to send your kid to a private school, is not a choice that everyone can make.
Perhaps you can consider growing up in suburban America and then raising your own family there a choice. I wouldn’t, in the same way I wouldn’t consider wearing mainstream clothing a choice. It’s what’s visible and available to the vast majority of people, and you’d have to decide one day that the stuff everyone else in your life wears just isn’t working for you, and then work hard and pay a premium to find alternatives.
Never at any time in history in any part of the world has there been affordable spacious housing in a city. This isn't something unique to the modern US nor is it the result of government.
If the average person wants to live in a walkable area, they live in a small place. That's how it works. It's a city. People can even raise a family there. The option exists. It sounds like you don't like that option. That's not anyone else's decision being forced on you.
Stupid comment. Converted loft spaces were unbelievable deals connected to public transit and there’s a chance you’re even from the generation that lived in them. That’s recent history in a country known for having like five whole cities that weren’t completely gutted for automobiles. I live in a small house in a walkable neighborhood, so that’s bad luck on the guess, but it’s a bad and very deliberate choice in your part to claim that people are never forced to make housing decisions??
People did not choose to exclussively zone for single family homes with no commercial uses mixed in. Government bodies decided that and people bought the homes because they need somewhere to live.
Single family zoning can exist, but it should not be the only or the majority of the zoning for a city and it should be taxed fairly compared to rest of the city (instead of subsidized like the vast majority of suburbia).
our racist grandparents fled the cities and abolished sidewalks
Fun fact from Germany! These giant Christmas markets actually double as parking lots outside of holiday seasons! Everything is temporarily built on top of a giant parking lot!
Furthermore these tend to be close to both major hubs (Think like a central train station!) and some other event areas that DO need the parking (like a football stadium!). That way, while the holiday markets (plural, several a year) are off, the space can also be used as parking space for sports events hosted in the adjacent stadium!
Just some amazing German efficiency for you. Oh also they frequently get used as skateparks.
I'm reading that less as "amazing German efficiency" and more as "WTF, they waste the space on a parking lot the rest of the year?"
It's called an event space and it can't be occupied all year. There's stuff going on pretty frequently but when it ain't, it's gonna have to be a skatepark + parking lot.
It ain't just Christmas. There's holiday markets for every season and even off holiday there is frequent flea markets. It's even where popular bands will hold their concerts. Without a dedicated space like that, it's impossible to set up these kind of markets and fairs. It's inevitable that some days it'll sit empty.
You try setting up a ferris wheel and rollercoaster in the cramped areas of the city. It won't work.
As a German, I have never been to a Christmas market held in an event park. I know Christmas markets as just occupying the town square or city centre instead of a dedicated area away from it.
Event parks are in my experience usually just used for fairs, food festivals and sometimes concerts.
When it isn't otherwise occupied, instead of a parking lot, it could just be a park.
Also to add (having just spent a good portion of the season going to various Christmas Markets all over Central Europe), a lot of times these central square event spaces are essentially the roofs over underground parking garages. LOTS of multi-level underground parking garages in all these cities.
Well, they've probably been markets for some hundreds of years before they dug a parking cave underneath. Old cities especially get increasingly cramped with time.
I dont think OP realizes how disgustingly car-centric German culture is. They probably do, in fact, have parking garages
Am German, can confirm. Parking garages do indeed exist here. Germany is very car centric, but fortunately not as bad as the US. Our cities do also have mostly working public infrastructure that makes it possible for lots of people to get to the Christmas market and drink several mugs of mulled wine without the need for overly huge parking garages.
Last time I drank a bunch of mulled wine in Germany during Christmas, I went to the train station and found it was closed.
Its absurd that the trains dont run all night, especially on holidays where everyone is out drinking and trying to not drive or bike intoxicated
I agree, there's definitely room for improvement.
It seems rare, that the whole train station was closed (probably not one of the bigger cities) and you must have stayed rather late, while christmas markets usually already open in the afternoon (or even earlier) and the sun sets early in their season, so there's plenty of time to enjoy them while they are most beautiful (at night) and still make it home by train in a lot of places.
That being said, in more places than you'd expect, you won't find convenient train connections after midnight, if at all. That makes using public transit almost useless for partying. I remember living in a somewhat rural area as a young partygoer and if I wanted to go to the city for partying, the choice was to either go home before the city folk even really started going, or keep partying until the clubs closed and then hang around with the punks at the railroad station to wait for the first train in the morning. Having a designated driver and going by car was the usual option.
While it's nice to have, I don't think it should be normal to expect train drivers to work all night, especially on holidays.
While its nice to take holdlidays, I dont think its reasonable to shutdown necessary public infrastructure on holidays. Imagine if the electricity and water systems also shutdown on holidays.
Anyway, humans aren't needed to operate trains.
It's more fun that way
There is a parking garage right under that market. There is a large street right beside it as well. In a radius of 500m there are at least 3 other large parking garages.
Underground parking garages are very common over here. Most of the times these city squares are exactly that, a huge multi-level underground parking garage because these squares are always event spaces, and they are usually city-center so even when there isnt events, people have somewhere to park when just visiting the city. Yes, there will even be long lines of traffic waiting/hoping for a spot during event periods.
With that said, they do fill up, usually fast. So most events suggest finding public transportation. This just means people park further away and then take the bus/rail/etc the rest of the way. These Markets arent just for the locals, people travel from all over to come to them. So public transportation for long-distant travel, while totally possible, isnt always as practical (sometimes nor affordable or possible) for everyone. Plus, long distance trains do sell out. We just spent most of the season traveling all over Central Europe going to various markets.
Shh, you are one step away from mentioning P+R and blowing the mind of Americans
Does that stand for park + ride?
Lol…oops… Def didnt use the crap outta that on our trip last week!
I remember in Germany they would have a "Festbuß", festival bus, which were additional public transit routes from surrounding villages to wherever the event is happening. They are usually advertised in advance to give people additional option.
Yup, still a thing! Especially if a lot of surrounding villages are doing things, like christmas markets. Or even within a village with lots of small stops, like a bar-hopping type deal. The buses just loop, sometimes in both directions, through all the stops. They are separate from the normal transit buses, you gotta buy their specific ticket (or it’s free) and they are usually travel bus types rather than city transit buses. The inner-village ones are just passenger vans, though.
There's a Christmas market about half that size in Denver. I've never been puzzled about how people get there.
No one is puzzled. This was a case of someone casually scrolling and commenting without critical thought. Which, let's be honest, we are all guilty of that and the other guy taking the opportunity to dunk with an AmEriCa Am I rIgHt???
Saying "I want to know how they deal with parking", assuming they have vast parking garages and a shrug emoji is what I interpreted as puzzled. If you're not clear it's a reference to access to public transportation.
I know. I was just saying that the American in the pic is only puzzled because they are mindlessly scrolling and posting on Twitter. When the time comes to go to an event like that they are also just as likely to take the train without much thought to it either
It's true though that many Americans have never lived in a city with functional public transportation, so they don't even consider it. I lived in a city with a decent light rail system and it wasn't really reasonable because I would have had to walk 1.5 miles across hellish intersections (or taken an uber?) to even get to a train station, and I lived in a fairly urban area.
Is this supposed to be big? Do American cities not have festivals, concerts, parks, squares, new years parties... Or is this just low hanging circlejerk bait lol? 🤔
Yes, with parking.
This could be the Striezelmarkt in Dresden at the Altmarkt. look here
You could walk there from the Hauptbahnhof but there are a lot of public transit stations close by.
There is a parking space right below it though.
It looks like the Christkindelmarkt in Nürnberg, no? If so, yeah completely walkable from the main train station, or from the subway right next to it.
Meanwhile, in China:
"Why can't we have it both ways?"
This is /c/fuckcars not r/americabad.
Chicago has three Christkindlmarkets that look just like the above, all accessible by public transit. It's okay to celebrate what we're doing right.