I've lived in places where I wasn't dependent on a car - Chicago, Philadelphia, Prague, Moscow. And I've lived in rural New Jersey, where my salary increase was whittled away by costs for gas and maintenance, as well as that state's notoriously high auto insurance premiums, and my overall Q of L was degraded by having to spend so much time driving.
Mind you, in a couple of those cities I did have access to a car, and used it when convenient or necessary. But I wasn't completely dependent on it, and that makes a huge difference.
I like the idea of more people being able to live in dense urban cores.
The United States has a number of pre-Civil War cities with this type of downtown, such as Philadelphia, Baltimore or St. Louis. Typically, these cities experienced population loss and deindustrialization after World War II. This was driven in part by rising crime.
Other cities, like New York, experienced similar challenges. But New York never lost its keystone industries of finance and media and eventually got crime under control. It remains a place where young, well-off people want to go to enjoy a high quality of life. The story in Boston was similar on a smaller scale.
I don't see any reason why a city like Philadelphia (once our nation's capital) shouldn't be able to do the same thing. It should be a place that talented, well-off people want to move to. Philadelphia would need to cut violent crime in half to get to New York levels. I think that would be a good start for a program of urban renewal.
Official census data from 2014, 5.7% of Portland workers commuted by walking, contrary to your “95% don’t walk to work” claim. And that’s not counting the additional 18% not driving because they bike or take transit instead. I assure you those numbers are a lot lower in Houston. And many of those remaining car commutes are much longer in Houston, whether you’re counting in miles or minutes. Having other transportation options reduces time people waste idling in traffic jams.
And many of those remaining car commutes are much longer in Houston, whether you’re counting in miles or minutes.
"
And again, we go from you nit picking over 7/10th of a percentage to this world salad of a claim. The average commute in Houston is something around a dozen miles. I have no doubt that in a metro area of 2 1/2 million people, like Portland, there are _many_ car commutes that are longer than that.
The question isn't many but how long. Why this obsession with precision from others but not holding yourself up to those same standards?
That aside, why should taxpayers foot the bill for some yoho who wants to live in Troutdale and works west of Beaverton just so they can have "options". I get that rhetoric gets tossed around all the time. Maybe that's why urbanists don't understand how BSC that is to normies? We're going to spend billions so Terry can spend 3 hours commuting by train instead of just moving to a place where he can bike to work?!?!?
Sorry to just come at ya. But man, you gotta think through the bigger picture more. More logic, less ( vapid ) rhetoric.
Logan, it's common sense that 95% is a ballpark and not meant to be precise. Hence 95% and not 95.0%.
But if you want to play the "achuralllly....." game note the US census data is from a self survey. Those are highly inacurate.
Take those numbers at face value, if you're going to get uppity over that 7/10ths of a percent, don't be so foolish as to turn around and then sloppily throw in transit and biking. I was clearly refering to walking. Don't tut-tut other people's accuracy and then do something like that.
I've lived in places where I wasn't dependent on a car - Chicago, Philadelphia, Prague, Moscow. And I've lived in rural New Jersey, where my salary increase was whittled away by costs for gas and maintenance, as well as that state's notoriously high auto insurance premiums, and my overall Q of L was degraded by having to spend so much time driving.
Mind you, in a couple of those cities I did have access to a car, and used it when convenient or necessary. But I wasn't completely dependent on it, and that makes a huge difference.
I like the idea of more people being able to live in dense urban cores.
The United States has a number of pre-Civil War cities with this type of downtown, such as Philadelphia, Baltimore or St. Louis. Typically, these cities experienced population loss and deindustrialization after World War II. This was driven in part by rising crime.
Other cities, like New York, experienced similar challenges. But New York never lost its keystone industries of finance and media and eventually got crime under control. It remains a place where young, well-off people want to go to enjoy a high quality of life. The story in Boston was similar on a smaller scale.
I don't see any reason why a city like Philadelphia (once our nation's capital) shouldn't be able to do the same thing. It should be a place that talented, well-off people want to move to. Philadelphia would need to cut violent crime in half to get to New York levels. I think that would be a good start for a program of urban renewal.
The average rent for a 3 bedroom house in Portland is around $10K more per year than Houston.
95% of commuters in Portland do not walk to work.
We should be careful about what density actually brings ( or does not ).
Not sure on the latest data but… https://www.census.gov/newsroom/archives/2014-pr/cb14-r08.html
Official census data from 2014, 5.7% of Portland workers commuted by walking, contrary to your “95% don’t walk to work” claim. And that’s not counting the additional 18% not driving because they bike or take transit instead. I assure you those numbers are a lot lower in Houston. And many of those remaining car commutes are much longer in Houston, whether you’re counting in miles or minutes. Having other transportation options reduces time people waste idling in traffic jams.
"
And many of those remaining car commutes are much longer in Houston, whether you’re counting in miles or minutes.
"
And again, we go from you nit picking over 7/10th of a percentage to this world salad of a claim. The average commute in Houston is something around a dozen miles. I have no doubt that in a metro area of 2 1/2 million people, like Portland, there are _many_ car commutes that are longer than that.
The question isn't many but how long. Why this obsession with precision from others but not holding yourself up to those same standards?
That aside, why should taxpayers foot the bill for some yoho who wants to live in Troutdale and works west of Beaverton just so they can have "options". I get that rhetoric gets tossed around all the time. Maybe that's why urbanists don't understand how BSC that is to normies? We're going to spend billions so Terry can spend 3 hours commuting by train instead of just moving to a place where he can bike to work?!?!?
Sorry to just come at ya. But man, you gotta think through the bigger picture more. More logic, less ( vapid ) rhetoric.
Logan, it's common sense that 95% is a ballpark and not meant to be precise. Hence 95% and not 95.0%.
But if you want to play the "achuralllly....." game note the US census data is from a self survey. Those are highly inacurate.
Take those numbers at face value, if you're going to get uppity over that 7/10ths of a percent, don't be so foolish as to turn around and then sloppily throw in transit and biking. I was clearly refering to walking. Don't tut-tut other people's accuracy and then do something like that.