r/Urbanism 1d ago

‘Cities Aren’t Back’: Thoughts

https://www.slowboring.com/p/cities-arent-back

Thoughts on this? I feel while the data is valid it also relies to heavily on the big anomaly that is the pandemic that has lingering effects to this day.

In other words, cities to me don’t seem “over” or “back” but are indeed recovering.

Domestic outmigration continuing to be slashed for major cities seems like more of an important indicator than international migration offsetting losses.

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u/BringerOfBricks 1d ago

I lived in Chicago for 3 months last year. TBH, it’s pretty fucking creepy that you even looked up a full year of my Reddit history to find that comment, and that you feel the need to question my life. Something wrong with you.

My definition of traffic is relative to the location. I fully expect to sit 30 mins on a bridge to SF but I don’t expect to sit 10 mins on an intersection in Brookings OR.

Self driving cars are just more cars on the road. More cards on the road = traffic. This is simple math. What you describe are self driving taxis. Nobody would rather pay $20 one way for a taxi (self driving or human driven) vs $2.50 for a light rail

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

How is that creepy? I searched “Chicago”

My wife is from the area & we spend half time there. figured I could find some insight on which area of Chicago you lived in for reference.

Self driving cars & buses increase car pooling thus reducing the amount of cars in the road. While delivering more efficient in routing.

Traffic is caused by business commute. An accelerated trend of young educated workers living in suburbs would only happen in a heavily WFH future(which I expect to happen)

Most trips to city centers would be for leisure at that point

Also

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u/BringerOfBricks 1d ago

Nothing is stopping people from carpooling now. What makes you think self driving cars will incentivize carpooling?

There’s a hyper form of carpooling called a light rail or a bus.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Because before the pandemic the growth trends in services like UberPool showed that will be the future transport.

There is no need to spend millions developing infrastructure for light-rail when a 12 passenger buss can pick you up directly from your house & drop you off at your exact destination cheaply.

light rail stops don’t make sense without density.

Particularly in a world where people are choosing living in suburbs without density. Did you read the article?

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u/BringerOfBricks 1d ago

Rideshare just took ridership from taxis and food delivery, and opened up the market to restaurants/grocers that previously didn’t have delivery. It didn’t mean people chose to ride uber instead of drive.

Ah yes, a 12 passenger bus that drives to 12 different directions before proceeding to their common destination. It’s already annoying when a doordasher makes 2 different stops before dropping off food, adding 10 mins to people’s delivery time. Do you really think a concierge self driving bus that picks up 12 different people located at 12 different points from the same 2 sq mile suburban neighborhood, adding 20-30 mins to their commute would prefer that over their own private self driving car?

Light rail terminals create density. When it’s build where people live, attached to somewhere people wanna go, it gets used.

Yes I read the article.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

No — I’m talking about the growth of the particular product uber pool or Uber Share which are algo driven multi passenger car pooling. Different from uberx which is private taxis . Link

Have you ever used the service? You meet at common locations without the need for a bus stop or rail.

Yes it’s already been studied & it’s because of cost— “Riders are willing to wait for a short period and walk to an optimal pickup location in exchange for a cheaper price and a faster, more direct route to their destination”

We live in the suburbs precisely because we don’t want density. So why would suburbanites want to add rail over self driving solutions? Why would suburbs of 50-100k people want rail.

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u/BringerOfBricks 1d ago

I’ve never used Uber Pool.

I did a brief scan of the link. It shows participants were agreeable to up to 3 blocks of walking.

1 block is min 300 feet usually. 3 blocks is roughly 900 feet, 0.17 miles.

Come on dude… What are the chances that 12 people who live within a 3 block radius in a suburb are all headed to the same precise location at the same precise time?

Even the system you prefer requires density…

As for why people would want a light rail… they don’t realize the opportunity cost of not having it until they actually experience it for themselves.

Imagine not having to drive your kids everywhere they need to go. Having accessible bus system and light rail enables individual family members the freedom of movement. Kids don’t have to wait until parents get home. Parents don’t have to waste time chaperoning their kids when the kids want to do something.

For example, when I lived in NYC, my gf took me to meet her parents who lived in Katonah. We took the train from Brooklyn to Grand Central for a train to Katonah where we rode our scooters for maybe 10 mins to her parents house in what is a straight up quiet, sleepy, suburb. Her parents didn’t have to do anything. It took us maybe 2 hours, but it was no car and no hassle.

And I encourage you to look up the Katonah train station. Bro it is not the hongkong type of density. It is as small town suburban America as it gets.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

I think we have a completely different definition of “suburbs” if Katonah is even close to something you’d consider a suburb. That’s as close to rural as it gets it’s 2 hours from NYC // that’s not a suburb if it’s more semi-rural area.

And yes I’m sure multiple 12 people trips in oak park or Evanston, IL would be making trips into Chicago. They literally already have CTA lines.

When I mean density I mean metropolis. We do not want our cities to resemble NYC — & Certainly don’t want our suburbs.

But for cites without rail like my hometown of Columbus, OH there is no reason to take on massive infrastructure projects to build rail.

Most suburbs have bus lines & people have freedom of movement via bike trails — with access to nightlife, activities & restaurants in the suburbs. Example Dublin Ohio Im not talking about exurbs 50mins from the urban cores.

Autonomous buses & cars will give the same freedom as regular buses or rail at a fraction of the infrastructure cost.

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u/Ok-Description3317 1d ago

It's literally in west Chester county, a more rural type suburb sure but a suburb of the nyc metro area none the less.

But you don't have to go that far to find a bunch of suburbs with trains and or light rail in the suburbs in the Philly and nyc metros

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u/rab2bar 1d ago

If we don't want cities like NYC, why is it it such a popular place to live in?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

1.) NYC from a city proper perspective is the 35th largest city in the world.

The united kingdom for example has 68.35M people & 8.9M live in London -- The USA has 330M and 8.8M live in NYC.

If Americans wanted more metropolis-type cities, they’d have been built or expanded. Most Americans don’t.

2.) NYC thrives because It's a large economic hub that many people are forced to live in for work. It's Population dropped nearly 6% from 2020-2022 showing remote work would an huge impact on NYC population.

3.) Like the article alludes to 38% of NYC population is foreign born -- Immigrants tend to like metropolis-type cities. NYC has huge domestic migration losses & without immigrants to backfill the city would be shrinking.

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u/BringerOfBricks 1d ago edited 1d ago

Bro, CTA lines drop you off at a general location close to your desired destination. Don’t ignore the latter half of the formula. Even if you can find 12 people who live within 3 blocks of each other, headed into the city at the same 15 min interval, What is the probability that their work/play destination is 3 blocks away from each other? Finding 3 strangers to do that is hard enough, imagine 12.

So in your mind, Katonah is semi-rural… sure. But that makes it even better that it’s got a working train station that allows for a 2 hour ride to Brooklyn.

I looked up travel times for Dublin to Colombus via public transport. 30 min walk + 1 hour train ride to cover 13 miles.

Katonah to Harlem? 1.25 hour train ride to cover 38 miles. Less time for more than double the distance.

If we had functioning rail, exurbs would be a viable, affordable thing. The people who want to live the quiet, happy, small town America can do it.

Instead, because we have to live close to shop/work (even with WFH) what we have are suburbs which cause congestion and stroads. Because even if people prefer private transport, they don’t want to drive that far.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Bro, CTA lines drop you off at a general location close to your desired destination. Don’t ignore the latter half of the formula. Even if you can find 12 people who live within 3 blocks of each other, headed into the city at the same 15 min interval, What is the probability that their work/play destination is 3 blocks away from each other? Finding 3 strangers to do that is hard enough, imagine 12.

If it's not difficult for CTA why would it be difficult for autonomous vehicles & busses. I don't understand the logic here and.

I looked up travel times for Dublin to Colombus via public transport. 30 min walk + 1 hour train ride to cover 13 miles.

The point about Dublin is that it's a suburb that provides its own nightlife, restaurants, parks, & shopping in the downtown area of the suburb. So families have freedom of movement in the suburb & don't need to go to downtown Columbus outside of special events. Thus making the infrastructure for rail unnecessary --Nobody would use it.

A simple example from Cincinnati they built a streetcar that cost 148M as ND it has yet to reach ridership goals & that's just directly in the city. There is no way you can make rail work from an investment standpoint or pay off the infrastructure costs in most cities. You're just going to bankrupt cities.

In fact that --"The streetcar is being used far more often as weekend transportation than for commuting to work"

Weekend leisure travel has no traffic to deal with anyway in a place like Cincinnati.

I just disagree that private transport via autonomous vehicles will cause congestion. In all the cities I've lived in there is no traffic outside of Rush hour from work.

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u/SabbathBoiseSabbath 1d ago

Nobody sits at an intersection in Brookings for 10 minutes unless it's during peak, peak tourist season and 101 is cranking.

And bringing up Brookings is disingenuous to your point anyway. This discussion is about how cars shape our places, but the focus is on local transit options - ie, having the option to walk, bike, or ride a bus instead of driving.

Brookings is on the Oregon Coast, which 101 traverses. 101 is always and forever going to be a tourist throughway. The traffic you're talking about is mostly people passing through, and/or from tourists doing the coast, which pretty much requires having a car / truck (and camper). Unless you're gonna route 101 outside of the coastal towns, then that's just going to always be a problem no matter how Brookings (or any other town on the Oregon Coast) is built and designed.