From an outside perspective: The US can’t even agree that there’s a problem (yet). Most people will proudly defend the car dependent way of life. As soon as there is a consensus about needing to change, the process could start and then it will take 30 years. Clock hasn’t even started ticking yet, so yeah, lost cause for now.
America is too big to “fix” as a whole, you have to fix it city by city. For example, I spent about 10 years biking around Chicago mostly w/o a car, but to think that same infrastructure can expand all the way to NY is either too unrealistic or just too lofty of a goal to take on. We need to start by focusing on the largest of American cities and work our way down.
Comparing America to the Netherlands isn’t fair as the US is 237 times the size of the Netherlands, but we can start making sure that our most populous cities are bikeable/have good public transport.
It’s not about the size of the country as a whole. 99% of people aren’t making that commute from Chicago to New York, so walkability is a non-issue. Not Just Bikes actually has a recent video on this.
What you say about cities is correct though: they need to be made people-sized, not car-sized. That is, stores need to be closer together, sidewalks more spacious, much less car traffic, areas with storefronts that are easy to access without a car, and outdoor spaces for hanging out. The cities and suburbs are what need to be corrected, not the empty land between them.
Between cities are where high-speed rail would be necessary and extremely helpful in order to take cars off the road and ease traffic congestion.
I was really disappointed in these comments.
NJB has been upfront consistently about how they aren’t an advocacy channel and I don’t fault them for not jumping into how to fix North America’s transit/urban planning issues. That’s simply not a focus of their content.
I also don’t blame NJB for not wanting to have that fight anymore and doing what he sees as the best move for himself and his family. Good for him.
However saying “just give up” helps absolutely no one, and completely overlooks the fact that millions of people can’t simply relocate to the Netherlands like he did whether that be for monetary or personal reasons.
It’s exceptionally callous and pessimistic reasoning.
There are lots of pockets across the US and NA where they’re getting it right, and it’s my belief there’s so many more areas where people don’t actually know an alternative actually exists.
Change can happen. As others have pointed out in this thread, compare Portland in the 70s to today, NYC is taking strides, cities across the country are revoking parking minimums, and hundreds of other examples show this to be true. NJBs success is built on this shift in thinking.
Change has to happen.
I believe NJB, and similar content, is crucial to getting people to realize how much better things can be if we want them to be. But it will be a slow process that will build momentum over time. There are no silver bullet solutions and no immediate answers.
For similar urbanist content that overlaps NJB, but from an urban planner based in the US I highly recommend City Beautiful
For inspiration
For a channel that constantly compares America and Europe it’s hard not to feel tired and pessimistic about it. Things are improving every year albeit slowly. And channels like NJB are helping. But it can seem like we are pinnning him line a saviour and that’s a lot of pressure.
Hopefully despite the way he phrased his comment there’s more young people going into roles that can make change and undo damage.
But he doesn’t say to just give up. He doesn’t want to do advocacy for American infrastructure but he clearly states that there are other people that do and that he points people towards those resources
People should give up on North America though.
That’s the first line of the quote. If that’s not what he meant, it’s awfully confusing.
No, Americans are watching the right channel. It is easy to ignore a problem, and to give up on it when you see no alternative. It is much harder to see what could be and then be like: nahhhh, that’ll be impossible to achieve, i’ll just suffer.
Thats not how humans work!
yeah sure dont give up. fight for people etc etc. but if i had to bet, id bet he is right. call it doomerism. id rather recognize this country has little chance of improving in my lifetime so i could escape somewhere that isn’t as terrible. is that privileged? yeah. It is also selfish. But I have one life.
The US serves capital and it is difficult to imagine any case where that changes outside of like government collapse. But then you get called an accelerationist, so lose-lose 🤷
I think what people actually have an issue with here is the bitter, almost preachy tone of these tweets. Which is also fair. I dont think its possible for everyone to be happy when sharing opinions on this topic. And people’s opinions change depending on the circumstances.
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In my city (Portland, Oregon, USA), consistent nagging finally got us improved bus service and frequency, road diets, and “express” buses that have signalling priority over cars. One of my friends’ father works for a local organisation that advocates against car infrastructure in favour of better public transportation and biking infrastructure. In the past ten years, we have had:
- Entirely new light rail line extending south into the suburbs
- Scrapped motorway expansion in exchange for improvements to a commuter rail line that runs parallel to it
- “Frequent service” bus routes that run every 15 minutes or better during peak hours
- Free public transportation for students during the school year and over the summer
- Tolls on a major motorway to offset maintenance and improvement costs
- “FX” express bus routes with nice bus shelters, signalling priority, and those long accordion busses
- Big pay rise for bus drivers, up to $25/hr now I think
- Road diet on a large arterial street in the southeast, adding bike lanes and a median
- Lowered speed limits across the city
- Designated “neighbourhood greenway” bike routes
- Major downtown arterial shrank to 2 lanes, with a segregated bike path installed in the freed space
- Improvements to the Springwater Corridor bike trail (use for commuting also)
I think he has a point that fixing the US is somewhat hopeless. There are many pieces that go into the puzzle that is the United States and its citizens and together they create such a hostile and undesirable place that is adamantly resistent to change. Not only were our cities literally demolished to make way for the car, the whole idea of driving and what that means is deeply engrained in our culture and identity.
This isn’t just about removing stroads and designing some cutesy livable spaces and parks in cities. This is about changing the identity of what it means to be an American. Do you think you could convince even a portion of Americans that the European old way of living is better than the American way?
Do you think you could convince even a portion of Americans that the European old way of living is better than the American way?
You would loose them at first idea “Imagine going to grocery shop by foot.” They would be more disgusted than by bidet.
A partner’s friend came to visit us in New York city once. We were walking from one bar to another, maybe a ten minute walk, and she was like “are we going to take a car?”
We were all like what, no, it’s like ten minutes.
She was like oh. That’s far, isn’t it? We don’t walk that much in Illinois.
This is in Brooklyn. Like the most walkable part of the united states.
I think about this a lot.
As an american, I’d love to be able to walk to a shop.
but I cant. Because America decided to build out in the most stupid way possible, and put shopping and such as far away from living areas as humanly possible.
Cars are the only viable option in the fucked up american reality.
And don’t even mention buses. In my area, it takes 2 hours by bus, to get somewhere it takes 10 minutes to get to by car… and the shitty thing is, the bus trip isnt even all bus. half if it is by foot getting to your next busstop to pick up the connection.
I have an F150 with a small bed in the back, heated seats and working AC. I can drive 15-20 minutes to the big-box or local grocery store rain-or-shine and load up my truck bed so I can feel like I’m actually getting some use out of it and grab a latte from Starbucks on the way back in like an hour and a half total. I’ll get home, backup into the driveway and unload into the freezer in the garage and the fridge/pantry in the kitchen. Done.
“Yes but imagine if you could walk to the grocery store and have nice things to look at! Imagine spaces that feel comfortable and inviting, small cafes on the corner and people out and about instead of just a bunch of cars.”
So what am I walking for? I just want to get groceries and get home why would I deliberately take longer to do a chore? And where do I put all my stuff after checkout? They have those locks on the carts now so you can’t even take them outside of the parking lot, do I like bring a duffel bag or something? What if it is raining? I’m not sure where I put that umbrella I bought 10 years ago for my vacation. And snow? Forget it, the plows push all that muddy ice up onto the sidewalk, I could never even make it out of the house.
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When everything is built to only be convenient by car, of course it’s going to be more convenient by car, and most people are going to use cars. That’s the entire problem.
If your local grocery store was 5 minutes walk or bike away in a dense city without highways everywhere and unlimited free parking, you would walk or cycle instead.
We aren’t blaming individuals here, the entire culture and built world in the US is fundamentally broken.
I’m trying to determine if this is satire or not. I’ll respond anyways if it is just to share a point of view for anybody else reading though.EDIT: I just saw the username and saw you commented above. The below still stands for everything the average big truck American embodies though.
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Besides the fact you have an oversized, $30,000+ vehicle for just grocery shopping (as you say “so you get some use out of it”), the ideal walkable/bikable city will save you time plus has the added benefit of making you healthier too. The exercise you get and reduced air pollution will have a noticeable affect on health and lifespan.
As for time saving, you say you spend ~40 minutes traveling to the big box store, but a walkable city would have more stores closer to you so you could just take a short 10 minute walk or 4 minute bike ride to them.
The umbrella and bag situation is an easy fix though, just spend like $100 on raincoat, backpack, etc.; you didn’t mind spending $30,000 on a truck. I know some people need a vehicle for longer travel, but that’s the point people are trying to make. Having every American require a multi-thousand dollar more of transportation when $500 for a bike and equipment is just insane.
Incredibly based points. I live in urban hell small town Saskatchewan. I feel the same way.
This mentality is what allowed the problem in the first place. Radical change is possible. I’m never giving up.
Change has to start somewhere. If not now, when?
IMO positive or negative change usually happens at a crisis point and it’s important to have the solution available when the crisis is happening so people know what to do next. I think NJB is suggesting the USA is stable enough over the next several decades that there won’t be a crisis that will allow better designed communities to be implemented.
You don’t fix a continent. And he forgot about Mexico, but whatever. You make towns and cities better, here and there, as opportunity permits. And that, my friends, is of course feasible during our lifetimes.
Yeah, there are definitely places in North America where you can live car free (they also happen to be super unaffordable, but that’s another story). There’s no reason you couldn’t try and live there if personal circumstances permit you to. It’s not like Europe is 100% bike friendly either, there’s a ton of places where not owning a car just isn’t practical either.
It’s important for a movement to have both practical, achievable goals and aspirational ones. There’s plenty of room for content from people showing us how good it can be, without really caring about how we get there.
That’s Not Just Bikes niche, and he does a good job at it.
I got in a fight with somebody on Instagram who decided to do a whole reel on how this is NJB “hurting urbanism”. I disagreed with them entirely, but I’m glad to not be seeing his awful points repeated here.
Are there problems with Jason’s view? Absolutely, but he’s also not speaking on behalf of anyone other than himself. There straight up are massive amounts of the US and Canada that I don’t think are ever fixable, short of razing them and restarting. And the problem with advocacy to fix them is that there’s so many issues that compound to make them horrible places, that no advocacy group will be able to win anything. Putting in bike lanes only works when there are places to bike to (and we can’t even seem to get good bike lanes right here).
He literally closes with “it can get better, but it cannot be fixed within your children’s lifetimes”. Specifically referring to the US there. He isn’t discouraging anyone from advocating, just explaining why he himself does not for NA.
Phenomenal example of why I dont think this guy deserves much attention
Perhaps the guy himself, but his videos are absolutely a wake-up call for people living in cities in the US.
