German Neighborhoods are ILLEGAL IN AMERICA | Zoning & NIMBY-ism
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
- Local shops & restaurants sprinkled throughout residential neighborhoods in Germany bring a liveliness and purpose to the community - and even helps traffic issues. So why is this kind of urban design illegal in most of the USA? And why do so many fight for it to stay that way?
Watch our Other Videos on the American vs. German Housing
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German Houses vs. American Houses: Construction, Design & Scale
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COST: German vs. American Houses | Purchasing Trends & Regional Differences
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Other GREAT Resources to learn more about this topic
City Beautiful - The Case Against Single-Family Zoning:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajSEI...
The Lively & Liveable Neighbourhoods that are Illegal in Most of North America
• The Lively & Liveable ...
Episode 68 | #housing #housingcrisis #economics in the United States & Germany | Filmed July 14th, 2022
👉Quick Jump to Your Favorite Topic:
00:00 Intro
00:48 Why Compare Zoning in Germany and the United States?
02:36 Germans have a VERY Different Definition of "Living" Zone
06:40 Why Americans Worship Euclidean Zoning
10:19 Playing 'Devil's Advocate'
12:23 Trump's Made-Up "War on Suburbia"
14:55 Suburban Segregation = Why we Choose to live in Germany
17:32 On the Next Episode...
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Tbh the American (and Canadian?) Zoning feels like something a 5 year old came up with in a city simulation game.
because that is what those city simulation games zones are based from
Making new city planners 😉
Hax if done right zoning lawa enhance neighborhoods!
@@oldfogey4679 you do realize how stupid your answer is? There should be no if done right. It should be right way from the beginning. Suburbs is the biggest waste of space ever.
@@tiitgeorg720What’s wrong with you?
As American retirees my wife and I just recently moved back to village France after 6 years in Southern California. We spent the last 3 years in the U.S. in a 55+ community of small duplexes. We often spoke of how the neighborhood could have been completely transformed by simply allowing one building on each block to be a small shop of some sort. A coffee shop, a bakery, a bookstore, and outdoor cafe, etc. - would all have greatly increased the daily connections between neighbors, leading to more social contact and cohesiveness, but of course American zoning laws instead force everyone in that neighborhood into their cars for literally EVERYTHING. It's an approach to daily life that is completely at odds with our both our physical and emotional needs as human beings. What a strange and wonderful experience it is here in village France to never pass by another fellow human being without saying "bonjour" and hearing the same in return.
@gary, I am German, living near Cologne and I was now for more than 50 years nearly every year in France on vacation at several areas, more than twenty times in Vallon at the Ardeche Canyon. I still remember the first years in Vallon beginning 70ties, a sleeping litte Village somewhere in the nowhere with there little alimentationes, the boucheries, the boulangeries. But what happened over the decades and this not only in Vallon, everywehre in the countryside. Big supermarkets growing at the peripheries of all the small towns too, Intermarche, LeClerc, Casino Hyper U build shopping centers close to the US style. Why, you could create more sales with less personell and the space for the buildings and parking lots was available. I see very often the french infrastructure equeal to the USA compared to Germany. Big Countries with less population areas and few big cities or areas like Paris, Lyon Mediterane Coast. France has only 4 cities with a population over 500000 Germany has 15. The Size of France is 644000 Squarekilometer, Germany 357000 km2. So depends where you live in France the situation regards shoppig is similar to the US, you need a car.
In France they are duplicating the same system as US since 2005, since N.Hulot (fake)ecologist minister, by forbiding, mainly by high taxation and difficult permits by complex rules and compliances, in most small villages any form of commerce.
This is done for control purposes and extremists ideological views of WEF, which was immediatly noticed with lock-downs in 2020.
And fuel prices (artificially higher) wil not permit to go to the next mall easily (no public transports) because nothing in the village where even actual zoning forbed gardens for food growth.
People slowly abandon all small villages ans that was the plan of all "ecologists" groups.
Ban humans from land , only concentrated in towns; in the famous "15min blocs" of WEF which Macron was a #YGL (Young Global Leader) student in the 2000s (as Trudeau!).
In Germany difficult to enforce because of the actual high population density and lack of land.
nearly impossible to reconcentrate in towns as is tempted in France.
@@d.boumghar7385 - I agree. I think what's happening is a sort of planned "controlled demolition" of the current social & economic structures that are in place - leading to the implementation of the WEF's insane agendas and their trans-humanist fantasies of their immortality. I think elites are terrified of the whole house of cards imploding around them, and ending up in the rubble with we peons - so they are trying to structure the disintegration to their benefit. In spite of the challenges of living without a car at the edge of a small village, and walking a good distance to the grocery store, my wife and I are loving the intimacy and human scale of life here in our French village. We really can't imagine living in the U.S. ever again.
I suppose France is different than Germany. I got weird looks when saying hallo or waving to strangers. The Southern US is more my speed; land, friendly people, bbqs, cookouts, music.
In Germany the 'little shops in between housing' approach, combined with gorgeous public transportation, works so much better, than the suburban sterility often found in the US.
How is it sterile? In suburbs that I have grown up in there is plenty of life and people don't have to live on top of each other and life is affordable.
@@GeekRex
Sterility Example:
The "nice" green suburban grass lawns are heavily sprayed with toxic carcinogenic Glyphosate to prevent the natural growth of a variety of medicinal plants, that humans dismissively label as weeds.
@@liloleist5133 wow, a disciple of Sayyid Qutb! At least make an attempt to be accurate. Americans are using less and less chemicals on their yards.
@@GeekRex You do realise that you are very privileged that your parents could afford this? For me, I live in Germany, it is super strange to not have stores in the area you live in and always depend on a car. My grandma lives in a neighbourhood with houses only and there are a few shops as well. Some years ago it would be even more than today. It even is a bad sign when there are fewer shops, we often have this problem in small cities and in the country. Just to clarify, we don't have to "live on top of each other" all the time. :) And I think we have an overall different point of view. I like it to live in a flat, bc a house is so much more work and you can't usually afford it in the city centres even when you can find some. And I don't need the space as a single woman with no children.
@@GeekRex It's not sustainable though. Like yes, there are people, obviously, because they live there. But you literally need cars to get everywhere. Without them, you're kind of fucked. You can't just walk down the street to the supermarket to picke up groceries or have a quick dinner in the restaurant around the corner.
Also, it's not like german, or european countries in general, don't have suburbs - the outskirts of our cities are still filled with single or double family houses, even newly built ones. It's much less uniform, less car orientated, more individualistic. And even there, you have these small shops and infrastructure which serve as a meeting and socializing point and give life to the area aside from privately held gathering like bbqs.
I grew up in a US suburban town that was founded in the colonial era- the entire town was walkable, and as a kid I could (and did) bike to school, stores, and friends' houses. Now I live in a town that was officially incorporated in the late 1800's, and combined with a nearby shopping district that was gutted, it takes a car to do basic things.
I also find the age of a town telling in how it's set up. You can feel when a place is older than cars as you walk.
I have been many times in the US, mostly in Detroit and Chicago, but also in South Carolina, New York and Boston. Suburbia was always weird to experience for someone that grew up in a small town in southern Germany. I never understood why people did not want/need small shops, Kindergarten, Medical support and Schools close to them.
right now searching for a car and looking to get a loan, but then realized i wouldnt be in this mess if I lived in europe
@@airpodsmurf6175 Depends where you live. We - living in a small village in the middle of Europe - need cars to go grocery shopping. But we have no problem whatsoever getting loans. With less rates than the inflation rate.
@@airpodsmurf6175 I know, it just makes too much sense.. having to go through so much stress and finances just to simply go to basic amenities.
It does not matter if you cannot afford those things anyway. That is the irony of America. Its the pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality and the few who actually do that are painted as the norm.
Traffic, parking, safety. Those are the main reasons people oppose mixed commercial and residential. There’s not a culture of walking to local stores. I’m fortunate to live in an older suburb where it is possible to walk to our small downtown, parks, and schools. Yet few people do. 🤷♀️
There's a war on suburbia? Oh. Sorry about that. My bad.
This was a _great_ video and I really like how you went into more detail than the average "zoning" video with specific examples and what's allowed "by right". In particular, the section at 9:45 sums it up nicely that in the US, a retail store doesn't fit among houses unless you can prove otherwise, while in Germany, a retail store fits among houses unless you can prove otherwise.
The segment about classification by income is an important one. Many zoning ordinances were blatantly racist laws that became illegal in the 1960s, but those laws didn't go away, instead they were law-for-law converted from laws that exclude certain races, to laws that exclude certain incomes. Climate Town touched on this in his video about suburbia.
Completely, 100 percent honored to have you watch and comment. Personally, we are huge, huge fans and love your content and videos. Although we are a small channel by comparison, I made sure to link to your video in the description to send viewers your way because you were so inspirational to me. (Okay, okay...I'll stop fan girl-ing, but seriously.... This made my evening).
The connection between suburbia and race is one I would like to explore more in another video. Like you mention, although red lining and racist zoning laws aren't on the books doesn't mean that we aren't living with the effects or that we don't still have similar policies that divide and exclude by de facto in the same way. My PhD research was conducted in St. Louis, and the "Delmar Divide" is one of those phenomenon that is both mystifying and utterly heartbreaking to see in 1962, let alone today in 2022. I'll be sure to give the video by Climate Town a watch.
My work "speciality" is in low income housing tax policy, but since wrapping up my academic research I have been trying to learn more and more about other funding structures that influence architecture and urban form. I recently watched a video of yours about the suburban municipality Ponzi scheme and it lead me down a three hour reading session rabbit hole on the Strong Towns website. Thank you for continuing to inspire and expand my learning.
Have you ever thought about starting a second channel about land reclamation called "Not Just Dikes"?
Yo NJB I'm slowly starting to orange pill my sister into being a walkable City fan
@@kemp10 that's fucking funny
@@kemp10 Or how about a channel for those with _Wanderlust_ in their heart: "Not Just Hikes"?
Just returned from a one week vacation near Freiburg, Germany. Your insights helped me to understand why living-conditions in German towns are so different from ours here in the US. Life in German towns seem just more vibrant and creative. Also many bicycles with young and old in towns and on the country-roads. You explained it very well based on the differences in zoning-laws. Did you ever do such a segment on another typical German Urban planning concept: The Pedestrian-Zones in downtowns?
The pedestrian only zones are usually in the middle of cities (but they are more common in smaller towns) and the concept stems from old times where every little village was one community that people often didn't even really leave all their lives, and in the middle of the village usually a towns "main place" was located, usually next to some offical building, and this place was kinda the main focus of life/things happening, like markets, or where witches would be burned in these times (xD). In modern times these places are often surrounded by lots of shops that maybe aren't found anywhere else in small towns, it's a place of contact for people, but theres also usually still most official/governing buildings there. So it's protected from cars/traffic so people can wander around/shop/talk to other people. In a lot of towns there are also still small farmers markets like every Sunday or something like that.
@@Scarlett.Granger Is 600.000 small?
I live in Japan which, like Germany, allows for a wide diversity of businesses and other types of buildings in residential areas so I appreciated learning what you presented here.
Most Japanese towns and cities have an area called the “shoten-gai” which translates into something like the shopping district or the shop street but almost all of the shops that line the street or lie in the district double as residential homes for the shop keepers. These types of homes are typically called “naga-ie” which literally means “ long house” as these buildings are exceptionally long compared to their width, which in many cases are five or six times as long as they are wide. The point is that shops that provide the town with the essentials for everyday life for the surrounding townsfolk also create a community within themselves as they are usually occupied by three generations of shopkeepers and their families. This gives the shopping areas in most small to midsize towns a very nice atmosphere and a lot of liveliness and diversity as well as a feeling of tradition and history. Unfortunately, nowadays a lot of these shoten-gai areas of many towns in Japan are loosing their business to modern American style shopping malls, which may be profitable for big developers and convenient for people with cars and/or folks who desire to appear more “sophisticated” and “modern” but are not easy for many older people to visit or shop at if they don’t drive or have someone to take them shopping. Anyway, I definitely see the advantages of allowing family homes to also serve as small family-run businesses and also the desirability of allowing small businesses to co-exist with residential homes in towns and cities. Yes, the way that you think about what living means really does have a big impact on how you ultimately design your towns and cities. Excellent video!
US is able to trash neighborhoods! too many land! not so many people.....
As does the US. This channel is stating a large misrepresentation of how urban planning is conducted throughout the US.
@@walkerpublications4418 "As does the US." Going to need some more clarification on which part the US does.
Mom n Pop shops losing to big bad amazon? designing for the rich at the cost of livability (of the elderly)?
The big difference is how much pressure suburbia puts on designing around its cars, which I don't believe is as bad in Japan.
@@walkerpublications4418 you might want to make a video about it then. Explain it to us.
@@ianhomerpura8937 I think, poster was under the influence of 'something' while stating his statement :-) 🙂
Lived in Germany for 18 years. I love how integrated their neighborhoods are. Everything was in walking distance.
And for long distance an excellent high speed train/rail system...!
@@kpdvw depends where you live I would not say that the railway system is always great especially being on time, hopefully they will improve it in the future
If I could not walk to bakery or shop to get fresh Semmeln for the family breakfast on Saturday morning, my quality of living indicator would turn negative...
Same thing for me in Slovenia. It makes Europe much more interesting.
@@kpdvw Germanys public transport system isn’t that well. Just compare it to neighbouring Switzerland and you will hate the German Public Transport. On one hand everything in Switzerland, even very small towns, is connected to a bus/railroad system and also they are very punctual, unlike the DB.
One of the reasons japan is such a tourist attraction is the zoning. They allow a lot of different developments next to each other. I can recommend the video "Why Japan Looks the Way it Does: Zoning"
Crazy how americans, who always scream "Freedom", are not free at all in building what they like
You have the freedom to cosplay a 1950’s version of the American Dream.
Freedom*
*conditions apply
Yep, as much US loves freedom, it is literally opposite when it regards to urban development. So much restrictions that it is actually killing the city.
One can say they scream "freedom" in excitement exactly because it is a rare gem and they are happy to see it from time to time
@@feedbackzaloop ouch. amazing conclusion. Love it.
I always say:
If you are not able to walk in your city, you doesn't have real freedom.
This is probably the hardest thing that any foreiner would experience in the US.
That's true. But I actually do live in the suburbs in the American South, and I walk multiple times a week to a coffee shop. I also can go grocery shopping by walking to it. But I wish I could get more places without a car still, and I also want to be able to go further distances, other towns etc. without a car. I stayed in Ireland for a month in college and would've loved to live like that forever.
I lived in Hong Kong for a few years. My apartment complex sat atop a massive mall with a metro station built into it. I could do all my shopping (from groceries to clothes to furniture), watch movies, eat at restaurants, go ice skating, and also catch buses/trains/taxis - all without stepping outside. Now that's convenience.
Even Disco Bay in HK had everything needed.
The expensive high end communities in HK lacked what you mentioned. Repulse Bay, Breamar Hill, the Peak etc…
I always loved living in HK…
Food businesses can attract pests like cockroaches, mice etc. I would never live over a cafe, restaurant or food shop again for this reason. Once they are in a building, pests migrate everywhere. Another annoyance is loud extractor fans that restaurants, chip shops etc use.
Suburbia with its R-1 single-family units looks like a wasteland to me, neat, pretty, little boxes with lifeless lawns, keeping people in rabbit cages - in their houses and their cars. It's suffocating. Not being able to just walk five minutes to grab a loaf of bread in the local bakery and cold cut in the local butchery seems so outlandish to me. Riding a bike on American stroads looks equally suicidal to me. "Not just bikes"'s videos of North America are more horrifying than any horror movie could be.
It's an uncanny, isolating nightmare.
It is a wasteland. Cars arec5heir gods.
Jonathan and I regularly talk about how downright dangerous it was to ride a bike in the USA. Don't get me wrong - there are wonderful pockets of bike-friendly areas... but in a large part of middle-America there is the connotation that only those who can't afford a car (or aren't legally allowed to drive), use a bicycle. The infrastructure just isn't there. The awareness of cyclists isn't there. The holistic education about bike safety and bike rules (mutual respect for law abiding cycling and driving) isn't there. Both Jonathan and I have stories of people in trucks actively trying to run us off the road. So as a kid - riding my bicycle through my neighborhood was the only place I WAS allowed to go by bicycle (to and from a friend's house or biking to the park in our neighborhood). So in a weird catch 22 - suburbia was the one area of "refuge" for kids to be kids.
American suburbs are zones of cultural death that drive people into isolation. As a result, they reach out to others via alternative means, from Facebook groups to megachurches. One of the big problems with this is that in those social circles, they only meet people just like them, who look and talk and think like them, which results in cult-like behaviour and political radicalisation. That is why, for example, the Jan. 6th rioters overwhelmingly came from US suburbs.
That channel also has a bunch of videos comparing Germany to the Netherlands. We're fairly ok (especially Freiburg!), but when you look to our neighbor, you can see there's lots of room for improvement.
NIMBY-ism in Germany: People moving from cities to the countryside soon starting to complain about the noises of cattle and the smell of fertilizers and to start proceedings against their neighbour farmers.
Or they are complaining about wind turbines, accusing us, living in the cities to not take our fair share of civilazation noise. Reading that I then look at the Bundesstraße out of my front or I sit on my balcony out to the back, looking to the approaching planes about to land over my head and always think "sure, you guys really have it worse. How loud is your commute, btw?" 😄
Luckily the possibility to sue a farmer or some louder trade- workshops is not so easy anymore like it was in the 80ies...
Yes! We must eliminate livestock production!
@@patrickhanft Yes, that was unbelievable as the law was passed, that an wind turbine has to be further away from houses than a coal reactor. 1km for windturbines and 400m for coal reactors 😂 Thank god the CDU is not anymore in power
@@toomflussiggrillanzunderfu8828 Hi from the US. That law sounds dumb enough to be here in the states!
I grew up in Eastern Europe, in an old, two-storey town house, built sometime between WWI and WWII. My family told me that before the war, the ground floor was a shop. The rest of the house was occupied by a family of seven, and it was just one of many such houses in the town - business downstairs, upstairs - life.
As a UK resident this was fascinating. Here planning REQUIRE developers to mix income strata and, on large developments, put small shops etc in place as part of their development permissions. The segregation of housing in the USA explains a great deal about American politics and outlooks as well as their dependance on the car. Thank you.
I live in a 'suburb' of Manchester, UK five miles from the city centre. I was going to list the amenities available within a ten minute walk of my house but it ended being too long - shops, pharmacies, cafés, restaurants, clinics, gyms, swimming pools, garages etc. Also I'm a ten minute walk from a tram stop which takes me to a major train station in the centre of Manchester so I never drive into Manchester and I can be in London by train in two and a half hours. But if you look at old maps from the 1800s or even 1700s you can see that where I live and many other areas regarded now as suburbs of Manchester existed already as separate villages. These villages were already communities before the city grew and 'incorporated' them. As our country is smaller and land is more scarce this kind of merging happened a lot. I wonder if this is often the case across Europe that areas of big cities are actually former villages. Certainly in many big cities like London and Manchester travelling around them feels a bit like going around a group of physically connected smaller towns.
I can confirm that this is the case in Germany, too. Most cities just grew too big so the former villages aroung it were just incorporated into the bigger city. There are some exceptions, for example in my hometown, the adjacent other town didn't want to be a part of the bigger town, so now it is a weird cluster of two towns, but usually smaller villages just get included. That's were the different town districts come from.
My Italian experience (ymmv).
If a neighborhood in a large city has a graveyard, then you're looking at an old village slurped into urban growth.
Not german but living in Cologne and that looks like what happend with Cologne, a lot of the suburbs within Cologne are something....dorf (dorf meaning village or small town).
Not sure about the UK with their kind of reformation, but in Germany and likely most other continental European countries you can just look at the churches and their age. A bunch of 10-15th century churches outside of the "inner city"? That is (except cases like Cologne or Nuremberg) likely a sign for a city grown together from separate villages
In US your live in the city. I live 45 miles out, a suburb. 20-60 miles out is suburb.. over 60 under 100 is an exurb
It's interesting how in the US, folks have finally realized that they also want to live in walkable neighborhoods, but since there are so few remaining, the price of living there is prohibitive except for the ultra-wealthy forcing the rest to live in suburban wastelands.
Very few people have realized this consciously, though Im sure many have subconsciously (as we can see from apartments prices in dense cities...).
Charles Marohn from Strong Towns has mentioned this trend in his talks and his book. Before, we had the white flight where the wealthy were leaving the dense urban centers into suburbs. This left the poor in those dense cities. Now that the suburbs have gotten old and without the money to fix their aging infrastructure, there is a trend of the wealthy moving back into the cities and pushing the poor out to the suburbs. This scenario is far more dangerous to the poor as they can't afford the cars to get to the places they need to survive.
@@suspiciouspooh5988 Same. I hope you’re able to get to a decent place soon.
@@suspiciouspooh5988 I think people crying about the suburbs need to spend some in Central America or Africa and see how people live there
@@sweetpeach3649 Yeah clearly one should compare >these< two. 🤦
I grew up here in Germany on a mountain in a village with 13 houses and 10 sheds. I had to beg my parents for every little thing, or walk more than two kilometers through the forest to the nearest shop myself. The footage of "Suburbia" reminded me of that time. - Argh!
Here in Bonn I have a supermarket nearby, but I prefer to walk even further. - I can use public transport for a flat rate and go to the Rhine, to the forest or to all kinds of sports.
For me, that's the German way of life.
Sounds like where I grew up in Denmark; the grocer and the butcher was one kilometer away, the baker was almost two kilometers away, and the nearest supermarket was five kilometers away. Futhermore the busses only ran about twice an hour. Theses days I can walk to the nearest maxi supermarket within 10 minutes by foot. Living close to the most essential shops is a must!
It seems particularly odd that the self-declared land of the free has such strict and inflexible zoning systems, often reinforced with HOAs enforcing even more rules. It's not even as if these zoning rules have been beneficial either in that they've encouraged those vast, car-dependent suburbs. Canada also has the same sort of system.
Speaking personally, I am thankful that I can walk to the local medical centre, to a couple of small supermarkets, a deli/cafe, the pharmacy, the bus stop, a couple of local pubs and a railway station among other things. I can't imagine living in some huge suburb and then having to drive for a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread. We do have situations like that, but it tends to be in rural villages which have lost their local facilities.
Where I come from we don't have zoning, but there is a system of development planning. All the local planning areas (and there are almost 500 of them) have local development plans, informed to a large extent by national targets on some things, like the amount of housing required, it's type and sustainability. Further, it is informed by local requirements, transport, environmental and other issues. Some parts are protected, and might have a conservation area (I live in one such). Some rural land is very heavily protected against development. Individual properties will have been allocated particular uses based on their role at the end of WW II. For example, for retail, or residential, food outlet, pubs, office, industrial and so on. To change the use requires change of use consent so it's not possible to just decide to turn a house into a fast food store. Some development is what's called "permitted", which means that it doesn't have to go through planning, but that's limited. Otherwise it goes to local planning authorities who will assess, along with local consultations, if what's proposed is suited to the neighbourhood. So, if a supermarket proposed to build a vast new store in the middle of a tightly packed residential area with poor roads, it's likely to be refused. If somebody wants to open a night club in such an area, that might be refused too. If there is housing proposed, then the type and mix will be looked at according to local needs, including provision of "affordable" housing and often with a contribution required to local services of some sort, such as school extensions, roads and so on. The planning authorities might also insist on local retail premises too, or cycle paths and so on. There are, ultimately, appeals processes to higher authorities, but it's rather decentralised.
However, there is no hard and fast rule of what is allowed, and what is not. There's certainly no mono-culture of a particular type of housing set in law. What of course it tends to be is very controversial. There are some who oppose virtually everything. Nobody like that view over fields from your house to be replaced by some huge housing estate for instance.
HOAs make the rules, and their members are often tyrannical and it is difficult to remove the individuals involved.
I live in America, and I would never live somewhere I had to walk everywhere. I am disabled , I used to hike all the time but you never know what will come your way in life. HOA and subdivision life is definitely not for me, I enjoy rural life and will always live in the woods!
@@lisabruner7018 You seem to have misunderstood the point. I am simply stating that I don't want to live somewhere were I have to travel by car for simple things like basic grocery shopping, visiting the doctor or going to a restaurant. As it is, where I live, I also have the freedom to drive wherever I wish.
As for being disabled, have a brother who has multiple sclerosis at a fairly advanced stage. At one time, he had a vehicle which was adapted so that he could drive it from his electric wheelchair. His condition has now deteriorated to the point where he has been unable to do so for the past 5 years, but he can still get around with the wheelchair. Fortunately, whilst he can't walk, he can use his wheelchair to get around the local community, he can take it on the bus, go to get his hair cut and has a degree of independence.
In other words, even though he can't walk, he benefits from living somewhere where others can as he is mobile enough to be able to make use those facilities. If he was marooned in some solely car dependent environment, then that would be impossible.
So, far from having a disability being a problem in a walkable environment, it's a positive benefit in this case. If you live in a place where that is not an option, then it traps you, it does not enable you.
I have „lived“ in Brasilia, the capital of Brasil, where zoning has gone completely crazy. There are zones exclusively for schools or banks or residential or shopping - you name it… Leading to crazy traffic jams when parents bring or pick up their kids from school. All that connected by a central motorway system with about 12 lanes - pedestrians have to run like rabbits to cross because the pedestrian tunnels were blocked due to too high criminality. Oscar Niemeyer has created here really a completely unlivable city - populated only by politicians and bureaucrats who don‘t care a damn where they live…
Yes this bauhaus inspired stuff may be nice for office buildings. But not for a holistic life-work concept…
Brasilia's plan was created by Lucio Costa, Niemeyer only designed the main builidings.
@@SD_Alias Don't disqualify the Bauhaus style for residential- or mixed areas. Here in Biel, Switzerland, a big quarter around the railway station was built in Bauhaus style in the 1930-ies. It's a very vibrant area with a good mix of shops and apartments above.
Tel Aviv is probably the best example of a very livable city in Bauhaus style. Bauhaus architecture in fact tries to put the human inhabitant at the center and very much adheres to the principle of "form follows function".
It's probably more the city planning of the time (1930-ies and 40-ies) that in a lot of places, particularly in Brazil - focused on a car-centric design.
@@vcostaval Sorry, I stand corrected.
@@markusstudeli2997 It is a matter of taste. For me Bauhaus is too cold and brutal. I never want to live in such a house. Even the furniture may look good at first. But when in use for tall people it is very uncomfortable and has bad ergonomics.
i like Gründerzeit buildings with smaller windows more. They are more gemütlich and i am feel much better in them…
But it is like seafood someone like it someone hates it…
In a few moments, I will step out of my flat to enjoy breakfast in the cafe-bakery 100 yards from my home in the Black Forest. As a UK citizen living in Germany, thanks to this video, I now see what a treasure the mixed use planning principle is, and what a millstone round the neck of American society the zonal system is. It's no surprise that Trump appropriated the planning system ('our beautiful suburbs') for political purposes. In truth, the US would do well to take a leaf out of Germany (and the UK's) book and edge towards mixed use planning. This was an exceptional video . . .
@That guy with the brain.: Yes, indeed. The US seems to be the odd one out . . .
Are you worried about how you will heat your homes this winter in Germany?
"Beautiful" suburbia. 🤣🤣🤣 Looks more like a "home alone" nightmare.
We love our space. I don’t want to hear a bunch of incessant talking from a nearby business or have to trek to a park or trail to enjoy some grass.
9:45 I agree with you 100%. My family's from Poland and every time I visit in Poland I appreciate that in a very residential neighborhood there is still within walking distance or a short ride a small little store. Here in the US we have "convenience stores/gas stations" sometimes, but most of them just sell junk food, snacks and drinks and are geared more towards travelers. In Poland it's a mini grocery store. I think that's a lot better of a use than a "convenience store" in the US.
Yes, I totally agree with you. There are convenience stores near from my work and home, but they all sell junk foods. So I go further to nearest grocery store for better food.
Love this video! I'm a born & raised American, but I have lived and worked in Europe and I love the mixed use neighborhoods! Being able to walk to the bakery, grocer, beer garden, restaurants, parks, train station, etc. was so nice! We used to have such places here in America, too, but now it's mostly illegal, here in the land of "freedom". And the property value argument is a red herring. The neighborhoods here in the USA that are European style are typically the most sought after. Many Americans also love the mixed use neighborhoods, if they have a chance to experience them.
Interesting. I would also add that the "little bakery/coffee shop/grocery store at the corner" picture of German and European city life almost certainly goes back a long way before the modern zoning laws. I assume modern law only codified that idea from the 1870s on.
The Southwest U.S. got zoning by way of Mexico. Air B’n’B is doing its darnedest to destroy it. There should not be strangers in a residential neighborhood, coming and going at all hours, bumbling around. They belong in hotels in the commercial zone, where they can get what they need and won’t won’t bother anyone.
You think the united states is bad, try building in California.
@@jeffk464 I did. After 10 years I sold the project and moved to Idaho. I hope to never spend a $ in CA again. And I have kids in CA.
@@jeffk464 Sorry but isn't California in the United States ????
@@ogribiker8535 eh, kind of
It is interesting to see the ways in which "The Land of the Free" lacks freedom - we Americans are often blind to our true lack of freedoms. It would be so freeing to be able to walk to a local grocer/bakery - I expect that it would actually increase property values too (although that should not be factored in anyway).
And yet Americans have become so attached to the idea that cars are “freedom”, despite costing thousands per year and can kill you at any time, that even suggesting making an area with a variety of ways to get around (biking, transit, walking) is an “attack” on their freedom, even if they don’t take away car lanes to do it
I know. I'm Canadian and never want to go to America it looks horrible, but our entire land here in Canada every single inch is made following American shit standards. Endless oceans of parking lot concrete.....not having a car also makes it annoying. Some good channels about this are "Not Just Bikes"
@@pharaohsmagician8329 Just move to the Netherlands already. If you want to compare a country that can be driven across in one hour to countries the size of Canada and the US, be my guest. "Not Just Bikes" is a joke.
@@norwegianblue2017 why does a country being large mean that it has to have dumb laws and badly designed towns and cities?
@@philroo1 It's just a dumb way for Americans to stay in their imaginary world
I studied spatial planning in Germany. Thank's for your view on our planning system.
The mix of small shops and housing was necessary at the time the laws came from. At those days cars and railroads didn't really exist and even the bicycle was a new thing. So it was necessary to plan housing in a way that you were able to do everything by foot because you couldn't have horses everywhere and many couldn't afford them.
For similar reasons btw, you can find a special type of house in our laws that combines living plus a little bit of agriculture basically for your own supply. Not very common nowadays.
Also these "policies" were introduced when the cities already existed. They tried to provide some order in existing conflicts of land usage.
This idea of a mix got revitalised in the guiding motive "Stadt der kurzen Wege" in the 1980ies for decarbonizing and making/keeping residential zones livable.
The story of Houston’s land-use policies is a lot more complicated than “no zoning.” In reality, Houston is a big mixture of ordinances, policies, tactics by neighborhoods, and independent efforts by nonprofits, all of which play a role in determining how land is used. Whether or not the lack of zoning and the use of these other tools add up to a more equitable city or a city where the affluent are protected is open to debate.
Bristol, Virginia rezoned a public park for a private golf course, rezoned the nearby farmland for a suburb, and rezoned a nearby mobile home park to be a condemned flood zone.
"The strong do eat."
I was in the USA once to finish a job. The manager invited me to visits his suburb home. The drive there was strange. We exited from a busy street into an empty one and drove there through a single home suburb for twenty minutes and i saw only five people on the street and ten cars driving.
Jonathan is from Kansas City and that is also a very odd experience for me too. So much of Johnson County, Kansas is like one gigantic neighborhood after another with mega roads in-between. I am from a small town and this was so odd for me the first time I visited.
In Czechia, city plannin uses the term “občanská vybavenost” (public equipment), which refers to services and public infrastructure that must be available to residential zones. In some cases, local governments may even require that a developer includes space for small shops, services, kindergardens, tram stop etc. in order to approve a huge real-estate project.
as you heard, that is the exact opposite of us zoning laws
Your statement that German type neighborhoods are illegal in the US is a bit strong. There are plenty of examples of European style developments, and a wide variety of mixed use developments all across the US. Its just not historicaly typical in suburbia. Far from illegal. Idk where you are coming from when it comes to urban environments. Are you asserting that in NYC a mix of properties don't coexis? Europe developed 100s of years ago, while most of America's towns are only a couple hundred years old max, except in the east. The only thing you see excluded from many US neighborhoods are industrial uses, for obviousreasons. I was a real estate appraiser for 35 years & i can only agree with your thesis in generalities, & the fact that US cities are sprawling. Many foreigners come here and love it. Trump never said what you assert, as well. You are repeating a talking point, that when it comes to Trump, are rarely true, but ALWAYS believed to be true by many. What you are making is an argument between cultures as well. And I can think of a dozen or more developments taking place in my town, in the backwards midwest i need to point out because only the coasts are "progressive", where apartments are mixed with single family, mixed with condos, mixed with 2 to 4 family homes, with supporting commercial uses. So gtfoh with a lot of ur bs, & just admit its more about bashing the US than anything else. At least i call it how i see it.
There’s another big difference between the US and most of Europe: rugged individualism. In the US there *are* places where walking, biking, & public transport, but these cities also generally lack the same sense of individualism. Collectivism is more common in these areas. And that includes even here in America’s Midwest, in the OKC Bricktown area many of the apartments are within pedestrian distances of the downtown executive center, the local markets (many of which are located on the first floor of the apartments). Some of my family also live near Boston and similarly, being able to walk to the grocery store & work.
Contrast that with rural NH, OK, or CA, where food is actually grown at, and it returns to self reliance, independence, and such. Again, go to rural communities in Germany or elsewhere in Europe and it’s a similar thing to some degree.
I lived in Germany for several years when I was a kid, absolutely loved it. I loved living in Europe! But it’s a tale as old as time: collectivism vs individualism, collective rights vs. individual rights, subjugation vs freedom.
It’s nice to be able to walk/bike to the store/work, but I’ll take my liberty and freedom over that.
In Germany there once also was the idea of a "Stadtteil-Zentrum" which means, sort of an "inner city" inmidst every quarter (neighbourhood), which means a small center with some shops، maybe a supermarket, a school, a pharmacy, maybe one or two restaurants, maybe a library, one or two doctors. A kindergarden and a playground were standard, too. That was really great, especially in newly built neighbourhoods. I experienced this concept in Munich. You could get everywhere by feet. Maybe then between two neighbourhoods some (clean) industry (clean, i.e. no smoke, no smell, no noise). Or a Park. Or both. When you look at a map of Munich, you can still identify these Stadtteilzentren. At least by the local density of shops.
In Vienna I don't know if it was planned but this is the case, the districts have a main street or square that's lined with shops and restaurants and there's often trees, a small park and sometimes a farmers market, living in Vienna is like living in one of a series of connected villages that have formed a city, some districts are villages that were absorbed for real.
@@c.w.8200 same historical background. The agglomeration in the old parts of a town sign the former market-places, and those in the new parts just kept that tradition. In old houses, over the shop there is often the place, where the first shop-owner lived. That's the reason why we have no problem with people having a shop in the house where they live. Ok, nobody would be tented to live over a McDonalds or an Aldi.
Ja.Die 15 Min.Städte! So schaffen sie die Autos ab u. sperren die Menschen ein.
@@jurgenjung4302 ??? Das Stadtviertel in München, wo ich aufgewachsen war, war so organisiert. Dass ich keine 5km zum nächsten Supermarkt muss, finde ich sinnvoll. Aber eingesperrt war ich nie. Ich bin gnadenlos mit Fahrrad, Bus, U- und S-Bahn quer durch München durch. Für Studium, mehr Kino-Programme, Disco, Museen, Theater, Oper, Kajak auf der Isar, Baden am Starnberger See, Wandern in den Bergen... Wieso meinst du, man ist eingesperrt, wenn man den Supermarkt zu Fuß erreicht?
"Stadtrandkerne erster und zweiter Ordnung" that's the legal term in our planning laws.
Now the way you explained this is excellent. It also explained another thing to me in greater detail:
The reason why so many in the US don't have access to fresh food and a local small - easy to access - grocery, which is, indeed a big subject on its own.
However, if you are not allowed to make small store, bakeries, groceries, market to convinces the locals - because of the zoning it explains why people more easily go for easy access and unhealthy food.
So one may claim that by law, people are denied convinces, quality and a healthy lifestyle.
Shooting themselves in the foot by getting an continues unhealthy and poor population.
If I got this all wrong, by all means let me know.
I'm merely trying to understand, as an outsider and from Scandinavia why the laws seems work so hard against the people they are supposed to serve.
You got that exactly right! They're known as "food deserts".
In Denmark they strive for a healthy population. In the US there is a lot of money to be made of an unhealthy population.
Same over in other Nordic countries! Esp if you compare to US
It's very interesting that "property values" are always on Americans mind while it's a non discussion in Germany. People don't care as much their home is valued until they sell or buy.
This has to do with how often people statistically move in their lives. In the US average residents owning a property moving 4-5 times while in Germany they most likely grew old in that house. This is due to a totally different working culture in the US, where jobs change often. Employees are more seen as interchangeable resources and have less rights. On the other hand employees do not identify themselves with the companies as much as in Germany.
Well, tbh, plenty of boomers and investors complain about property values. Extra3 released several episodes on people blocking good things because they implied it would lessen the value of the location by say, bringing more (mostly less affluable) people there.
Property values also seem upside-down compared to here in Europe. Property values are high, if you have close access to amenities. Every real-estate agent will list you all the advantages, like how close the next supermarket, bakery, bank, school, cafés, school, playground, station is. The closer to those amenities, like right in the middle of the urban center, the more expensive it will be.
@@janrasmus6967 Americans deal with ethnics and minorities moving into their neighborhoods much more often than Germans. This is why Americans are obsessed with "property values". It represents the quickness the American homeowner can sell the house if minorities become a notable presence in their communities. It might be hard to swallow but that's the reason. The fact that Americans use home flipping to increase their wealth is a symptom of Americans fleeing areas that become occupied by minorities.
Small shops are disallowed within a residential zone because they generally attract the local riff-raff. Also there's usually more trash coming from small shops compared to homes. In the US supermarkets take the place of all other types of stores and you're expected to accep that.
@That guy with the brain. I lived in Germany for a few decades, and the times I talked with people from work or friends about the value of their homes can be counted with single digits. That is the number of times to topic is mentioned around here per week. You are currently looking for a home, so you care, as soon as you settled in - you don't go Immobilenscout and check your Hauspreis every other day or?
We've been several times in the US and on our first trip, we nearly suffer by hunger in Utah 😁. We thought, we can keep it cheap, buying our food an stuff at the grocerys, do a lot of hiking...
We did hiking. But the little town we came up had no grocerystore. No restaurant, literally nothing but houses. So we expended our hiking to find food. Stupid we were sure, there has to be a place, where all these people had their food from. After another very exhausting and hungry "hike" along one of these straight roads without any noticeable traffic, with one overnighter in the fields 😎, we reached the "shopping area" and were flashed out 😂😂😂. We were tired, dirty and HUNGRY. And had to pass all that parking sites. It was like in a surreal movie. Then we saw a McDonalds sign....
Well, we survived. And never again thought "oh, we can just take something from the local grocery".
You would have needed to be in a state with greater populations that were around much earlier in time. Any of the midwest states, like Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, should have had the right size grocery store for the area, providing the population of the area is high enough.
Here in Texas, where I am, if I would start cycling west past all shopping here, it would be about 15 miles to another grocery store, then another one at about the 30 mile mark. Each of those areas having a population over 10k.
Omg haha! Adventurous but check a map next time 😋
@@lightdark00 Yeah my brother experienced something similar, traveling through the US and Canada. He said if they found local grocery stores they only had shit anyways, not even a nice Apple, maybe a half-rotten one because who would buy weird stuff like fruit at a local market. Hell, even local fruit, a weird concept as the US mainly has factory farms now. Standard meat quality was disgusting, he was afraid of ordering anything with "cheese" because that "cheese" was usually some atrocity that did not taste like real food at all. he basically became vegan during that trip, without the luxury of having tasty fresh vegs and fruits (Some tasteless shit if they were very lucky, but at least those were big, shiny flawless looking, those tasteless potatoes, apples, tomatoes probably without any nutritional value). Back at home he and his friends had a HUGE vegetable bowl and fruits, and they aren't usually that much of a veggie friend.
Also everything is wrapped in 3 tons of plastic. The standard family probably produces a ton of waste per day, this is why we have the American trope of "carrying out the trash" as a real task, lol.
You and your consumerism are an ecological catastrophe, and the sad thing is that WE AND THE WHOLE WORLD have to carry the consequences as well. Thanks for that.
@@blackrain1999 the saddest thing is that for 50 years most of the world tried to copy them, and many still do.
Ha ha! Do NOT try to visit the Western US without a car. Especially in rural areas. There are some of the world’s most beautiful sights, but you need transportation.
In Finland it is taken granted that residential areas should have grocery stores nearby. Where I grew we originally had a store 150 meters away. Eves still it is 800 m away i.e. at a walking distance. The idea that you should have a car to buy food is insane.
I liked this video very much. I'm an American retiree living in Nîmes, France. After spending our 30 years in suburbia, in the US, my wife and I decided to move to Europe so that we could travel and enjoy a different lifestyle. While planning to move abroad we considered having a house in a village, or living in a city center. We definitely wanted to be able to easily walk to shops, restaurants, and services. In europe, that's certainly possible in either type of environment. Both visions had their appeal. Which to pick?
When I was working and raising a family, suburban life worked well. With work and sports we were always on the go (in a car). Our suburban house was the place we slept in and had family time in on the weekends. After the kids left and I retired I found suburban life was stifling me. I had retired a few years before my wife so was home alone quite a lot. As work-life receded into the past, I came to realize how much of my social life was connected to work and that retiring and living in a suburb made me feel increasingly isolated. My regular social interactions were eventually limited to a few neighbors and my soccer buddies. Puttering around a big empty house in a largely empty neighborhood is a pretty sterile existence. I decided I wasn't ready for isolation and boredom just yet.
My wife finally retired, and after a lot of research and discussion we decided that city center living (something that neither of us had ever done) appealed to us. We wanted to not only be able to walk to shops, but also to museums, transport, performances, and to have people around to interact with. I must say, I'm really pleased at the way it's turned out so far.
We now live in a funky apartment in a 19th century "hotel particulier" in the city center of a moderately sized, 2000 year old city and love it. We don't have a car. We walk everywhere or take public transport. We're within a 10 minute walk (or less) of: the main train station, with high speed trains to Paris and Barcelona (about 3 hours each), the post office, the city (farmer) market, several boulangeries, dozens of restaurants, two cinemas, and a roman arena that still functions (concerts, bullfights, shows). That's all been great. But, we're also slowly making french acquaintances, and have stumbled into a really active community of expats from all over the world. I have to admit that my social and travel calendars are pretty full and keep me waaay busier than the suburban rut that I thankfully escaped. Our new social circle includes people from Britain, France, South Africa, Belgium, India, Brazil, the Netherlands, Switzerlands, etc.
I will never bash my old US neighborhood. There was a lot to enjoy there and some of the nicest and friendliest people around. But, I know that I definitely traded up!
PS... I really want to visit Freiburg. One of our lovely french friends (our language tutor) is moving there next month to do a teacher exchange. We'll miss her .... but visiting her will give us an excuse to check out the Black Forest!
Interesting, in Germany apartments and houses are the most popular, where shops, schools, kindergartens, and doctors are within walking distance. But there are also few people here who are of the opinion that something as noisy as a school or a kindergarten should not be built near their house. These are mostly people who don't have children.
But the same people would go to the barricades if, for the same reasons, the nearby shops disappeared.
Oddly enough, my house was probably with 500 feet of two schools, a playground and a church when I lived in Germany, and the neighborhood was still quieter than most places I've lived in the US.
@@eurodoc6343 As NotJustBikes put it: cities aren't loud, cars are. Does there happen to be a noticable difference in car traffic volume?
@@eurodoc6343 Yeah schools are really not that loud.
I live 300feet linear distance to a church, Kindergarden, playground, football field and the main road since 40 years. The church bell rings every hour but I don't hear it anymore. If the sun is shining and the children of the Kindergarten play's on the playground I wonder sometimes how little girls can shout so loud. But they do it for 10 minutes and if it gets boaring they go on playing less noisy. All this noise isn't disturbing or anoying to me. I think it's triggering the inner noise inside some people who are upset.
Not Just Bikes has done a great series on the economic issues with North American style zoning : e.g there’s so much road per house in most US cities that local taxes don’t cover repair & renewal - meaning most US cities (and their roads) are going broke.
YES! he has a wonderful series on this topic.
Americans, from rooftops: socialism is bad! The state can't run be trusted to run things! I want freedom of choice!
Also Americans: cities need to have publicly owned road networks and sewage systems, and the municipality needs to severely restrict what kind of houses and neighbourhoods we are allowed to build! Also we want everyone to have to get around by cars, with no alternatives! :eagle screech:
Two of my favorite channels (in addition to yours, of course): Not Just Bikes, and Strong Towns. Highly recommended.
A great video! Thank you!
I'm an Australian retired pastor and a former town planner, and found this fascinating.
Much of our church's work for 30+ years was with people of low socio economic status, many with mental health issues.
While the Euclidean zoning system (I'd never heard that term!) is basic in Australia, some measures such as location of government social housing among privately owned dwellings and a growing tendency of local government to require a proportion of new housing to be available for low income earners slows economic stratification, it still happens.
As a planner I advocated for performance standards for housing rather than proscriptive standards (so allowing for a mixture of accommodation types in residential zones); as a mid level planner my views carried little weight.
As to accessibility, where I now live is a two storey attached dwelling in a complex of nine in a mixed residential zone, similar to what I was talking about in the 1970s. But it is a 20-25 minute walk to the nearest shops, and a few minutes more to the station, and the temptation to walk there is slight.
Again, thank you.
I'd love to see what would happen if a developer took a chunk of land and made a little german dorf out of it, including making the houses the same superior quality as in germany and a tram like what they have in Frankfurt. Bike lanes, parks, public schools you can walk to, Lidls and Aldis, bakeries, pharmacies...man, that would be THE place to live. I mean, not necessarily for those who want a huge cookie-cutter house on a huge lot secluded from all their neighbors, commuting in their big cars an hour or so and never seeing their coworkers outside of work, but hey, to each their own! lol
10000% agree. I often hear our friends and family back home lamenting that they think their town is losing a sense of 'community' but then don't understand that they are self isolating.
Yes it would be wonderful, and some older densely populated neighborhoods are gentrifying and doing just that! The down side is that it is way too expensive for the average Joe, and if you need to work, mass transit can add at least 2 hours to your travel time. Here, in Portland Oregon USA, your employer may be many miles from where you live…..just the ugly true facts.
@@TypeAshton One of my friends has just been to the US and when he came back, he told me that the feeling walking around a small town in Boston was so very different from the feeling here in a regular or small town in Germany. He said it feels kind of like there is no real community but everybody just "fends for themselves", people seemed more isolated from their neighbors. It's hard to put into words but I think I know what he meant and your video helps to explain this phenomenon a little.
@@galejohnson8086you might think you’ll love living right next to your office but in reality you won’t. When you live right next to your office you simply won’t see much of your town anymore. I used to live 30 minutes by bike from my office and had to go through the entire town to my office and I saw my town every day. Now my office is right down the street and on most days this street is all I see of my town.
@@TheHammy1987nah I prefer American neighborhoods
Excluding small bakeries, grocery stores, restaurants, barbers, etc. in neighborhoods has not only made life much more stressful, less cozy and quaint, but more expensive, always needing a car to drive longer distances! It has also made Americans less social! Besides, not enough walking and riding bikes, makes Americans more overweight, unless they add exercise to their already busy schedules, rather than normal part of every day! The German way of life in neighborhoods is also much easier for the elderly!
Coming from the USA and living in Germany now I completely agree with you. Life is MUCH less stressful here. The local store is only a 5 minute walk away. There are a few restaurants in about a 5 minute walk from me or a lot more in a 15 minute walk to the city center and all the stores and restaurants there. It is a really nice place to live and it is so much quieter.
@@Immudzen California here. Would you mind sharing what general area you are in Germany?
@@gilliantracy7991 I am not far from Aachen in western Germany.
So it took me this video to finally understand why I always get so confused in many major US cities and need an Uber to get anywhere. I realise it is not just the scale of the cities but the zoning that contributes to this. It is way easier though to find this diversity in walkable distances in smaller cities like Charleston or Savannah though.
First time viewer of your videos, enjoyed it immensely. I am a Design/Build Contractor. I am American schooled and trained, I have lived and worked in Mexico for the last 16 years, and I've travelled in Germany numerous times and worked for a Swedish company. It's fascinating seeing the very specific differences between US & German concepts of planning and zoning from the perspective of a PhD in zoning and planning... and now adding in my own awareness of planning and zoning in Mexico. This gives me much to think about in regard to quality of life and living... subscribed and looking forward to more.
That's awesome that this video reached you! Thanks for subscribing and I hope you enjoy our future videos.
If you want to touch on one of the oldest still existing low-income housing projects in the world, please take a look at Augsburg, and the Fuggerei.
Yeah, yeah, I can already here the suppressed giggling coming from all English speakers... 😋
But since more than 500 years these buildings have been maintained, rebuilt, refurbished by the foundation setup by Jakob Fugger der Reiche / Jacob Fugger the Rich in 1521.
Today 67 catholic families (a prerequisite Fugger demanded) from Augsburg live in these homes for a YEARLY rent of 0.88 euro, or roughly 90 US cents per YEAR.
There are some requirements, being a poor family, resident of Augsburg, catholic, and you have to pray three prayers in the chapel on the Fuggerei grounds for Jakob Fugger every day.
Jakob Fugger feared for his soul due to his incredible wealth. He assumed that having had so much good fortune in life must mean that his soul would be damned in the afterlife. So he setup this welfare low-income housing, demanding even back then a ridiculously low rent. Under the premises that every resident prayed for his soul three times per day, hoping to alleviate the guilt of having been so incredibly rich, and for the inadvertant sins he committed by accumulating such wealth. He hoped that such deeds and prayers might shorten the suffering of his soul in purgatory.
As an atheist I must say that he was not too wrong about his concerns. We all know what the road to success may demand and what it can turn us into. Considered man. Atheists may not be so considered. We do not have an organized way to share/train/practice our teachings in the first place. Such neighborhood is more disciplined with the teachings as well. More consistency again over atheism.
@@techpriest4787 you mean "considerate"? ;-P
I don't think being religious is required to do something noble like Fugger, although atheists do good for different reasons of course. I'm an atheist too and I've donated and tried to help people around me. I don't see why improving well-being and reducing suffering would only make sense with religion.
I moved from Sweden to the US and during the decision process of if I could see myself living there found a neighborhood that reminded me of Europe. It’s at the outskirts of the city, still officially city limits, but calmer and still (to an extend) walkable. I keep describing it as “a bit suburban” but my American friends usually disagree and correct me that it’s still “city”. I couldn’t put my finger on why it felt familiar, but I think it is because we have stores and houses intermingled. Stores are mostly restricted to a central Main Street but I can reach most things by foot. And now I also understand why my US friends oppose the “suburban” description. We don’t have sprawling single family homes, but a mix of row homes, apartment complexes and single family. Thank you for the informative video.
Where is this magical place you speak of?
@@pidgepagonis Philadelphia
Your comment certainly shows the distinction between the definitions of "suburb" across the Atlantic: In Europe, they're mostly former towns and villages incoorperated into a city (and still act like them) while in NA, they're defined to be between a high-density city and a rural settlement, as a gradient.
By the way, your comment also reminded me Alan Fisher's video about rural towns and one commentor called the example town a "city" since it build is denser than a modern US suburb despite the fact that it is too small to get the city status (or if it is one, it's a very small city, not comparable to San Francisco, New York or Chicago).
Uffda!
I was in Germany back when I was in the Army. My first impression of German cities was that they were beautiful and functional.
I am absolutely taken in by your enthusiasm, level headedness and intelligence. I agree totally. Just think, if you have a village square surrounded by the village hall, school, library, baker, pub/kneipe/bar/restaurant, grocery store, doctor's surgery and bus stop and surrounding this is the housing (in all their different forms) for the people. That means that when you want to eat out (or just go out for a pint), you don't have to drive, because it's within walking distance and thereby reducing drink and drive. Road fatalities will be illeminated. You hit the nail on its head. Thank you for your thoughts/videos. Greetings from Sweden 🇸🇪.
As I understand, in America there is a lot of anxiety in middle-income and high-income people about poor people coming into their neighborhood and causing problems. Basically, they believe that if you're poor, it's because of something you did or that you're screwed up in some way, and they're afraid of having that in their neighborhood where they want their kids to be able to play safely.
I grew up in a middle class family in America, and when moving to a new area we would generally first live in an apartment complex, but only briefly because of course the goal was to get into a big single family house in a suburban neighborhood far away from any stores. I personally hated it, because in an apartment complex there were always lots of other kids to play with, but in single family areas there weren't as many and it was easier to get isolated.
Of course, the more cynical side of me wants to also look at more negative aspects of American culture:
1.) The Atlantic recently put out an article titled "The People Who Hate People", which explored this. Simply put, lots of Americans just hate being around a lot of other people.
2.) American parents are increasingly encouraged and expected to essentially be highly controlling of their children. Things like "stranger danger" (which is in truth way overblown) and the fact that kids here depend on their parents to take them anyplace interesting definitely add to these pressures.
3.) High home prices in an exclusive neighborhood or even town or whole urban area serve as a kind of filter of the kinds of people who can move in. This is why there is so much angst about things like boarding houses, unrelated roommates, living out of your car, and being homeless; in the eyes of the wealthy and privileged in those neighborhoods, those people are cheating the system and that will not be tolerated.
You make a good point about the home being a safety net, because we have been steadily stripping away other safety nets under the guise of "rugged individualism" (which honestly doesn't have as strong roots in this country as might be gleaned from a superficial reading). There's a sense and fear in America that you're on your own, no one's going to come to rescue you if you get in trouble, and changes that impact your singular safety net are direct threats to your way of life.
And that belief is not irrational it is based on facts. So...
When society segregates and vilifies the poor, is it no wonder violence and crime is what those poor turn to? Unfortunately, it is easier for people to simply believe that poor people are inherently violent and dangerous rather than acknowledge that the society they live in fostered that violence.
@@iluvcamping utter nonsense. Society villifies nothing. People vilify themselves and society responds instinctively to defend itself in its desire to survive and live in peace. Nobody proposes that all poor people are violent criminals, however the likely hood of a violent criminal to be poor is very high. Poverty does not push anyone to violence, but the violent are poor because of bad choices they have made. I was extremely poor once and I never committed a crime. I have made sane choices in my life, studied and worked hard and pushed myself out of that situation.
@@nastasedr Wow! That's the way Americans view the word. Sad.
@@olafgogmo5426 no, that is what is in America not the world, assuming you meant world not word. If you can find hard facts that fly against what I said please show them to me.
I lived in Stockholm (Sweden) for all my Life (almost 60 yrs) both in city and the in the "suburbs" within the city limits. It is quite shocking to realize how poor the zoning is made in US. I never owned a car and actually only used public transportation and walk long distances. In essence it is so far away from the US style and model it seems. For those who like cycling there are also expanded facilities made to use them in latest decades. Am happy to see you thrive in Germany and appreciate the way of living in it's true meaning and not in an empty "lifeless" sterile community.
you can't survive without car in usa
@@johnjames8707 I am aware of that was just sharing my thoughts.
@John Stuart Mill Well, that is another aspect but it doesn't give clarification or reason why it is a zoning problem in USA as the video is about.. Crime is not the sole reason to the development and current status.
@John Stuart Mill No you didn't but I thought it was not that relevant. I am sorry if I have offened you or something, it was not my intention. Stay safe and take care.
@John Stuart Mill My point was that I did not find it so relevant. My apologies if I have offended you with my blunt English. Stay safe and take care.
Actually newly planned projects in Germany mostly include shops and Kindergartens. Often it is a requirement if a real estate company wants to build on a piece of land. Another requirement is the inclusion of flats for low income households, which are subsidized.
Every time I learn more about systems and governance in the USA, I become convinced that the whole thing was a great idea on paper, but has gone quite wrong in practice. The desire to separate industrial from residential is good, but taking it the the extreme whereby you cannot have a corner-shop within walking-distance of your house is just grim. Where I live, we're almost in that situation by accident - Inverness (the "city" I live in) is going through a period of massive growth (I believe 10% increase in the last 5-10 years, though I don't know how accurate that is) and every time a new swathe of houses (mix of flats/apartments, terraces, semi-detached and detached houses with between 1 and 5 bedrooms, so a very good mix), there are justified complaints about a LACK of additional shops etc being built too. To be fair to the housing developers, they pay a hefty sum of money to the council who are supposed to then take care of retail facilities, community halls, new primary schools etc, but their finances are a black hole right now
The tragedy is really: The US once built walkable, liveable suburbs - along public transportation lines. When the automobile killed trams and trains it killed the whole idea of mixed-use zones. And even worse: the highway system destroyed many of those older neighborhoods near the downtown areas. Those few that survived are now most sought-after, right?
What's also worth mentioning in that contect: suburbia's infrastructure is not sustainable. In many places population density is so low that tax revenue doesn't fund the maintenance of all those miles and miles of roads and pipes - not to speak of the pathetic system of overhead power lines. Municipailties and developers can finance the construction, but we all can see how long road surface survives in America. Suburbia works like a ponzi scheme: once growth stops, the system is bound to collapse.
Elections have Consequences.... We were warned about our suburbs.. be well.
Trams and trains killed themselves by increasing the costs of ridership to make up for lost riders due to cars, instead of improving their services to remain appealing.
@@MrAnimason You don't need trams to build walkable towns/cities. Walkable cities have been a thing since the dawn of human history, because that's how people got around. Trams were a multiplier, it allowed people to get around further than they would otherwise on foot.
@@MrAnimason That's a whole different point. The success story of the automobile was powered by political decisions to build highways and car-dependent suburbs and to globaly secure access to cheap oil. It would have been possible to continue to plan cities with functioning mass transportation networks and mixed-use zones where citizens have everything they need within walking or easy commuting distance. But America chose a different way - and now faces the plight of suburbia.
@@amainzergoesplaces568 I wouldn't call it plight. I would just call it different.
Bringing different income groups and - God forbid - ethnicities together in a single housing development? For God's sake, that could solve the violence problem plaguing the US in the medium term and make people realize that they have been lied to for decades. Impossible, must not happen 😉
Seriously, though, I never understood how one could consider living in such sterile environment as Suburbia an increase of living quality. It's depressing.
I live in an area in Northern Germany (right next to Ostfriesland) that was farmland until about 2000. Cows grazed here. Then the farmer died, there was no one who wanted to continue the farm, so the land was sold to the city, which put out a residential zoning here - only single family homes but we don't have a housing shortage in our area, so that's fine. Today, some twenty years later, I have the following shopping facilities within walking distance, that is, within a radius of less than 15 minutes on foot:
Aldi, Lidl, DM, Netto, Kik, McDonald's, Burger King, a Greek restaurant, a donut parlor, a furniture store, a DIY store, two food trucks, an electronics store, a kitchen studio, a rental car station, a bed studio, two fitness studios, a wholesale grocery store, a car repair shop, two car dealerships, a pet supply store, as well as various craft businesses and smaller trades such as hairdressers, nail salons, or tattoo studios. And I'm sure I've forgotten something.
We also have an elementary school, various kindergartens, as well as playgrounds. And of course, everything is connected with bike paths, and buses go to the city center every 20 minutes. I recently got along wonderfully without a car for six weeks because my car was in the workshop for so long due to supply chain problems with spare parts.
THAT is what I call quality of living.
And that is one reason why even though I like the USA and the Americans and although I'm jealous of their beautiful country sometimes, I wouldn't wanna live there.
Initially, keeping certain ethnicities out was the driving motivation for the creation of zoning rules. I'm pretty sure that there are still mindests out there, for which that sterile environment is a small price to pay (or even appreciated), if they can just keep their colorless micro society.
@@sascharambeaud1609 it started to protect whites from violent non white crime, a completely valid concern in America
@@jettpayton1352hmm..racist or uneducated? Sometimes that's so hard to tell apart.
@@sascharambeaud1609 what these people cant comprehend is that white flight and redlining was what lead to crime spiking in the 70s and 80s
@@jettpayton1352 I'm pretty sure this segregating creates a criminal underclass in the first place. I live in Vienna and we have affordable public housing in every single district, even the most fancy ones. About 40% of the city is public housing and everyone can apply. This really prevents ghettoization and violent crime because nobody is cut off from essential services and education.
An excellent explanation of German town planning. I'm from the UK and have lived in Germany for around half my life now, but I've never come across such a lucid explanation of why towns are the way they are before. Well done!! I've just subscribed to your channel and hope to learn more.
Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it!
I have been fortunate enough to travel to several international cities. I do like the mixed use of the neighborhoods which I observed. The ability to walk to various businesses one would use regularly. US Suburbia skewed towards the need for the single occupant vehicle instead of walking, biking or public transportation. I sold my car several years ago and now I depend on a motorcycle and public transportation. I like this arrangement so much better.
Being a retired teacher it always "frightened" me how the inaccessibility to good education and thus access to a better life is connected to where you live in the USA, not only in respect to the state or city but especially to the neighbourhood you grow up in.
That is "structural violence" against parts of the society which claims/claimed to be the "country of limitless opportunities".
The "American Dream" is dreamt in the white middle and upper class neighbourhoods.... .
And no, I am neither a socialist nor anti-American just realistic.
it´s sad that in the US normal needed reforms are always called "socialist" or "anti american" makes a good discussion totally impossible
I remember how strange it was for me when in "Beverly Hills, 90210" one girl illegally used her grandmother's address so she could get access to a good high school. Sure, Germany wasn't a utopia of social mobility (and still isn't), but there aren't such big differences in the quality of schools.
@@hypatian9093 it’s more about demographics of the student body than the actual quality of the schools, I’m afraid. Do you find that to be true in Germany?
How about you stop blaming whites for 5 seconds
@@annamc3947 @Anna Mc Yes and no. Of course, the student body is different in well-to-do suburbs than in some inner-city neighborhoods. But the gap between rich and poor is not that big in Germany. Sure, there are schools with problems in underprivileged environments, but those are exceptions.
On the other hand curriculum and hiring of teachers isn't handled locally or on county level, but by the state. Buildings and equipment like technical devices etc. are thus less dependent on the local school authority and and its financial resources.
I grew up in the US Southeast. We had small shops in walking distance, not just 80 miles outside of Atlanta, but also when we moved up into the Appalachian Mountains. At the latter, there was a convenience store only a mile away, and 2-3 small grocery/gas stations in the nearest town a little over 2 miles away. --Sure, I walked home from school many times (2 miles) but you couldn’t get everything you needed at those small stores and the doctor (and hospital) was at the other end of the county; everyone has to have a car because everything is so far apart, not because of zoning.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, city councils have done away with mixed zoning. They don’t want you to be able to live near where you work or shop. They can’t get the sales tax off the gasoline if you’re waking or biking everywhere.
As an European I have experienced American suburbs as completely boring and depressing. You have your house but it's an island. You are not even allowed to drive in other streets without being questioned why you dare to be there. That's not my dream of a neighborhood.
Thanks for explaining Euclidian zoning. All this time when I'd heard the term, I assumed it had something to do with the geometry of the lots!
In San Diego, my old neighborhood quite accidentally achieved income variety. I grew up in a working-class neighborhood with little crackerbox bungalows. Then word got out that San Diego had the best climate in the continental USA, and suddenly rich people flooded in and made housing prices shoot through the roof. So those little bungalows now sell for half a million at least. But old working-class families still lived in many of the homes, holding onto home ownership, often with 3 generations now under one roof, since rentals were no longer accessible for their kids and grandkids. I knew of one family with 4 generations under one roof. Many of them had long since converted their garages into extra rooms, so it was doable. Other families moved out, leaving their homes to be bought up by rich people. People literally had servants living a few doors down from them in practically identical houses. My grandmother's next-door neighbor collected antique cars for a hobby, he had so much money. Everyone got along surprisingly well, once they got used to the idea that some neighbors were going to hold onto the right to repair their own cars in their front yards and hang laundry in the back, just as they've always done.
Vivid picture and to-the-point writing! Last sentence is great. Nice to read . . .
When it comes to low income housing. The idea of the "Gartenstast" might be an interesting historic concept you might be interested in.
Districts/Communities like "Margarethenhöhe" in Essen that were build to provide steel workers with livable housing are now some of the most desirable places to rent in the city (the district is still managed by an NGO / gemeinnütziger Verein) and the rent is as originally intended still really affordable.
The district even has it's own Wikipedia page and is quite beautiful.
I know this Genossenschaftshäuser from Vienna and it has been quite common in Germany as well when I was young but with the downfall of Neue Heimat this idea was more or less destroyed. However I still believe it is a good idea that lower income people cooperate and build houses together so that each apartment is much cheaper that if it is built by a private company. The downside is that you need people who know what they are doing and are principally honest to lead these entities this was the major problem of the Neue Heimat since managers have been put there due to their political merits more than due to know-how additionally several of them behaved as if it is their property not the one of the people.
I signed up for an apartment at the time with a waiting period of 8 years. In the end, however, I gave up the project.
@@habi0187 I live in such a house. It's one in several rows of small townhouses built in the 1920s. They are small (90qm), simple (initially they had no bathrooms), had small vegetable gardens and were built by the future owners collectively. Once a house was finished there was a lottery who would get to live there. This ensured that the self-builders wouldn't know in advance which house they'd get and would build each one with care. After all, they might end up living there. Till the 1980s you couldn't sell them to the public. You would have to sell them back to the building collective which made sure they remained affordable.
Since the middle ages the tradespeople had their shops in their living homes. The baker lived above his bakery, for example...
My neighborhood in central California, built in the 1950s, is strictly single family residences, but within a half mile is a small shopping center with a grocery store, dry cleaners, pharmacy, two small clothing stores, and a general merchandise store (clothing, home decor and supplies). I know some neighborhoods that were built in the last 30 years are 2 to 3 miles away from anything and even a 7-11 convenience store is more than a mile away.
It's upsetting to see these issues and have everyone else acknowledge the way we design out cities as normal. Just the other day my wife and I saw two kids probably 10-12 years old walking down the main stroad that runs through my town. My wife commented about how surprised she was seeing them and that they are just kids and it's so dangerous just to walk down the road. We live in a place that is built for the car and not for people and it has become more and more upsetting when I see how other places do it better. It's hard to see young kids get excited about owning a car so now they can finally have some freedom. Eventually they realize how expensive that car is to maintain and now they're stuck with thousands of dollars of unnecessary costs at 16 years old all because we decided to build our towns for cars and not people.
That's rather missing the point. Cities aren't designed this way because they don't know better, they are designed this way because people WANT them this way. You might not, the host of this channel might not, but they are not the majority, at least in the US. Large plots of land with single family homes and no businesses in the neighborhood is actually desirable.
So we have to drive 5 minutes to get to the grocery store? So what, we have to drive anyway because you can't carry groceries for 5 people by hand anyway. It could be 2 blocks away and we'd still drive.
These neighborhoods keep the "riff-raff" out, so to speak, it's really hard for people who don't belong here to hide among nice homes. Criminals and the homeless stand out like sore thumbs and a first class police department makes sure they stay away.
So we need a car? It is 106 degrees in Dallas this week, I have zero desire to walk anywhere in this heat. Remote start the car, it's cool when I go driving, same thing when I come home. I get 30 seconds in the heat walking to/from it, and that's about it.
@@TechDeals I understand where you're coming from about the heat. I've lived in Florida all my life and walking anywhere where there's no covering can be exhausting after just a few minutes. I think the part that bothers me is much like what this video title is talking about. It's illegal to build anything other than single family homes in most residential areas in the US. We have very little mixed use zoning locations, so if I wanted to live without a car in a small community where I can walk or take public transit to work, the store, and most entertainment I want I can't. I have no choice or freedom to choose that lifestyle without leaving the country. There are also serious economic repercussions because most business are surrounded by gigantic parking lots. A huge amount of tax dollars go towards servicing roads, water systems, and electrical grids that are way bigger than they need to be because everywhere has to accommodate 100's of cars.
I am seriously not trying to be insulting, but it seems you clearly come from a place of privilege to think that having to drive 5 minutes to go to the store isn't a big deal. It may not be to you, but to the "riff-raff" who aren't able to afford cars, that is a very large distance, and can further cement their social economic position with almost no chance to ever climb the economic latter. If your job, home, and grocery store are not easy to get to using public transport, how is someone expected to survive without a car? You may want your suburban white picket fence home in a nice neighbor hood far away from civilization, but you should pay your fair share of what it costs to build and maintain the miles of roads and public utilities it costs rather than passing that cost off on the people who need the infrastructure the most.
Note: This is coming from someone who, as you may have been able to tell from the first comment, lives in a fairly nice suburban neighbor hood. I just want my kids to be able to walk to a near by candy store without people gawking at how they shouldn't be walking alone, or to be able to walk to the park down the road without being scared of being run down by a truck doing 60 MPH.
Yes, this is exactly why my wife and I decided to leave the US and move to Europe. We looked at France and Germany, but settled on Sweden because most major corporations here conduct all their business in English, so we knew it would be easier for us to find jobs here (they are also among the most child-friendly with the longest paid family leave). We now live in a beautiful neighborhood that is walking distance to everything we need. They also have clean, well-maintained bike paths that are kept separate from the roads with their own signage and under/overpasses so that you rarely need to cross any actual roads, but when you do, they are well marked with their own crossings and lights. We also don’t worry about the “rif-raf” (which @Tech Deals mentioned), since in Sweden, there are no homeless people and extremely low crime relative to the US. We actually like all of our neighbors and have found everyone here to be amazingly friendly and welcoming. So for those who are looking for a better life for themselves and their families (along with great infrastructure, free healthcare, free education, 5 weeks’ vacation, and 16 months of paid maternity and paternity leave), then they should seriously consider making the move. Yes, the taxes are higher here, but not by as much as you’d think. Plus, unlike in the US, you actually get what you pay for. I’m constantly being blown away by how well everything works here. And how everyone-government officials included are so “civil”-friendly and understanding. Like at the Motor Vehicles office where they even made us coffee! Until you’ve experienced it, you probably can’t even imagine how nice it is here.
Zoning laws aren't made according to public opinion like you seem to think.
@@BenGreggSweden Yes, Scandinavia is well-known for the things you mentioned. But the question is how an American can settle there. Don't you need a visa, work permit etc to be able to live and work there?
One of the reasons I left the US was because of its lack of walkable cities. I now live in Istanbul where there are several bakeries, coffee houses, and markets within a minute's walk. I have no need for a car, and if I do have to go further, the mass transit system here is excellent.
As a Turkish person from Istanbul living in the US, this is spot-on. I am glad you are enjoying it. I shall return for good one day myself.
Idk how you would ever carry your kayak, skidoo, or ATV anywhere without a car. Bless your heart for loving life without open spaces and wild places.
@@midori4352 I don't have a kayak, skidoo (what is this?), or ATV. I did live on a Chinese junk for several years, however.
@@midori4352 my dogs (Aussies) have land to run on. We have a hot tub. Garage. SAFE neighborhood. We all walk here. Neighbors Little girls ride their horses down our street. But my spa (small business owner) is only 7 min drive. Which is where the city blows up. I love my “Suburban” hood. Oh and our truck carries the camper when we need to escape. All on our land. It’s not being miss used. Or forgotten. Or not used. The US is just a different Country. You get to pick what kind of place you prefer. I’m pretty sure Texas doesn’t want German housing. BUT illegal is a no go for me. Less Gov please! Oh and no HOA! Again pick where you want to live. (Wish we had an ATV, Skidoo, kayak and horses, chickens etc).
I've said this in many similar videos on youtube bashing Nimby-ism. I live in a neighborhood that, for the USA, is very odd since there are townhouses, condos, duplexes, triplexes, and a full scale apartment complex. The catch is that the nearest grocery store/strip mall is far away from the apartment complex. It's also nestled next to a protected forest area and river overlooking very expensive SFHs. The set-up is fantastic for many reasons. The part that most would expect is that the roads are in disrepair and we are known as the "poor" part of the greater metro area. One thing a business owner and church mate tried to do is open a general goods store close to the 500+ apartment complex but was denied due to the strict zoning. The arguments were valid from both sides and there was not an adequate way he could provide an answer for some of their complaints. Since then my friend has worked with professionals to correct it and are in the process of turning a large trect of land (10 acres with a 150 year old house less than 800 sq ft) into two lots, with the store having minimum parking spots but a lot of walking access.
The moral is that sometimes the people in the neighborhood can be worked with if you answer enough of their complaints or explain to them directly.
Strong Towns, City Beautiful and Not Just Bikes are few of the channels I love to watch for this type of content. I will add your channel to the list now. 👍
I've researched the development of American suburbs for years, so I know all the history and culture behind their development (I really recommend Crabgrass Frontier, by the way), but it still astounds me how American planners decided it was a good idea to build neighborhoods without grocery stores and other small shops you can walk to. That just seems viscerally wrong on a basic, ontological level.
Planners knew that cars could take them to stores. They also made sure stores had spaces for all those cars with excessive requirements that only ever got filled up on black friday.
It was made that way to make everyone car dependant, more people buy cars and fuel.
@@VErisot in the end its all because of money...
CAUSE YOU CAN DRIVE. Why the fuck would I walk to the store and carry all my groceries home.
@@TheRockkickass Because it's not a true dichotomy.
I have always lived in walkable environments (Germany and all that). People do what they want. I can walk to the store to get something small, which is roughly equivalent in time than taking the car. This is preferred for small trips (as in, one needs to grab little from the store).
Which also means I can just grab something on my way back from work, the train station is also in walking distance.
On the other hand, if one needs to buy _a lot,_ you can also take the car to make a big trip.
In Suburbia? Have fun trying to walk to make a small trip. You do not have the _freedom_ to do that.
Drive to the shop, doordash or starve.
For me it's more like... Why the fuck would I take a car to grab one bag of groceries if I can just walk, keeping myself more healthy while doing so?
Not to mention that it also reduces expenses for fuel, maintenance and other car-related expenses.
Especially if, combining walkable cities with proper public transport means I don't even need a car at all.
I'm 34, I don't even have a driving license. Currently learning for one because I want a motorcycle.
I was surprised once when I saw on the not just bikes channel how zoning actually destroys the economical sustainability of north american cities and is one of the reasons for american infrastructure is what it is: big parking spaces just do not earn enough taxes to finance the upkeep of the roads leading to them. Quite interesting.
You know the "taxation is theft"-crowd? I always wonder how they didn't yet learn that car dependency is just government squander in favor of businesses over the very people that provided the money.
And im speaking from my german point of view, which means its the same people, just a lot less in number than in the US, and infrastructure that is a lot less wasteful than the US-american counterpart^^
@@MannIchFindKeinName Funnily enough, I was thinking that exact point when trying to imagine how I would explain to Trump that suburbs aren't beautiful. Ponzi Scheme cities are a massive waste of taxpayer money. Any small government advocate should be against restrictive zoning laws for that reason, but also _because_ they're restrictive. Why does the "Land of the Free" have some of the most draconian zoning laws in the world?
Plus, allowing commercial use of home properties encourages small business growth, which the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" crowd should be all for.
@@ReddwarfIV Assuming those people don't already understand Ponzi Scheme Cities, even if you explained it to them, nothing would change, as short-term development (that others might call Ponzis) is seen as a feature, not a bug.
It's not just zoning in the US, but also minimum parking requirements. (Houston famously doesn't do zoning, but they still do minimum parking requirements and other shenanigans.)
Omg I'm German living in Japan. For some reason this video has been recommended to me, so I clicked. When I saw my Hometown of Templin at 4:44, this was everything. Thank you so much!!! ❤
I chose to live in a rural setting because I grew up in Brooklyn, NY in a small apartment on the 3rd floor. The Brooklyn neighborhood where where I came from had sidewalks and shops, but it also had garbage on the streets horrible smell and crime. Parking is a nightmare and shops and doctor offices etc. are often inaccessible, you may need to take 2 buses and a train to get to downtown Brooklyn (probably a 15 min ride in a car).The NYC subway is full of homeless people and criminals. People have been rubbed attacked and pushed on to the subway tracks multiple times in the last few years. . The building where I lived bathroom window was so close to my neighbors he can literally watch me take a shower if my window was opened. Now I live in nature fresh air, no side walks, few neighbors far enough away. All of my amenities are a 10 min ride away and they all have parking lots. This is my "American Dream" leave it alone, I earned it.
Yeah, I grew up in Queens, went to school in Manhattan, worked in Manhattan for many years. You can keep it, I'm much happier in my nice suburban bubble.
you have a fair point! Ever visited Europe? Its probably not as hectic as brooklyn. I live in the netherlands and it goes exceptionally well.
As another New Yorker I agree wholeheartedly. Some of us don't want to live all packed up with other people like sardines. I need space to roam, and if it means I get in my car to buy a loaf of bread then so be it, this is a big country with plenty of space, let's make use of it.
You can keep your rural place, that's fine! You just can't make it illegal for others to build shops, attached housing, businesses on their private property. That's the issue. It's illegal to build walkable places in the vast majority of the US due to zoning, so nearly everyone is forced into your car-oriented suburban lifestyle even if they don't want it. There should be a choice.
@@ianfrasch3948 those laws are in place to protect the character of the neighborhood. That's why we have zoning laws and why people are against big developments coming in and building monstrosities all in the name of "the greater good" or to bring jobs to any neighborhood. It's a quality of life issue that is not for everyone. If everyone decided to build a duplex in their backyard the population of a quaint neighborhood would triple in no time and it won't be so quaint anymore.
I lived in places like Harlem and Brooklyn on and off for years. That cute neighborhood bistro farce you see on TV is scattered every other block. In between little patches of civilization what you get is Mad Max Fury Road. I'll keep my suburb just as is, thank you lol
Basically having all those servives living closely together makes cities more energy efficient. Energy is always costly. The US just did not realize how costly it could become one day.
I live in an American neighborhood built between 1900-1940. It’s a walkable neighborhood, but all the shops we used to have have gone out of business. I can still walk to the pediatrician, an elementary school, a barber shop and a convenience store. I do wish we had more.
I don't know much about housing, but this was a very interesting video. Thank you for taking the time to make it.
One thing I wonder about is that I have a couple real estate friends that have been reporting that corporations have been on a high trend of buying residential homes and turning them into rentals, and then started hearing that these types of purchases are happening more frequently in Texas, Nevada and California. Housing seems to be vastly out of reach for single families as it is, and I cant imagine that this trend is a good thing for the possibility of social class movement upwards.
What a fantastic video.
I worked as a land surveyor for 30 years, and still freelance performing title searches which was always my favorite part of the job.
I've always enjoyed the archeological aspects of recreating properties from the very first land owner to the present day. I'm also fascinated by land use regulations in their many forms.
Really enjoyed the comparison between the US & German ways of approaching land use.
A hearty thumbs up, definitely subscribing and looking forward to future videos.
Auf Wiedersehen
So glad you enjoyed the video!
As always fun to watch one of your videos. As a dutch person (living in Utrecht) i grew up in the middle of a 900 year old city. First 24 years in the core. Then i moved to other area that was more a outer area where for legal reasons (not my fault) i needed to move and bought a home in the one of the biggest new building expansion in our country that in the end will grow Utrecht by 100k. And i felt this split since my area was one of the first build and there are no shops, bars and very little (temp) services it felt like a 'camping place' where you only had a shopping mall (1) about 800meters away no bars or real places to eat. Now 15 years later building is much further along and the newer areas popped up with a massive second 'inner city' where shops, bars, eating, movie theather and services are i guess about 50% of the lower levels and the upper levels of the buildings are all homes. What is new compared to the old innercity is the inclusion of more 'hidden' green like in old old city part there are parks (4 or 5 between 300meters and 1km) but here they also designed green intermixed in the innercity with waterways, gardens on tops of buildings or shops. having been living here for 15 years (and walking and esp. biking is a dutch thing) the feeling of closeness to things has returned.. It just starts at about 250meters away from me from my small dutch suburbia which also has its plusses like no cars allowed in my street/block. Also indeed within 1km homes range from about 250k to 1m so a 700k, 800k gap is not weird. When visiting a usa suburbian area i feel strangly 'locked in' esp as a kid where in many ways life only starts when you have access to a car almost like a phase of life you need to wait for. How do you even get drunk in a bar and walk home slowly and semi steadily. Sorry if this offends people in the states i know city life is different but the while concept of zoning without mixing what is needed for living and even more for kids to slowly learn, adapt and integrate feels just weird.
It is very instructive to have the German regulations explained from the perspective of a foreign person. Before I just thought "the American settlements look boring" - now I realize that one (a) is stuck without a car and that (b) there are no shops for daily needs. But you need them to live.
I also really like your self-critical episode at about 5:40 - your pronunciation is supposed to be *Messe* and IKEA - well, "I" like "ee" and "kea" like "ka-ar".
(But... I can't pronounce Massachusetts, Lake Chaubunagungamaug, or Albuquerque either)
Albuquerque is french, and Chaubunagungamaug is obviously native.
Americans dont even have their own language
@@maxlange5517 Americans don't have an OFFICIAL language but of course, they all have their own language. Some speak English, some Spanish, some Hindi, there are languages from all over the world there.
Just a couple of blocks from where I grew up in San Francisco was a planned development called Parkmerced that was built in the 1940's. It is a combination of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom tower apartments, garden apartments and townhomes. It has its own shopping area as well as parks for recreation and was planned so that the flow of traffic would not impede what already existed including the use of roundabouts. The garden apartments were very popular with families because they were all situated around a common green area where the kids could play while the parents could sit on their outdoor patios and keep an eye on their kids. The townhomes were mostly popular with older people and the tower apartments accommodated different budgets because of the different sized apartments available. Of course now I'm sure it's alot more expensive to live there than it was when I was a kid playing with my friends that lived in Parkmerced but the concept sure seemed ahead of its time. There are parkinig garages at the tower apartments that years ago had mechanics on site and if you did'nt own a car you could rent one from the garage. It was all nicely landscaped with trees and gardens and was very walkable. It is located right near a university. I've never understood why today more places like Parkmerced are not being built in cities or even suburbs. Now there is this mentality of people who want to live behind gates away from the rest of us instead of everyone coexisting together.
I grew up in a “mixed use” neighborhood and I had my soccer tennis shoes fixed by the shoemaker around the corner, would enjoy ice cream at the bakery on the other corner, would beg for scrap wood at the small wood shop and for scrap bearings at the mechanic around the block for a soapbox cart, would get an injection everyday for a month at the pharmacy by the school a half dozen blocks away, sometimes picking up something at the small grocer that my mom asked him to give to me when I passed by, since he had seen every kid be born in the years that he had owned the store. No, suburbia is the bane of civilization.
I really enjoy this “series” on housing right now. As a German who has spent several years living in different areas of the US it’s great to get the background infos on those differences.
When I was a child, I thought that US culture had been adopted almost completely in West Germany after WW2. There are a lot of influences and similarities of course, but there are fundamental differences. I’ve come to think that Germany has found a nice middle ground between capitalism and socialism with the “soziale Marktwirtschaft”, which shows in a lot of areas (although it’s obviously not perfect).
I’ve only learned about the fundamental differences in housing policies over the last year or so and found them very interesting. Thanks for this in depth series that helps me to further understand the topic!
It explains so many other differences of the daily life, like car dependence, public transportation and shopping preferences.
I'm from the USA and I'd characterize the German zoning method not so much as as more socialistic, but as a lot less stupid.
@@thatguy8869I meant the „socialist“ comment as a description for the economy in general. It’s still very much a capitalistic system, but we have a safety net for pretty much everyone.
I totally agree, that the zoning system is less stupid. The mix of single family homes and low income housing in the same zone maybe also relates to the general goal of providing a decent life for everyone. I don’t know how it works in the US, but when there is a new residential area in Germany, even for the single family homes, the decision who gets the parcel is often based on social criteria (family with children, community service, etc.) and sold by the city at a fixed price (which is often way below the market value).
I want correct a missunderstanding. The "soziale Marktwirtschaft" has noothing to do with socialism. It does only mean that social protection standards are determind and protected and some organized by goverment. I can not go here into the deep, but it mainly followed the idea that the state has to garanty a minimum for living and some security. We call it "Daseinsvorsorge". The big difference is that still the individuum is in the center of the politic with his own rights and duties and not like in the socialism the community.
So dont make the mistake that the just the "soziale Marktwirtschft" has the word sozial in it, that it means that it has something to do sozialism.
@@rapsack7058 i get what you mean and as I said it is pretty much capitalism with a social net. Sozialismus is not really a defined system and I don’t mean the „sozialism“ that was present in the GDR. But certain aspects of the concept like social justice can be found in the „soziale Marktwirtschaft“
@@jakoblindner2356 Your right socialism is not realy defined.
But what was invented as "soziale Marktwirtschaft" by Ludwig Ehrhardt is far away from scialism of any definition. It is to locate in liberterian corner. He was close to Hayek....
The "soziale Marktwirtschaft" has also nothing to do with the social justice idea. Far away from it. The german left parties tried over decades to get (more) social justice into the system.
For example the one corner stone of social justice is the invention of minimum wage. It was not long ago invented for first time, it is a quite new inverntion and our minimum wage was quite low so far. NOt much sozial justice at this front.
The public health system has also nothing to do with social justice. Its just a way to protect the state to be forced to pay for healthcare and its is based on an insurence system. Thats not quite social justice. and so on...
As i said, this is not the right place to dig deeper what "soziale Marktwirtschaft" realy is.
In my country, the standard is that most residential zones allow for certain small commercial uses specifically in corners. So almost every block of houses/apartments has a corner (usually family owned) grocery store or a drugstore of some kind, sometimes a barbershop, etc. Almost every person that lives in that area will shop in those blocks if necessary, avoiding using their car.
Reccieved a mail from her yesterday: she just found you channel last week already and liked it!
As always so informative Dr. Ashton😍. What really surprises me is that the quick and easy accessibility (on foot) of supermarkets, bakers, restaurants, butchers but also doctors plays no role at all among the residents of the suburbs.
In German there is the saying "time is money" and I would think that especially in busy America this would play a role not to spend so much time on the street. Personally, I prefer the saying "time saved is Freizeit"😛. As always, a great video.
I couldn't imagine living in such a suburbia where my GP is not within walking distance. I mean - do you take the car when you have a high fever or feeling ill?
@@hypatian9093 You either get a friend or family member to drive you, hire a taxi/uber (please don't, strangers don't want your sick in their vehicle), or you push through and drive yourself anyway.
Or call an ambulance, but only if there's no other option since that tends to cost a LOT of money (even with many insurance plans).
Actually, you often try to tough it out at home if you can, with over the counter meds. Even GP visits tend to cost money here depending on what insurance (if any) you have. And heaven help you if you need prescription drugs. It's like pulling teeth to get American insurance places to approve payment for those even when prescribed at a "covered" doctor visit.
I have the somewhat unique situation of living in the same general neighbourhood all my life. I'm 54 now and have seen my neighbourhood evolve over my lifetime. I live just east of downtown, in Toronto, Canada. Some might even call it downtown adjacent. When I was a child, we had all the benefits of a city neighbourhood. We had many shops within walking distance. Markets, bakeries, banks, five and dime stores, restaurants, even a local theater. Most residential streets had a convenience store or market on it. My father spent most of his adult working life employed by an elevator factory, just across the bridge. We had single family homes and apartment buildings. We had good public transit and you could walk to just about anything you needed. But that's been changing all my life. The stores on the residential streets have all been converted into homes costing a million or two. The strips of shops around the neighbourhood are drying up, they can't stay in business. The markets can't compete with the big box stores. No more local hardware stores and so on. The factory district across the bridge has been converted to retail, big box stores and self-storage units. The local mall is a ghost town, I don't know how it stays open. My family didn't own a car for much of my childhood. I need one now. We had all the local benefits, walkability and diversity you talk of, but that's all been going away over the last 15-20 years. We had the zoning that allowed the diversity, but so many other factors brought change. I don't know how we get local diversity back to the neighbourhood with the globalization of shopping.
...or the lack of cooking. No mothers bake cakes. The commercialisation of food is to be thought about.
Ikea. I started shopping there while stationed in Wiesbaden ('79-'82) and still pronounce it "e-kay-a" 40+ years later.
15:42 Wow, that is a real eye opener. I had thought about many related issues regarding this unfortunate separation, but could never quite put my finger on it. I see more clearly now.
While some zoning rules do make sense, the trend to a seperation of low income/high income, suburbias and trend locations, can lead to very unpleasant situations.
One example I can give is the situation in big Brasilian cities. There the "zoning" can be really extreme, especially in regard of the income/social status. I'm not even sure this a politically motivated thing, or a sort of evolution.
Basically, there are 3 different types of residential "zones" : one for rich/very rich people, one for very poor people, and one for the rest.
This seperation can be really extreme. It can happen, that you are not even allowed to go into a "rich zone", unless you were invited by a resident. There are barricades and guys with shotguns guarding those places. The other extreme are the Favelas, which basically means Slums. The access is not prohibited, but you better not go there, especially as a tourist or wealthy looking person.
Sometimes these zones are really close together. If you can look over a typical coastal city in the Rio or Sao Paulo region, you usually find a mile or so flat strip along the beach, and than a hill row behind that. On the hills you can see one hill with big snow white mansions with swimming pools and tennis courts and all that - and on the next hill, only half a mile away, is a Favela with the typical crammed self made houses in all kinds of colors.
Its exemplary for the extreme social inequality in Brasil and can easily lead to unrest, crime and such things - hence the secured neighbourhoods and the guys with shotguns.
Not a desirable situation and hard to accept for a average German visitor.
It sounds like what the US is becoming
That sounds awful :( Segregation based on who is wealthy, average and poor is very damaging...
@@paolaanimator It is awful. And there are some people, who don't even have a place to live in the Favela, they sleep in the street. Seeing the poverty is hard to endure for a European.
I live in Switzerland (expat not Swiss) and love how this country is organised. It is possible to work in cities like Zurich or Basel and live in smaller, cheaper places. It is possible to live in a cute, postcard-like town without a car, because of great public transit system. For me, car-independence means freedom. Car might be the great option but should not be necessity.
I 100% agree, here in Czechia, it's possible too live without car in most of villages and I am glad that I don't have a car becuase those people with cars are so limited in what they can visit, they will never see places with no parking and they are extremely lazy and constantly rush somewhere, even when it's pointless, they live like 10 minutes ride from work, but when you delay them about 1 minute, they are angry, it just doesn't make any sense to me and I am glad that I am not part of this bizar car culture where people don't make single step, I don't know why this culture is still suviving here, young people are different, but that's valid probably more like for Prague and other bigger cities, I am originaly from Prague, so I am used to walk many km every day or use public transportation, these people in small cities are extremely lazy.
@@Pidalin I had no idea Czech Republic has such a great public transit system! Good for you. I am from Poland and Poland is getting more and more car-centric, which is bad. Here in Switzerland kids are walking or taking public transit to get to school. Same with outside school activities. Guess what are obesity rates... low.
After some time in Switzerland, if I need to move for professional reasons it will be only a country with good public transit.
@@Erintii I was traveling a lot in Poland in last 5 years and yes and no, people in Poland are probably more car-centric than here, but you have pretty good public transportation too and I see massive investments there, you have new train lines etc....you have actually much better trains than here, it's only 3 hours from Warsaw to Gdańsk by train and it's 300 km, that maybe doesn't look that good, but here in Czechia, you travel half day for such distance by train because our tracks are overloaded and you constantly wait somewhere in fields, but Poland massively invested to new tracks in last 15 years, we started with that recently and that's too late. But some things really bother me about Polish trains, mainly that you need ticket connected to specific train and all better trains, you need even seat reservation, you don't have anything like our flexible ticket from A to B where you can use any train you want on that route.
But Poland is very different, you have big areas with only few people, while we have some village or city every 500m, so you can always walk for train or bus to next village when you don't have stop in your village, so you can live without car in most of places with no problem. But it happens that you need to get to city which is only 30 km from you, but you have to change bus or train 2 times and you travel ridiculously long time there, so in such cases, it's probably better to have a car. Your regional village bus/train mostly goes directly to the capital city of your region, so when you need to get more far, you have to always switch minimaly once.
@@Pidalin Good to know you are travelling. Unfortunately there are still a lot of small places without public transit as "everyone has a car". Surely, cities like Gdansk, Warsaw or Cracow are great. Even some smaller too, but it is really regionally dependent.
Obviously not every village can have public transit connection, some are too remote and then car is must have.
I think a lot of public transit connections were lost as ppl no longer were using them, and it was in 90s. For some ppl after 89' it became part of social status to get a car and not use bus and of course commercials did what did. Of course a lot of people are using trains to commute and it's fast and no traffic! I myself grew up in a city with poor public transit (city was not small simply badly governed), and have family living in car-dependent neighborhood so skewed.
As for train tickets, OMG this is complicated. It is legacy of 90s and transformation when previously public company (PKP) was divided into several smaller companies this is why you are buying a ticket for both company and route. I
Here in Switzerland there are two types of tickets: saver for selected connection (e.g. IC Zurich - Chur) or "point-to-point" meaning anything on this route. I hope one day this will be available in Poland because it's so much easier. In Swiss trains seat reservation is rare and happens to some IC trains, but in general it's first come first seated.
This is not the first video where an eloquent and smart US Cititzen is showing me interesting aspects of my own country. Thank you!
One thing I've heard and noticed about German villages and suburban areas is they all have more walking areas, unique features, and a real culture about them. Here in America, pretty much every suburban development looks the same and is largely designed for cars. Miles and miles of concrete, fewer beautification areas, more shopping centers going up. Family-owned shops and stores in my area are quickly getting replaced by chain stores, fast-food restaurants on every corner, and gentrification has been wreaking havoc downtown. You don't find much culture, aside from maybe the occasional festival once a year, and certainly less unique features and innovative planning. Makes me sad.
Eine sehr interessante Folge! Unsere Tochter hat in Collegepark (MD) studiert. Wie das so ist, haben wir als Eltern ihr Zimmer eingerichtet 🤓. Ein IKEA war wenige 100 m von ihrem Haus entfernt. Aber! Es gab nicht den Hauch einer Chance, dorthin zu Fuß (es gibt keine Bürgersteige), mit einem Bus (gibs nicht) oder gar mit dem Fahrrad (Fahrrad scheint dort eher Sportgerät, als Verkehrsmittel zu sein) zu erreichen. Wenn man also mal einen Wandhaken vergessen hatte, musste man das viel zu große Auto anschmeißen. Dito, wenn man zum Grocery Store oder einem Supermarkt wollte.
Ich hatte permanent das Gefühl, dass der Stadtplaner wohl noch jung war und ein paar fundamentale Fehler gemacht hat - die irgendwann korrigiert werden. Bis ich gemerkt habe, dass dies eher die Regel ist. Andererseits ist Collegepark sehr gut mit OPNV mit Washington oder dem Airport verbunden ... nur muss man erst mal bis zur S-Bahn kommen ... irgendwie ...
Bei einem abendlichen Bier auf der Terrasse der Nachbarn, habe ich die Familie gefragt, warum das so extrem nervend ist und sie meinten dann, dass sie das eigentlich ganz OK finden. Denn "so sieht man, wenn komische Leute ins Viertel fahren". Zwar teile ich die Auffassung nicht, aber es zeigt mal wieder, dass man als Europäer nicht alles besser wissen muss.
In einem Küstenort nahe Boston hab ich dann jedoch auch Stadtentwürfe gefunden, die genau so auch 1:1 in Irland oder UK wiederzufinden wären: regelmaessiger Bus, Fahrradwege, Fußgängerwege, Mischgebiete mit Tante-Emma-Läden usw.
Was ich sagen will, die Amerikaner haben ja alle Stadtplanungs-Varianten im eigenen Land, können sich also an eigenen Beispielen orientieren - wenn sie denn wollen.😎
I know my German stinkt so here goes with Google Translate. Die endlosen Variationen der Perspektive lassen uns alle endlos alles hinterfragen. Ich war noch nie in Deutschland, bin aber größtenteils von der deutschstämmigen Seite meiner Familie erzogen worden. Ich hasse die Entwicklung der Vereinigten Staaten mit nur wenigen Ausnahmen, und ich habe vergessen, was diese Ausnahmen sind. Hummel Hummel.
I like how you're reflecting on the differences based on solid research as well as your own personal experience. Having lived in both Switzerland and the US, I can relate very much to what you're communicating here.
What you could bring into the discussion a bit more is how much the differences in urban planning are also dependent on adequate public transit options, pedestrian- and bike infrastructure. Unfortunately, car dependency and suburban sprawling mutually re-enforce each other. CityNerd and Not Just Bikes are two UA-cam channels who bring this up time and again.
Yes those are excellent channels! Suburbia is affected by so many other aspects of urban design and transportation. As you mention, unfortunately - it is in part of what makes it so difficult to change.
Gruezi.
Grew up in the sort of "mixed" neighbourhood, where you could walk to get basic stuff. Can't imagine how different my childhood would have been in American-style suburbia.
I live in Germany, an American, and just this morning I walked to blocks to pick up Croissants and lauge Ecke for breakfast. 🙂
YUM! My personal favorite is the Shokobrötchen, but you gotta get there early before they sell out.
I love your videos. They are very high quality, very well presented and (above all) very well researched. I learned so much in this one alone. Not only about american zoning but also why our neighborhoods in Germany look the way they do. You taught me something about my own country!
Thank you very much! Keep doing what you're doing!
We Americans are incredibly inconsiderate and unwelcoming of each other in suburbia. I’m constantly side-eyed for being friendly as if I’m trying to pull con job. My less affluent neighbors don’t appear to trust me much and generally disagree with my opinions on improving our small town. The problem is as much the toxic culture as it is zoning. Keeping the poor at a distance has long been the game here. It’s sickening and getting worse with time.
That's something I think she's missing in her analysis. She talks about how zoning in the United States effectively separates people by socioeconomic status but doesn't seem to realize that from the perspective of many suburban dwellers that's a feature, not a bug.
@@studentofsmith It's def a feature to me!!! Oh Hell yeah. I don't want my Neighborhood turning into the hood. Does that make me seem mean or smallminded??? I ummmmmm Don't care. My kids are my life and their safety is far FARRRRRR more Important to me than getting praising like clicks for being progressively virtuous.
My sister-in-law lives in southern London (England), and 1 block away from her is a block consisting of small shops and restaurants. It’s wonderful to pop down the road and grab some hardware while my wife is across the street ordering dinner….
A friend lives above the grocery store and bakery his family owns - it is normal to us to walk into the grocery, past his office and open the door to the stairs that lead upstairs to their apartment!
Two things you forget. First, suburban homes traditionally were small. Now, they are huge. 2nd. In england, city homes had large backyards, but small houses. They all had gardens, previously. So, the idea of american suburbia has changed. Small homes, with small backyards to huge homes with huge backyards.