@@ianhomerpura8937 Public transit is not the issue in Chicago. Just as it isn't in New York. The issue is what was mentioned in video...only 5% of the populace uses them (although actually it is a LOT higher in Chicago and New York than that--chicago has 200 million riders and the NYC Subway has 2 BILLION--those cities feature some of the highest usage rates in the world....other cities are what bring that average down). Chicago has extensive bike rental (yes we have plenty of bike lanes and bikes, contrary to the points made in the video), Elevated train and bus service but people prefer the comfort of their car. The L--even with line switches and accounting for stops--takes a *max* of 30 minutes to get anywhere in the city or from city to suburb. Stops account for about 1/3 of that accrued time. What IS terribly designed is the grid system that places like Chicago and Manhattan use which promote congestion.
He used it because he wanted to point on the not so great layout. He had to, because, well, other US cities dont have a public transport layout at all :D :D
Hate to break it to this guy but most US Cities have bike lanes everywhere. This guy clearly knows nothing about the US. As a kid, I was riding my bike everywhere. All my friends rode bikes. If I sat around the house it was because I wanted to not because I could not ride my bike outside.
"Bike lanes". Small slithers of painted unprotected lanes next to cars going 50 mph aren't exactly encouraging cycling. A lot of bike lanes just end abruptly too, forcing cyclists to share the road with drivers.Terrible designs like this are why the US has an incredibly high pedestrian death rate. American cities are designed in a shitty way, things are so far from one another cycling is usually not an option.
@@BlueBlue-mm7kn What exacly is a lie? I can walk outside my home and take a picture of the bike lane. As a kid, I biked around my area all the time. If you wanted to hang out with friends you got on your bike and headed over to their place.
Even Los Angeles was designed as a close knit city with a huge train network in the beginning. There are several issues that changed US cities, most of which are unique to the US. 1) the affordability of cars which used the road that trams used and delayed the trams and made them too slow, 2) the failure of many cities to separate trams from cars, 3) the huge influx of tens of millions of poor European immigrants in the early 1900s fleeing Europe's endless wars, famines, and genocides in addition to the first great migration of African Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South, caused severe overcrowding in cities like NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago 4) the amount of space available to build bigger homes on the edges of cities grew outward and outward very quickly, 5) these suburbs grew fast and trams just couldn't keep up, roads were faster and cheaper to build and the city streetcars were torn up 6) there was a huge exodus from center cities to suburbs and many of these suburbs in the 40s and 50s excluded Black people, making them more desirable to white people, which emptied out the center neighborhoods in a phenomenon called "white flight", 7) once these suburbs got set up and grew large and the inner cities were emptied, more people from outside the city worked in downtown making large parking facilities, huge streets, and freeways, necessary to get workers into the city and back out quickly. Middle class people worked downtown but did all of their other business, shopping, and recreation in the suburbs. Central cities became desolate after 5pm and dangerous well into the 80s It's only in the last 10-15 years that many cities have experienced urban renaissances and have begun transforming their central cities into more livable, and desirable places like you would find in Europe. Many cities are burying parking lots, (ex.: open parking in Chicago's Loop have been buried and replaced with buildings and parks), building bike lanes, planting trees, and better transit, all to bring people in since the commutes from the suburbs have become unbearable in many cities and many lament living in sterile suburbs where there is no place to get a pizza at midnight. Now, today the pandemic has changed a lot about how and where people work, so we'll just have to wait and see how that pans out and what that means for cities.
As a person who grew up in one of the major cities in the US, I personally don't mind the "sterile" suburbs. Not everyone is going to live in the city where commute to the city for work is inevitable and unavoidable.
The one good part of American public transportation is the school bus system. No kid by law can be more than one mile from a school bus stop and every kid rides the bus for free.
This guy seems to be stuck in a European mindset and thinks everywhere should be designed like Europe. One of the major differences between the US and Europe is the size. The US is massive and people travel a lot farther for school work etc. Walking and biking isn’t always an option. And since we have the space it’s much more cost effective to put in a parking lot instead of an underground parking garage.
The creator of the video is a fool. Lol. There are things to not like about US cities, and he is right about our public transit being generally horrible (very few cities have good rail systems, and most use busses). But please. Philadelphia has over 6 million in the metro area including suburbs... that’s why the downtown has so many parking spaces. Amsterdam meanwhile has less than 2.5 million, and is 60 sq miles smaller than Philadelphia. Now apply that to most US cities. NY has 8 million in the city, but over 23 million in the metro area and is over 472 sq miles. Parking spaces are not the problem with US cities. -_-
NYC and Philly are NOT laid out like 80% of cities in the US are. I've been to most of them. There is literally no where to walk or bike in most cities and the traffic patterns all rely on heavy acceleration and heavy braking and you feel like a dumbass like you're on some kind of rollercoaster.
No high school in the US is 5,100 square feet in size. My house is bigger than 5,100 square feet. The average high school is 175,000 square feet. The biggest public HS in the US is 1.2 million square feet indoors and has a 65 acre campus. Some independent schools have several hundred acres of campus. The 2005 square feet of parking spaces is enough for 10 (20x10) parking spaces. That is nothing for a highschool.
I can literally explain away every point made in this video. I'm not stating American cities are designed perfectly, but all his points really aren't true or make no sense.
I live in America and I can tell you right now some of his points are completely true. Unless you're in one of the wealthier Cities where they are building infrastructure often commuting in America is much more expensive and always require a car in the majority of the country. Public transport is terrible in America and it's not even available in most of the country. I currently live in Tulsa, and we have no public transport, and terrible roads with even worse sidewalks and none or few dedicated bike lanes so bicyclists and normal pedestrians kept getting hit. We were the worst city for hit and runs at one point I think. And now the city is starting to copy the European method with new designated walking and biking paths that aren't part of the actual Road. Still no public transport though. And also people in rural areas are fucked most of the time if u can't afford a car.
That guy is fixated on how he feels as a pedestrian in America. This is one American who isn't constantly in fear of getting his by a car when walking in the city. I dismiss his emotion-based argument.
The Dane clearly doesn't understand the hub and spoke system. He'd be a wiz (not) at how to set up airplanes. Every small city will have direct flights to every other small city. ::shaking head::
@@dudeman4184 Really? When I was in highschool every day I would walk about a mile next to a 6-lane arterial road during busy hours, the only thing separating me from cars was a curb, and I never felt uncomfortable walking next to them passing by. The only thing that ever made me uncomfortable was the weather and the risk of being jumped. I really don’t understand where the idea of being scared by passing traffic comes from
@@Poopsticle_256 yea because that's all we are used to in America, walking next to cars that's not how it is supposed to be you think people during George Washington's time walked next to cars to commute to where? no they had walkable cities where they didn't have to drive every where and frankly we should be doing this because walkable cities are better for capitalism and bring in more money since people don't have to pay for a car, car insurance, gas, car repairs giving them more money to spend on local mom and pop shops as they walk by these every day we shot our selves in the foot
His first mistake was comparing old, dense European cities in northern Europe to American city planning. His only fair points are that our public transit, collectively, is behind other first-world countries and that many American towns could benefit from more sidewalks and bike lanes. Everything else is rubbish
"these are his mistakes however im not gonna tell you why they are wrong" Your comment in a nutshell. If you're gonna comment something like this at least tell why you don't agree lol
The oil industry is actually a big part of the reason why there's such a focus on cars in the US. They want to sell as much fuel as possible and the more people who use cars to get around the more money they make. That's why they even do something as shitty as lobbying against any attempts to improve on public transportation in major cities.
What do you think happens to car dependency when you improve upon other modes of transportation like public transit, trams, cycling, and walking? His points flow from the premises you agree with. US cities don't have to be car dependent, they're built that way for a reason. And since we already have a dependency on cars in the cities we need to expand highways that connect cities that don't improve traffic at all before we invest in real transportation infrastructure.
@@codyyh9421 The explanation is embedded in his first sentence, it just takes some reflection. "Old, dense European"...Amsterdam has been around for how long? A thousand years, give or take depending on what you consider a city. Its roadways, property ownership, and culture was established LONG before motor vehicles. To build parking lots, Amsterdam had huge financial incentives to place parking lots underground - the land was too valuable to leave it semi-vacant. Philadelphia on the other hand, was established in 1701, but much of it's growth came AFTER the invention of the automobile, and areas that NOW are within the city limits were still the outskirts. Land was open and relatively inexpensive. There was no financial incentive to spending huge amounts to move the parking underground. It made far more sense to just buy up cheap land and turn it into a parking lot. Rest assured, property owners in Philadelphia would happily build underground parking lots in areas where they could recoup those costs in a reasonable amount of time. And in some expensive downtown areas, that is certainly the case. While land price is the predominant factor, it's not the only one. Climate is another. The average temperature in the Netherlands ranges from 41F in winter to 58F in summer. Philadelphia ranges from 30F in winter to 78F in summer - both much colder in winter, and much hotter in summer. Biking in Philly isn't feasible when the roads are icy, or heat stroke likely on the 20+ mile average commute. See? It wasn't that hard to figure out after all. YAH21's was right, the Danish video creator cherry picked his information and didn't bother digging into real estate values, population density, and other fairly obvious reasons why the cities are so different. There are also extreme cultural differences - the USA is a car based culture. There are 247 cars per 1000 people in Amsterdam. Philadelphia has 421 per 1000. And Philadelphia has one of the lowest car ownerships rates in the entire country.
I'm glad you blokes can see through this one sided provincial video. The variations in climate, geography, distance and population make this video a rediculous comparison.
If you are just going to walk or bike somewhere in the US you would have to live in a bigger city. Some places are so rural and remote you're literally 30 miles from anything but your neighbors and maybe a gas station. This country is massive and it just would make sense as a whole for cars to be the main transportation.
I wouldnt take public transport in certain cities either. With all the things that are happening in Subways in New York City and the dumpster fire that is LA , I will skip public transport.
@@thomasandersson367 Literally the majority DON'T live in major cities. The top 10 largest cities make up about 35 million people out of over 330 million. A large number of the population live in areas that having public transport is impossible.
@@mattc2824 I would guess that most people live in places where public transport i possible. Or do most people live alone in the forest far away from society?
to every american who got offended by this video... listen to what he actually said. I saw multiple people saying he said stuff like there being no bike lanes or sidewalks thats not what he said he just showed how awful those are compared to european citys and how car focused usa is you cant deny that usa isnt car based you drive everywhere which im not going to argue which is better or which is worse but then some people also said all the parkin slots are for visitors like damn amsterdamn with 1 parking slot per 3 people here going just fine and its a big touristy city or paris... ever heard of paris? isnt that a mayor tourist destination yet you dont have to rent a car or even if you live in paris own a car you just got 100 meters to the nearest buss stop or subway and go to everywhere you want fast and cheap and if you want to travel a longer distance go with the subway to a trainstation or hell even to an airport
As for transport in the major cities: Chicago has many ways to get around. Trains to come in from the suburbs. An elevated subway (the L) to get around town. And buses going all over. These "American public transport" videos over-generalize and never really look at what America has. Not to mention that the Netherlands has a population of 17.4 million and America has 329 million. You can't just take a method from a small country and scale up.
Sure you can. They were comparing cities. Ironically, Philadelphia is one of the more pedestrian friendly cities in America so that was an odd choice, but.... still, the principle is the same. Things can be improved upon by modeling change based on a 'successful' example.
Dude most cities aren't like Chicago. Some don't have any public transport, and terrible sidewalks. Some cities are incredibly easy to get around, but just as many I'd say are pretty bad
@@lnstks96 I have lived in L.A. San Francisco and now near Chicago and all had excellent public trans. As does New York and Milwaukee from my experience. Is it 100 percent across the entire country? Of course not. Our country is massive, diverse and sprawling. We have the space to live far from where we work in neighborhoods with personal property large enough to make walking difficult. Besides, the video maker claimed all of America had no public transport and then cherry picked a few good examples in Europe and I'm saying that there are cities in the US that have it just as good. European countries may have one or two major cities each but the US has at least 25 massive cities and a score more medium sized ones. Some are great at things and some aren't. It's not fair to lump all of America under one umbrella.
@@AndySaputo Best part of the video was the the Utopian paradise of limited cars and a society powered by the human battery...😂😂 Underground bike paths... 😂😂😂😂😂 All I could think was, "Yeah, sure, let's just build an underground bike/walking path. I'm curious as to how they will get around all the boxes and tents that will soon appear."
Europeans judging the US for not being more European is like Americans judging Europe for not being more American. It's a ridiculous critique/standard. It's like asking why a chicken isn't a frog.
@@DelaHorror he’s one of those people that say Americans are ignorant but can’t even do a little research to find out that we have side walks and bike lanes just like every other country
As an American living in the South East you would be amazed if you are forced to become a pedestrian how often you find yourself with no sidewalk and forced to decide between walking in the street with traffic or walking on the edge of a steep hill or through mud etc. There needs to be improvement but I think the idea of being able to transform most American city’s to anything resembling Amsterdam is far fetched at best.
@@StackRunItUp Lucky for you. I've lived in three different large states in America and I can't say that any of them has side walks everywhere they need to be. If you were paying attention to the video you would have noticed that he did no say there were not sidewalks in America. He said that you could be walking on a side walk and all of a sudden the sidewalk end and you're forced to walk in the road or a hazardous area. As someone that didn't have a car for much of my youth I've experienced that in several different American towns. I don't agree with alot of what that guy had to say but let's not pretend America doesn't have some infrastructure issues. And that's one of them.
The guy starts with the value judgement that cars = bad, bikes = good, with no consideration whatsoever that maybe others might have different priorities. Perhaps he should get used to the idea that the United States is not Copenhagen.
Well cars involve air pollution, crash risk, noise pollution, ugly road designs, large parking lots which take up space that can be used for housing or businesses, they inspire infrastructure to be built around them which makes those without a car less able to travel, they're expensive to maintain, roads are expensive to maintain... Is that enough? Should I...should I keep going?
Many Americas do have access to buses, trains, and walking paths…however driving is far more convenient, it’s quicker, and it’s private. This guy has no clue what he’s talking about.
Took me like a minute into the video to find out you guys are just completely blindfolded with the thought of having to drive everywhere and actually considering it better and/or more comfortable. Although I admit that comparing US to the most bike friendly city on planet is not really fair, your arguments are still pretty absurd. "Imagine you don't have to worry about parking lot". Yeah, imagine that you have 330 mil country and a 1 mil city. If everyone uses a car to move in and through the city (including visitors), you have to build 20 lane highways and 5 times more parking spaces then there's people in the city. Basically turning the city into ghost town with literal asphalt desert instead of habitable buildings. Also, because it (parking and roads) take MUCH more space, your 1 mil city will now be on 500 km2 (San Jose) compared to lets say Amsterdam (200 km2). Which means: 1) You literally can't walk or bike anywhere, because it's too far. 2) In your beloved car, you have to travel longer distances. 3) You're still going to end up in traffic jam, because of induced demand law. 4) Everyone lives near road, meaning AWFUL noise conditions, causing severe health problems (scientifically proved). 5) New homes HAVE to be build even more far away from the city centre (on the suburbs) meaning they HAVE to use car to do anything meaning you HAVE to expand highways again meaning you HAVE to bulldoze some houses that are near the highways meaning you HAVE to relocate these people to new houses which are build on the suburbs... Now do you see this infinite downward spiral ending in complete bulldozation and asphaltation of the whole US?
Getting a strong "why isn't everyone's house like my house" message. Better public transit would be fantastic. But why do I drive? Because I have the option to not bike miles to and from work in terrible weather. Also, pedestrians always have right of way on local streets, even if they are crossing illegally. Still, this guy's not as bad as entitled bicyclists who like to get into random arguments on the internet.
The dude who made this video is a fool. I'm not just saying that because I'm from Philadelphia. It's just that he didn't remotely make the points he thought he was making. Yes. American cities are disasters in many ways. Just not the ways he talked about.
@@sonyabyrd8739 Well I jumped the gun a bit calling him a fool. That was just hot-headedness. I actually feel he was onto something in regards to the need for stronger public transit infrastructure. My biggest problem was that he's not acknowledging the fact that the excessive parking spots in the city are there because the city grows significantly every day for work. The majority of people working there live 15-40 miles away. You can't bike that. The cars have to go somewhere. Better public transit would work a bit, but that costs a lot of money. Switzerland has a wonderful system, but it's also among the most expensive places on earth to live. Painting an entire country with the same expensive brush like he did just isn't something that's doable. I'm not really looking to argue. It's just different. When Copenhagen has as many people as Philadelphia has commuting into it each day, I'll be glad to hear all about how useful their bicycles are. The real trouble here is with WHY so many people find themselves having to travel into the city each day to work. But that's a socioeconomic discussion, and would be a much different video. In the meantime, the comparison is apples and oranges. All I'm seeing is a dude who likes bikes a lot. Also, I didn't proofread this.
@@daveglarner2138 I immediately knew this video was biased and full of incorrect information when he brought up the parking spaces in Philly vs it’s population. Like ok, 1.6 million people live within the city limits of Philly, but it’s like 6 million in the metro area. And maybe there’s all those parking spaces because like a quarter of the population of South Jersey (where I’m at) drives into Philly everyday for work like you said. Yeah lemme just bike down the AC expressway and over the Ben Franklin every day.
@@daveglarner2138😂 The video was just all around lazy and sloppy. They should have compared Copenhagen to San Francisco or some other wealthy city. I mean, why toss Philly out there? Philadelphia is #5 on the top Pedestrian Friendly Cities and has the #1 largest Urban Park system in the U.S. But I guess having too many parking lots negates all of the positives. 😂
@@sonyabyrd8739 Ha! Well San Francisco has its own set of problems. Most cities are expensive to live in. San Francisco is towards the top of that list. The problem is, when you have entire areas with income like that, your industry will begin to reflect that. It'll focus on real estate. That's fine, but then the problem becomes the fact that SOMEONE has to actually build that stuff. And that particular someone is not going to be a person with the income to actually live there. So, they'll have to commute in too. And the cycle begins again. Their trolleys are certainly cool, but nobody is going to ride a bike back and forth on those hills they have. So yes. Definitely a different beast than Philadelphia, although there's all sorts of money there too. Especially "the main line" just outside of it) but it's still all rooted in a similar underlying issue. If a plan works somewhere, that doesn't necessarily translate to working that well somewhere else. I know I just rambled. It's just tough for me to see people make videos on subjects that far exceed their understanding. There are reasons for everything, everywhere. Some of those reasons are good. Some of them aren't.
The guy who made the video is so ignorant on what he's talking about. He's the kind of European who looks at the US and just doesn't understand it so he calls it a problem because its not like what he's used to or prefers. He doesn't understand the geographic issues of space, parking spots are not causing space issues, its a big country and if people could make more money by putting something else there they would. He doesn't understand the public transportation issue, most people don't want European style public transportation public transportation is a last resort to most people here. He doesn't understand that Uber exist for short travel and that planes exist for long travel. He doesn't seem to know when he mentioned Houston and showed people walking around a hundred years ago that cars were less prevalent and the city was a tenth the size. The idea that having fewer parking spots would solve transportation issues is so absurd its astounding. He also doesn't understand the costs of his dream list. The California highspeed rail line is hundreds of millions if not a billion over budget and not even closed to finished and might never be. I could go on but I can't even refute his sources because he doesn't provide any. This is why I laugh at arrogant Europeans who stick their noses in the air about America, they don't have the slightest clue what they're talking about. Anyways you guys are great, keep it up, I'm gonna go to Amsterdam and complain how inefficient the canals are and how they could be roads and cut commute time in half lol.
US kids on house arrest? What is this guy smoking? When I grew up I could go all over the place from hiking in the hills up my street to biking a few blocks to grab a pizza and play arcade games with friends. Dude doesn't know what he's talking about.
This guy is nuts. As a child in the USA, I was busier than most adults. Our schools have so much extra curricular activities with free buses to and from. Also I biked everywhere as a kid with ABSOLUTELY no issues. But on a side note we usually don't allow our kids to go to the store on their own for milk.
@@bobdobb9017 I'm not saying this is a valid reason, I'm just going to point this out. There's a definite bias here in the states towards cars. You totally can get bicycle insurance, but if you're in a city and your bicycle is stolen, police are a bit at a loss of looking for a generically similar bike as the other thousands of others of the same model and tend to have a bit of a lack luster response towards searching for it. However when a car is stolen, the police are a bit more gung-ho about keeping an eye out for it. I had an experience where it wasn't my bike that was stolen, but someone I knew and the police were involved and they basically said they'd be able to identify the bike if they knew the serial number. . . . a tiny stamped on number on the frame of the bike usually hidden away on some obscure angle. No one ever really looks for it, so we didn't know. We truly were SOL at that point. So yes, more bikes were ridden back in the day, but today, more bikes are stolen and less is done about it. It's sad and really not an excuse over all, but it's a bit of a deterrent to some.
@@steeljawX you also have dumba$$drivers who don't look for blind spots Making and normalizing automatic transmission was a mistake, since people are less busy driving a car and feel comfy without hitting shifts
@@BradPixelManH if I still lived in the country I could see the nessessity for a car but in my city (its not a big city I understand) but its just not worth the cost of a car when I can get one of the many buses.
The dude who made this video doesn't seem to ever have been to the US. What bike is going to carry 5+ bags of stuff you bought? Why would I want to bike for an hour when I can drive in 15 min? Is it amazing Houston wasn't designed for cars before cars?...... uh no? Have your kid walk miles to get to school and, depending on the area, potentially get robbed or shot on the way? I guess I'll just bike away from the next tornado. America doesn't have the bike frenzy that Copenhagen apparently does.
Ahh, a guy from a country smaller than the state I’m from with a population lower than the state I’m from, trying to speak for Americans and what they want. He cherry picks a couple of cities and images that fit his narrative, and really ignores the vast rural areas and suburban culture, that, despite its bad rap online, is still highly desirable for a lot of people and provides large homes and plots of land, and safe neighborhoods (that children can ride bikes in 😂). I don’t think American cities are perfect or free of problems by any means, but this guy presented a totally one sided argument and seems to think that the majority of Americans are suffering from driving cars and having an excess of parking lots. I know someone will comment about how they wished the states had more public transport because they hate driving/blah blah blah and think they represent the majority. As always, great reaction guys!
You are absolutely right. This video is propaganda. Here are the real statistics: Houston population: 2.3 million Amsterdam population: 1,158,000 Copenhagen population: 799, 033 Houston area: 669 square miles / 1651 square kilometers (Established on a swamp in 1837) Amsterdam area: 84.7 square miles / 219.4 square kilometers (Established in 1327) Copenhagen area: 34.07 square miles / (Established in 1416) Houston temperatures reach or exceed 90 °F (32 °C) an average of 106.5 days per year Amsterdam average high in August is 22.1 °C (72 °F) Chicago the normal winter high from December through March is about 36 °F (2 °C) Only 3% of the USA is urbanized 97% is rural. Do not fall for the myth of urban sprawl.
But the thing is that most of your big cities where most of your population live in aren´t larger than for ex Tokyo. And Tokyo can make better transportation why can´t usa. And your pollution dont just mess up USA it creates problem for everyone.
@@thomasandersson367 I refer you to the comment above. Also, Tokyo is an even farther stretch to compare than European cities. You can’t compare. Or, rather, you can, but it’s a terribly misleading comparison…. Tokyo is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. American cities are large and spread out. Americans like their space.
@@thomasandersson367 Because Tokyo metro is massive the biggest in the world, they didn't have another option but to make it work, there is no space there like we have in the states, and the country is only about the size of California. They still have massive traffic issues there, traffic is horrible everywhere there, I was stationed there for 3 years.
@@emobx02 Well you can take other cities most of the cities in the developed world have good public transportation. Besides It´s harder and more expensive to built trains and so on in an dense town as Tokyo because of the lack of space. So It easier to do that in the states than in Tokyo so your argument dosen´t work.
The person who made this video doesnt understand the difference in America and Denmark. He is looking at the population of the city itself and not size of the metro area that the city supports. Copenhagen is a fraction the size of Philadelphia when you look at the size and population of the metro area.
"America big" isn't really a good defense of our shit urban planning. Especially considering the geographical size of the metro area is a direct consequence of that same poor urban planning. American cities arent so special and unique that they require miles and miles of suburban sprawl surrounding them. That's a hole we purposefully dug for ourselves.
@@callowaymotorcompany I wouldn't defend our infrastructure as I know it has major issues and a lack of good mass transportation. However, this creator's simplistic explanations comparing a metro area supporting more than 6m people to one supporting less than 2m don't cover it in my opinion. There are cities in the US that would be a much closer comparison like Austin, Texas for instance. I guess my main concern with the original video is it seems to completely miss the real reason for the issue which to me is cultural differences in what people want and will accept. One example of that is the average home size in the US is 7x that of the average home in Denmark.
@@cham1592 Also most modern Urbanist forget one important thing, even with more urban living choices to choose from in cities known for sprawl, a large number of people are still choosing a suburban, personal transport lifestyle over one built around mass transit. One reason is cultural, in the south and southwest where sprawl is king, Urbanist falsely believe it all began with the car. It began with the horse, or should I say Farm culture just prior to the end of the Revolutionary war. This culture took root here in the South and later Southwest When Thomas Jefferson wrote, that his, and other Southern founders vision was an America of Gentlemen Farmers, While other founding fathers from Boston and Philadelphia's vision was an America of great cities, like Europe. (these notes and letters can be found at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville)
@@cham1592 Do you think the US became car dependent because of cultural differences? Actually? Not because of top down urban planning in the 50s and 60s?
@Jeffrey Dick What the government decides on is the preference of the american population as a whole by default? Thats news to me. In my neck of the woods, people tend to find federal policy pretty distasteful. But i suppose its possible that you live in some trashed democrat run city. In my state people generally love having the option of rail that we've built.
Hell yeah as an American I love hopping into my pickup truck for my hour commute into the city every day for work. Nothing gets me going like burning a hundred tons of carbon on my way to and from suburban hell
@@ethanpintar5454 because making you absolutely reliant on a car means you have to have a financial burden for life. You have to buy car, maintain a car, insure a car, pay taxes for the car and the american infrastructure was built in a way that many don't even have a choice in the matter.
@@4Curses Having a car also gives you more freedom of movement, since you're not beholden to the routes and timetables of public transport systems. There are clear advantages and disadvantages of both ways, the point is that you should have the freedom to do either.
@@ethanpintar5454 what freedom? Do most people care about freedom? If they are for freedom, why do they disapprove open carry? And cycling isn't free? Specaily it can where cars can't due to mobility size? Where is the freedom if the car breaks down?
I don't think any American thinks our infrastructure design is perfect. But you can't just look at it from one perspective. I would say improving economic development, highway safety, congestion relief, and the ability to quickly evacuate cities are very important factors towards the design. If you have an atomic bomb headed towards your city. Good luck on your bike or public transportation.
Bud if you have an ICBM headed at your city, you will not have enough time to get far enough away to matter. If it's launched from a sub, you have 10-15 minutes. If it were to be launched from Russia, you have 30 minutes, good luck. Not that it matters, if somebody launched a nuke at us, the gov would not tell people, as there is no point. We would simply launch a retaliation strike as there would be thousands of other missiles right behind that one and life as we know it is over.
Actually, if you're talking about mass evacuation from a population center, a bike would be your best bet. Worst thing you can do is get into a car and try to drive out. Especially if everyone else in the city had that exact same idea.
I can't hate this video enough. 1st of all the Philly metro area contains about 8 million people. 2) I've lived in Philly my whole life and have never seen an road that didn't also have a sidewalk plus bike lane. 3) in America we like cars. Car culture is intertwined with American culture. This is a huge country. We enjoy being able to live in a small cottage on acres of farmland and take our car into the city for work.
The fact that Texas is bigger than France and Europeans think the USA is the same size as Europe boggles me the US is really fucking big maybe if the Mediterranean sea and Baltic Sea’s were land than Europe would be the same size as the US but we rely on cars in the states that it’s become a norm due to its size
Ugh, yes. I saw someone arguing that Europe was larger on Twitter. What he was doing was only counting the size of the contiguous US, and for Europe was including Russia. So yes, in that case, Europe is larger when Russia gets added in. But if just counting the continental US, which is what would be relevant here, the USA is about double the size of the European Union in area.
Lol cars are not good for going far. A train is less likely to crash, can go way faster and is way more efficent over a long distance. And we know how big the US is which is why we think that it is hilarious that the US doesnt have high speed trains.
@@toniderdon We were, but then we went for the Interstate system. Meanwhile during WWII, European rail lines were bombed to hell and all logistics stopped for everyone except the Allies who had the US with their quarter ton pickups and soldiers who knew how to drive them. If only those superior trains could have gotten around those wrecked sections of track. But and intercontinental rail line would not make sense for the US. There'd be either too few or too many stops along the way from coast to coast. Either your goal would be to get from one coast to the other, or to get some where in between. If you're aiming in between, how do you decide who gets on the line? Regional lines would work with lines connecting those together, but 1designated line would not be economically or environmentally practical. And technically the USA does have a high speed train. . . . Japan borrowed our research and tech and made theirs based off of it. Not the whole thing, but once the Interstate project was underway and they were interested in making their own and asked for ours, we kind of just gave them what we were working on. . . so it's like a school group project, except Japan did all the work and we didn't get a grade for it. And yes, this comment is a snarky quip back, a technical potential solution for discussion, and a fact joke all wrapped in one.
WTF 🤣 If the guy who made this video spent 27 seconds on Google he'd realize that America has a population of 330 Million, most of which are packed into just several coastal cities, and also happens to be much much larger. His European-centric mind can't comprehend that making your kids walk to school can mean forcing them to walk 2 hours every morning and 2 hours back. Riding your bike to work could mean 3 1/2 hours there and 3 1/3 hours back. Too many parking spaces? Tell that to every person in any city that spends 30 minutes driving around in circles looking for a space to park. Was this some high school kid who never left his tiny little town in GB?
The EU has a population of 445 million. Most cities are extremely walk-able and have fantastic public infrastructure. I'm American but European infrastructure shits completely over ours. I took high-speed rail all over Europe and buses within the cities without ever once thinking about renting a car. Frankly it's embarrassing that even tiny European villages have better public transit and city planning than the best American ones.
I like how he says America was "designed for cars, not humans"...as if cars aren't just extensions of people. Most americans agree it would be great if there was some usable form of high-speed rail between big cities, but there's def a positive side to just being able to get in your car and drive wherever, whenever. Also, Holland and Denmark are tiny little countries smaller than south carolina. It's just not as practical.
Yeah but with reliable public transit, it’s cheaper and feels more convenient than driving since you don’t have to worry about keeping up with the true costs of having a car. Also, you can’t drive during rush hour, that’s fs
California has been battling for years on getting a high speed rail line from Northern California to Southern. Politics and funding is holding it back. And, my parents paid extra taxes in the East Bay for nearly 20 years before we moved, in promise that the funding was to get the BART system from SF to our little town. 45 years later, still hasn't reached that town. So, I understand politics and money really being an issue.
@@PenelopeFrank California HSR is a joke. They should’ve connect LA to San Diego, then San Jose to SF. It would’ve been way more cheaper and get more public support But yeah, and I’m just as frustrated too. VTA is too slow, but (some) progress is being made ig?
yea because that's all we are used to in America, walking next to cars that's not how it is supposed to be you think people during George Washington's time walked next to cars to commute to work or school? no they had walkable cities where they didn't have to drive every where and frankly we should be doing this because walkable cities are better for capitalism and bring in more money since people don't have to pay for a car, car insurance, gas, car repairs giving them more money to spend on local mom and pop shops as they walk by these every day we shot our selves in the foot now we drive to work isolated go to a isolated suburb
@@dudeman4184 I don’t know how public transportation could ever be as convenient as having your own car. I walk out my front door and go wherever I want. Can go grocery shopping and fill my trunk with bags rather than wrestle them home on a bus or train. Making your own schedule opposed to relying on some else’s seems very convenient.
As an American, it's very clear this guy doesn't really know or understand America. How big it is, how much land is here, now far we often travel on a daily basis.
this response is dumb just because we have allot of land doesn't mean we should fill it with these ugly copy paste sprawling suburbs, you think people during George Washington's time walked next to cars to commute to work or school? no they had walkable cities where they didn't have to drive every where and frankly we should be doing this because walkable cities are better for capitalism and bring in more money since people don't have to pay for a car, car insurance, gas, car repairs giving them more money to spend on local mom and pop shops as they walk by these every day we shot our selves in the foot now we drive to work isolated go to a isolated suburb
Over 80% of the population lives in urban areas. You're commenting as if the population is evenly spread when in reality 47% of that land mass is a barren wasteland where nobody lives anyway.
@@callowaymotorcompany Yeah, and those rural areas are massive, not just the cities. Implementing a really affective mass transit system across the area the size of America would cost trillions and people still wouldn't use it because if you can afford a car, you're going to prefer a car.
@Betty Blue Yeah man, when i think of places where people work and live to do urban planning on, its national forests. What are you even talking about?
I disagree with the entire video. More than 6 million people live in the Philadelphia metro, so parking space is designed for the entire metro. The culture around cars and public transportation is just different in the US, the US don't need to try to be like anything in Europe, just be ourselves. Plus the US is blessed with tons of space, and much of it's design and culture is built around all that space.
@@thomasandersson367 Regardless of the fact that this has literally nothing to do with the video, you know that China produces almost double the pollution of the US? And secondly, who cares?
@@legolite45 You don't care about pollution of the Earth? Interesting. Oh, btw, responding to criticism with "Well, we're not the only ones!" is a bit childish. Also, @Thomas Andersson was referencing the fact that Americans will drive their cars to destinations that are literally 3-5 minutes from their house instead of just walking there... or bicycling...
Whomever made that video just comes off as very anti-American and a lot of his statements are either completely biased or uneducated. I live OUTSIDE a relatively small city in the south. Why outside? Living inside the city, you may pay anywhere from $1,000-$2,000+/mo. just to rent a small studio apartment downtown. Inside the city, but away from downtown may get you a very small house with barely enough space for a garden for several hundred thousand, or $1000-$2000+/mo. to rent. Meanwhile I live 10 miles away from downtown in the rural countryside. The reason? My 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath house on an acre of land. My house payment and car payments combined are less than $1,200 per month, and I'll end up owning this land, house, and vehicles. It's actually way cheaper for me to buy a decent house on a decent amount of land outside the city, and commute into the city. It's this way with much of America. Also, the distances to travel anywhere on average are just much longer. As far as public transit goes, large cities have either decent subway systems or a ton of taxis. Now with things like Uber and such, you can have 'public' transit from anywhere to anywhere, so there's no real need for extensive and expensive overhauls of the public transit systems in most cases. What works for one country doesn't always work for another. It's an apples to oranges argument in most cases.
You've kind of proven their point though. There are more cars today than 'back in our day.' Which means, less room for bicycles - or at least less SAFE space for bike riders. Especially considering 1 out of 3 people are intoxicated and the other percentile's driving capabilities (while sober) are highly dubious at best. I took the video as simply implying things could be better if viewed from a pedestrian point of view. Taxis, Ubers, personal vehicles (literally people driving 5 minutes to the store)...it's out of control and depression and obesity rates for sedentary lifestyles only support this evidence as well.
I'm American too and no when people criticize America it isn't to be anti American and we created these problems for our selves people during George Washington's time didn't have these problems you should look up the laws that makes the housing expensive we shot our self in the foot
Office Bloke Daz, please remember how hot it is in Houston and how often it rains in Houston, then image riding a bike to and from work every day. Your suit would be soaked with sweat or rain by the time you reached the end of the block. Image waiting for a bus in the Phoenix, Arizona heat or biking in Juneau, Alaska or any of the northern states. Bikes don't work well in the snow. The gentleman in the video has a myopic viewpoint and a Eurocentric worldview.
I disagree with this video. The US is far more spread out than Europe. Sure, Philadelphia may be somewhat similar sized to Amsterdam (although Wikipedia says Philadelphia is actually about double the size), the totality of the metro area is about 4x the population of Amsterdam and it's surrounding area. You can't bike from a suburb 20 miles away to downtown. Just because the city is planned differently doesn't mean it's a terrible design. A lot of people like to live outside the city where they have large yards, trees, space, etc.
AMERICA is not terribly designed it just not designed for some people and it designed for cars then people walking all the time especially in big wide spread city other than new york where it common for people to walk cuz the space is small
The reason places like Philadelphia have nearly twice as many car spaces than residents is because of commuters. Detroit has a population of nearly 1 million but it will have more than twice as many people in it and working on a daily basis
yea and you know why there's allot of commuters???? because we are dumb and place them in suburbs far away so the only option is to drive instead of making it walkable
@@VegaTakeOver don’t they choose to live in suburbs though? The reason Suburbs are separated from metro areas, is because someone doesn’t want sound constantly. At night, they want quiet.
I like how he thought it was an amazing thing that Houston ca. 1920 didn't have tons of parking lots and had loads of pedestrians. Uh, it was 1920. There weren't many cars around guy.
Actually there were a lot of cars around Houston in 1920, the commute into town was just shorter, and Houston's population was considerably smaller then. Most middle class and wealthy Houstonians that could afford to shop downtown, didn't live downtown. They commuted in by car or street car. Those crowded pedestrian streets emptied when the stores, theatres, and offices closed every evening pretty much like every southern city that wasn't Atlanta or New Orleans. Unless you were the working poor, an artist, gambler, or bootlegger, a southern city was someplace you went to for shopping, business, or entertainment, not someplace you lived.
Which is a better "design"? The hodgepodge of roads going every with no order to it, or a logically actually planned out grid system that is much more easy to comprehend and navigate? Christ, just look at the two examples in the thumbnail. Which one seems like it was actually designed, and which one looks like a hodgepodge that they just kept adding pieces to?
@@bigtimebobby6644 Okay. It's hard to discern tone and I was curious about your choice of words. But I do agree that the way they portrayed the wealthiest European cities as some sort of Utopian paradise was elitist and condescending to say the least. Copenhagen is literally the richest city in Europe but they compared it to Houston, TX and Philadelphia, PA. Seriously... I mean, why not San Francisco, CA that can go toe-to-toe with their wealth AND snobby, elitist attitude. 😂😂😂😂😂
@@sonyabyrd8739 Don't let all that new tech money in N California fool you, San Francisco can't hold a candle to old money Philadelphia elitism. Mainline old money society is quiet, but weighs heavy like a 300 year old hammer. Doesn't matter how many $billions facebook paid you for that hot tech startup, even Bezos, and Musk's money is considered too new and vulgar to be let in to some circles along City Line ave.
@@tyreedillard 100% correct assessment. Perhaps I should use 'rich' instead of 'wealth.' 🤣 East coast in general is old and the west is fresh[er] and that's kind of where I was steering comparisons. 'If' there were places/people in the U.S. that would consider investing 💰 in such structural/social experiments, it would be silicone valley. Not Philadelphia nor Texas as there would be zero incentive.
I feel like this guy got some culture car shock coming to the states and decided his way was better and nitpicked everything he could find to justify his case. There are bike lanes around, ( a lot of our cities aren’t flat, try bike riding around the hills of San Francisco! 😳 you have to stick to certain areas certainly not the whole city! And try riding a bike at altitude, or in the rain, in the freezing cold, or scorching hot or humid cities! ) and has he never heard of the metro population? Most people don’t live in the city they commute to. So the population doesn’t matter when in regards to parking lots, there’s tourism, and major cities usually have major sports/events that draw huge crowds. You need those parking spaces. And American cars on average are bigger than European cars so the spaces/lots need to be bigger. As for high schools, again most high schools have sporting events (HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL IS HUGE!) fairs/ weekend markets, that draw more people. Would it be better to have a small parking lot then have visitors park all throughout the neighborhood and then walk? And what if the high school expands? Has additions built to accommodate more people/students/teachers? As for mass transit? Lmao 🤣 mass transit works okay for the big cities, AMERICA IS HUGE with large distances between places/cities. But you need a car for every place else, as for Amtrak? Again LMAO 🤣 it’s way too expensive! Flying across country can be cheaper and faster than Amtrak. Comparing Amtrak to Swiss transit is a joke. I mean in California we’ve been stuck in high speed rail Hell. We were supposed to have a line from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area, and it has cost literally billions, and is such a money pit that the plans have been tossed and it’s now just for Southern California and isn’t even done being built! How much are those tickets gonna cost whenever it’s actually finished? 🤔 $$$$$ As for buses, again, they work in the cities okay, (I mean they’ll get you where you need to go IN THE CITY) but again why would you want to ride in a long bus ride from city to city when you can drive and have no stops? The distances are just too big for great mass transit. And let’s not forget safety! Some of these buses/metro rail stations aren’t in good neighborhoods/areas, where your physical safety could be compromised. 🤕😵 I mean if you have to go travel by bus, Greyhound transit has been around forever and is still popular choice for those who wish to travel that way. Great reaction like always! 😀
I mean busses work for the poor. Its impossible to get to work for many people without them. And I've never been to an American town that didn't have a regular local bus route in 2021. So for him to say that he couldn't take a bus was probably false.
@@dudeman4184 I mean of course it would. The problem is funding for it. The cost of buses/drivers/maintenance/trains/rail employees, would mean a lot of money from the city. How would the city pay for it? Raise taxes? Cut funding somewhere else? There would be pushback from others and it would get stuck in perpetual limbo. Take Los Angeles for example. LA had the start of a great mass transit system going. But what happened? The automobile and gas industry lobbyists were able to get their way and basically kill the mass transit system. So that people would buy more cars and gasoline. It’s all about the money. Imagine what traffic would look like in Los Angeles if the mass transit system had been able to be built the way it was imagined?. They had a plan and were going to do it, but ultimately the city went with the money. And now it’s kinda too late to really do it like they wanted without spending BILLIONS. No politician is going to want to campaign for that.
@@nazcahari but you’re saying that as if there’s no cost to building and maintain roads and highway widenings. Highways and roads are very expansive to maintain. With low density, there’s not enough tax revenue to support the cost of the road infrastructure hence making the city unsustainable. Also, we do have the funding to make a good public transit system, it’s just the car and oil companies campaign for leaders the implement policies that make cities car dependent.
I live in America and I can tell you right now some of his points are completely true. Unless you're in one of the wealthier Cities where they are building infrastructure often commuting in America is much more expensive and always require a car in the majority of the country. Public transport is terrible in America and it's not even available in most of the country. I currently live in Tulsa, and we have no public transport, and terrible roads with even worse sidewalks and none or few dedicated bike lanes so bicyclists and normal pedestrians kept getting hit. We were the worst city for hit and runs at one point I think. And now the city is starting to copy the European method with new designated walking and biking paths that aren't part of the actual Road. Still no public transport though. And also people in rural areas are fucked most of the time if u can't afford a car.
That was true in 1960. Cars are huge expense for a lot of Americans, not to mention the pollution they cause. We need to really invest in public transportation
@@Prrocess Not just 1960. 91% of Americans have access to a vehicle (lease, own, rent). We do need to invest in public transportation both locally and regionally.
@@jarronkhan3641 Right, my point is simply that being forced into debt, whether leasing, renting or owning, in order to fulfill the basic necessities of life isn't exactly the peak of city planning. We have cars because we HAVE to have them, not because people can afford them
This guy is could not be more wrong. Pedestrians never "fear for their lives", people just can't walk on highways. Anyone who grew up outside of a major city, which is most of the population rode bikes everywhere, safely. Your bike was basically your main mode of transportation until you turned 16.
@Elder Tree To find your friends, we'd just ride around the whole town to different friends' houses til we found the one with all the bikes in the driveway/front lawn
@@ianhomerpura8937 as an American I agree with this statement. I actually hate living in the suburbs. I hate it when one of my family members ask me to pick something up, want to know why? Because it's a 15 minute drive to that place and another 15 minutes back by car. That's 30 minutes wasted, and I didn't even include traffic and those damn traffic lights! I'm actually sick of it! We never design our towns by proximity.
This dude just doesn't like the US. It's flawed but it isn't Europe. All of Europe would fit inside the US and is much more densely populated. We also enjoy our freedom and turning 16 and getting your driver's license is a right of passage.
@@hyenalaughingmatter8103 like I said it's flawed, but you do have the freedom to come and go in your car, especially away from large cities and the majority of the US is rural.
Hey Philly, we changed your city for the better to make downtown more bike friendly! Fucking great, it’s 23 degrees out and snowing… let me get on my beach cruiser…
@@acslater017 Our population density is much lower. Things are much more spread out and we like the freedom that comes with private transportation. We aren't going to change. You might as well complain about us not using the Metric system because that ain't gonna happen either.
@@acslater017 Europe is a continent the us is a country it is about how big the United States is because Europe is run as one and they both have extremely different topography also every state individually handles stuff like this it isn’t across the board and like I said most states in the us aren’t suitable for plans like this and the reason the video is so flawed is because he literally doesn’t know what’s he talking about because he’s not from the us and he has only visited once
This guys needs to see a doctor for his car phobia. Haha. Daz with a great point as to topography. Comparing only population is laughable. Edit following full viewing: still disagree. However I do agree we have a massive infrastructure issue in the US.
It's mainly about city planning and culture, not topography. Yes, hills can deter people from riding bikes. But most auto centric cities in the US are not hilly, and one can find plenty of hilly ones such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston that are much less auto centric than average.
@@acslater017 I was only commenting on the comparative analysis. Of course there’s lots of things to consider. One thing to consider is industry’s affect. In the northern cities there’s a lot of things he’s advocating for as they are far more urbanized. But if you look at say a city like OKC where oil maybe ranching were the main industries at/near inception of the city, you can reasonably see why urban areas weren’t as built up and thriving in a place like OKC vs. a Boston or NYC. More space leads to more development further away from those centralized urban areas if there’s not much reason to be in the city. Also can look to the changes desegregation brought and the move from urban to suburban. Long story short is, it’s about more than cars in my opinion.
@Bwen FYI Yeah I agree that we do have issues with infrastructure, mainly a lot of aging bridges and utilities, we don’t really have a lot of design issues. Also, it’s funny how Europeans never bring up how insanely accessible the US is to people with disabilities and wheelchairs.
Why would you bike if your not 10 years old? Also Philly has like 6 million people. He is right that your basically on house arrest til you could drive though because theres no where to go.
The number 1 reason this video is irrelevant is that 2/3 of the country live in an environment with mountains/large hills and have winters that avg 20 degrees or lower for 3+ months of the year. Go ride your bike in that shit once and youre getting your car lol
One other point, America is about the size of ALL OF EUROPE, we have room to build parking lots and we don't necessarily want to be stacked up on top of each other staring at some chicks unshaved Pits like they do in Paris.
Parking lots look ugly and look of city matters! If your city looks lifeless, people are going to be lifeless and chose not to serve the community, look at US shortage of workers or labours, Americans pefer to go offgrid, move to cheaper country or die as homeless than go to work and pay taxes... Also USA miltary is having issues with recruitment Compared that to hard working dutch/Finnish serving their country
Houston population in 1920: 140,000. Houston population today: 2.3 million and still growing. And that doesn't even count the other 5 million who live in the surrounding metro area, a large portion of whom commute into the city to work. But hey, let's all act surprised it has a fundamentally different layout today than when it had 1/20th of the population.
As an American, I actually found European cities refreshing, the good thing about promoting public transport and biking is the traffic is less, pollution is reduced which is a major problem for most of our big cities and reducing our increasingly obese population. However this guy is exaggerating to make a point because there are bike lanes in America, they aren't everywhere but they are in specific areas. It's probably too late to promote this because it will affect the car industry here.
This guy is biased with the POV that public transportation is better than private transportation. Those old European cities were formed long before modern transportation and adapted new tech to fit into that landscape. While America is fairly new and embraces new tech and it's business opportunities. People in the US prefer to have the freedom to move about at their own pace and schedule. If there's a disaster class emergency that required evacuating the city, everyone in the European city would be stuck waiting for available trains and such. Whereas in the US most people can hop in their own car and hit the highway. An enemy nation can cripple a European city by destroying or capturing the railways. Can't do that in America. Cars are better. Bikes are trash
We have plenty of kids with bikes. Most cities have sidewalks. Texas cities have sidewalks. The city 10 miles down the road from me has sidewalks. I don't get why they are saying there aren't any. And who is cycling in Philly in below zero weather and a foot of snow? 2. I live in the country and my job is over 6 miles from my house.
Yes let's all ride bikes in America. Good luck with that with our weather and varied topography (as Daz mentioned). It would be a fun morning commute riding your bike to work in -30 degree temperatures or coming home in the summer on your bike when it's 100 or 110 degrees. What do these people do during a hurricane or blizzard and you have to get to work? The fact that we have a population density of less than 100 people per square mile compared to Denmark's 350 and Netherlands 1,300 also makes widespread public transportation impractical in much of the country.
"What do these people do during a hurricane or blizzard and you have to get to work?" Well during a hurricane if you're going to work, you're an idiot. But during a blizzard, layer up, nut up and get it done. They do make studded tires for bikes, I've ridden in a foot of snow to work, it's fun, I look forward to big snow days. I don't worry about setting time aside to exercise, I get my exercise on my commute, which gives me more free time to do the shit I actually want to do.
A bike ride to work would take me at least an hour 😂 living out in the sticks in Pennsylvania is bad enough being far away from things, I couldn’t imagine the Midwest
@@sonyabyrd8739 But the public transportation set up has existed for several decades and precedes the obesity epidemic. If we're going to spend money to get people to lose weight, rather than wasting it on public transportation projects that will no doubt be seriously delayed and come in overbudget, we could just give people gym gift cards.
Per wikipedia: Philadelphia's GDP per capita is $64,023; Copenhagen's GDP per capita is $54,197. You would think they would be much more productive in their modern more efficient city.
I disagree with this. While yes we could have better sidewalks, trains and buses, and stuff. Getting rid of parking is not the way, and cars are not the way. For many Americans like myself that live in rural areas that are 30 miles or more from the closet town, the idea of biking or walking is just an insane Idea. Where I live right now if I was to say bike to the nearest store for groceries it would be an all-day event if not two days and forget about walking, and the whole idea of moving into the city is not something everyone wants, can afford, or even can do.
But most americans don´t live like you. Most people live in big cities and there they don´t need cars. But even in rural areas you could use public transportation. I have friends that have longer distance than that and they take speed train to work,
,@@thomasandersson367 I did not say most I said a lot. And as I said yes trains and buses and bikes would be nice in towns but getting rid of cars and parking lots would not work. You do have an interesting point.
@@brendaguthrie3470 You dont have to get rid of all parking lots and cars. But in many times it´s more effective with public transportation. Thing for ex if 1000 people goes to a work place everyday and the drive there own cars. That is 1000 cars. Put them in a public transportation and It´s more effecient and you need less road and so on.
@@thomasandersson367 true, but in a culture that cars are linked to being successful, it would be hard to convince people to change and even harder trying to convince the government.
@@brendaguthrie3470 It´s hard but not impossible. People have had the same wiews on cars over here and many still have. But we have changed wiew. By information about pollution. Also by making gas prices wery high. But most important is the kids and the young people. They are the easiest to change. In the big cities over here many young people don´t even take driver license. They don´t feel a need for It. Besides people can still have a flashy car but they can use It for road trips and so on and take the train to work. Jay Leno said a good thing about cars. He loves cars but he want more electrical cars and so on. Because he want to save earth. He said that he can take out the sportscars on the weekend.
I think he is also forgetting that the Greater Houston area is 26,000 sq km (10,000 sq m). Lol good luck getting from one side to the other on a bicycle in a timely fashion. To put that in perspective, the state of New Jersey is 22,600 sq km (7,350 sq m).
Comments thread filled with offended Americans. Relax guys there are people who do things better than you. It's okay. It doesn't mean you guys are dumb.
That's the thing. This is not a case of something being done better because the US is so different from small European countries. He attempted to claim that things are done better there, but that could only be true if the two places being compared were similar in size and population density. That's what most of the comments are pointing out. What's feasible and necessary in a small country with ONE large major city cannot necessarily be duplicated (nor should it be in many cases) in the 3rd largest country in the world both in population size and land mass. The US is built for cars because in most areas of the US, getting places is highly inconvenient without a car due to the larger distances we have to cover, as well as more extreme whether conditions than what you experience in Europe. I live in Chicago, and there are many days when I would not have made it to work without a car due to weather being so extreme as to make walking outside torturous, and taking a bike impossible. So, we rely on cars far more than Europeans do.
@@anyaw340 That's exactly his point. The US didn't have to make their cities so big (by land area) but they did. A need for cars was created, which was further added upon by the lack of proper public transport. I have been multiple times to the US and i only had two options for intercity travel, cars or planes. Although, i don't complain about this as being a car lover, it was an absolute delight to drive around in bigass trucks, even for short commutes. But personal preferences aside, Europe is really planned very well. One thing not mentioned in this video is the availability of everything one might need within a short distance. Even with all the snow and rain, the aesthetic appeal of their cities is not lost. That being said, it doesn't mean that American cities are bad. They're better than most cities around the world (trust me) but some cities just have the edge. I personally feel Tokyo is the best in the world when it comes to planning cities.
@@anyaw340 Also, glad to meet someone from Chicago. I have really good memories from Chicago and it has never failed to impress me whenever i have been there.
12:57 WHY. DO. YOU. THINK. THEY. HAVE. TO. LIVE. SO. FAR. AWAY????!!!!!!??? oh my god this whole commentary makes me want to kms (sorry for the dramatics but god damn)
OK, this guy is right in that America needs to invest in public transport. Our train and bus systems are pathetic. That being said, some places in the United States are just too damn far apart that I doubt any public transport system would help. I commute 45 minutes to work ONE WAY daily. This sounds nuts to Europeans, but it is not unusual for Americans. Ninety minutes spent in a car every day is just ... life. It sucks, no doubt, but I don't see a way around it.
What people don't get is, that it's actually good for car drivers to have more cyling and public transport in cities. That way people have alternatives to using a car and only people who want to drive or need to drive use the car. That way it's a lot less traffic and driving is way more comfortable
When I first traveled for business I went from a mountain state to a suburb of Detroit. Upscale hotels with shopping malls nearby. Not a sidewalk to be found in the entire area. When I asked a local why I was told there are parts of the city you would not want to be walking in due to crime. They don't even bother with them in new construction as people use cars, taxis, shuttles and buses.
cheaper on the long run, to own land than to lease someone else's building. also cities grow sideways faster and much cheaper than of growing up. cities like tokyo, shanghai, london, newyork, amsterdam, theres just no benefit in constructing a building 10-15 miles away, the land isnt cheap bc theres no more near.
Copenhagen is the size of a small American city. Of course they can have good public transit. America is huge. It would take 2 weeks to traverse it by train. A car can do it in a leisurely 5 days. Most Americans don't work in the cities they live either. Who wants to wait around for a bus after work or ride a bike like 15 miles? What a Danish dolt...
You are comparing traversing one city to the entire country. He isn't saying ah yes you could swap out your daily commute and walk across America, Also not saying that America is to just abandon the car. Instead stating that the options are poor and a lack of forethought has been put in to hold up to the current state of things. Improvements are nothing to hide away from, just like cars improve so can expenditure placement and the lives of those who would benefit. Just seems like such a self centred sentiment.
Bikes are fun for very short distances in good weather if you have nothing to carry, which excludes 99.9% of the american poluation.plus there is also the cultural problem, riding a bike in other countries is socially acceptable in america only kids and people who have lost their cars due to DUI, ride bikes.
In the US we have massive distances, extreme weather, hills, mountains and other dangerous conditions. The guy in this video has no clue about anything. Try riding your bike in 4 - 8 feet of snow for 30 miles to get to work. Put a small child on a bike and have them pedal 20 miles to school in extreme weather? Not to mention the threat of kidnapping, etc.
we as a country created all these problems for our selves just because we are a huge country doesn't mean we should build like this and mountains aren't an excuse because Switzerland did it and places in Europe have better laws for snow removal than the ones here in the US so you don't know the difference because that's all we are used to here and the reason you drive 30 miles is because you live in a far away suburb design for you to use a car this is not the best way people during George Washington's time didn't have these problems
I live in Cleveland, a mid sized city. The buses run everywhere, every 15-20 mins at each pick up spot until 2-3 AM. And it's free transfers if u need to hop from 1 bus traveling from 1 destination to another.
I live in Chicago. One day I to be all over the city. In the morning I got up, took the bus then a train then another bus to my first destination on the West Side. After that was done, I headed to the downtown taking another bus. I then connected to a bus that took me to the South Side. I took my last bus to the SW Side. I basically traveled in square.
People come into Philadelphia to work from the surrounding suburbs. Getting a parking spot in downtown Philly is very difficult. Parking Lots are a very lucrative investment.
There is a bus system to get to the outside spokes to outside spokes in Chicago. People Don't use it a lot. Who wants to spend 2 hours twice a day to get to and from work? The Elevated Train System he's pointing to Generally Runs to the Edge of the City. There is a complete other Train system that runs to the Suburbs. But you are talking 15-20 miles out of the Center of Downtown at that point. So if your 15-20 miles away from work, that pretty much eliminates the chances we're going to Bike to/from work. Despite that, HAVE YOU TRIED TO BIKE IN CHICAGO IN THE WINTER?! Let Mr. Copenhagen try pedaling through a foot of snow.
I don't understand why the world is so mad at the US for driving. Outside of emissions issues, which was not mentioned, idk why everyone is so upset. I will agree, that inner city, walking, biking, etc is probably the best way to see a city. Acting like parking lots have destroyed cities is quite mind boggling to me.
Also, to act like a person just getting rid of their car and walking would suddenly greatly effect the climate is a joke. If Climate change is as bad as they say, it is caused by developing countries with fossil fuel for electricity and industry. Car emissions are not a huge contributer.
Oh we have dedicated bike lanes. What you won't see is anyone using them. We have tons of city buses that drive around all day empty, trams and mono-rails that do nothing but suck money down the drain. In fact they just recently put in a new tram system here. It started with all sorts of promises that it was going to be great, it was going to pay for itself, it would totally change the face of traffic and drive an increase in business and population for the downtown area. It took just one month from opening before they were begging for more tax money, and slashing ticket prices to try to get more people to use it. The whole effort immediately went bankrupt and become yet another pathetic eyesore that the tax payer is being made to support. It's been nothing but a massive waste of resources. You know what we don't have here? Enough parking.
As soon as I saw the header I knew this was made by a foreigner. What people forget is the US is huge and the metro areas of cities are expansive and unless there is a good public transportation system you are driving everywhere. However where there is good public transportation you can get around pretty easily (DC metro is great). Edit: also there were historical racially motivated reasons why public transportation in many cities was setup the way it was. Also the issue with Amtrak is the railways are commercially owned
When I lived in DC, the metro was great if you had an apartment or condo within walking distance of a metro station like I did in Arlington. But In Falls Church, i had to drive to and from my Metro station. The coverage is still better than most, especially LA.
@@tyreedillard i lived along the EPA corridor so there were shuttles to and from the station and they partially subsidized your metro card. It was so convenient. I pretty much only drove my car on the weekends. One thing I really miss about the area
He does not put into the account of suburbs witch is a very American thing my city is only 1/2 million but 1.5 in the city metro it takes 30 mins to drive from the edges to the city center if you take the bus it takes 1 hour bus rid forget biking and walking
That guy doesn't understand the distance in America. He keeps saying we should just walk or ride a bike to school. My closest school was 40 miles away. Even in cities, they have fewer, larger schools. And the USA is VAST. That's why we're a car society.
You can't just look at one factor, like distance, in a vacuum. Why is it that everything is spread out in the first place? The fact that most Americans have to jump in their car, drive it a few miles, and park it at a shopping center to get basic necessities is mostly to do with city planning/zoning decisions made in the 20th century that prioritized the automobile.
@@steph_man372 it's like he missed the part where the US stayed the same size but became car dependent. The US has terrible infrastructure it's no secret
There are such distances here in Sweden, but we can do it with public transport. I grew up in northern Sweden. Went by bus to school every day. No problem. Here, everyone goes to school by public transport.
Something to think about, in reference to the Houston deal. These cities grew much more rapidly than their European counterparts. With the majority of Americans owning cars, the infrastructure had to adapt. Cars are essential due to the mere size of the US, meaning the infrastructure has to be able to accommodate them. If my kid walked to school, she would walk approximately 20 miles per day at the age of 7 to get to and from school.
He used Chicago as an example of bad public transit but most Americans can only wish their local public transit was as good as Chicago’s. Lol
He also used Amtrak usage metrics, I don't know any local usage for Amtrak within a city metro. It's for distance traveling, not daily commute.
That is exactly the point: public transit there can be MUCH better.
Yeah, Chicago has one of the best public transit systems not only in the US but in the world.
@@ianhomerpura8937 Public transit is not the issue in Chicago. Just as it isn't in New York. The issue is what was mentioned in video...only 5% of the populace uses them (although actually it is a LOT higher in Chicago and New York than that--chicago has 200 million riders and the NYC Subway has 2 BILLION--those cities feature some of the highest usage rates in the world....other cities are what bring that average down).
Chicago has extensive bike rental (yes we have plenty of bike lanes and bikes, contrary to the points made in the video), Elevated train and bus service but people prefer the comfort of their car.
The L--even with line switches and accounting for stops--takes a *max* of 30 minutes to get anywhere in the city or from city to suburb. Stops account for about 1/3 of that accrued time.
What IS terribly designed is the grid system that places like Chicago and Manhattan use which promote congestion.
He used it because he wanted to point on the not so great layout. He had to, because, well, other US cities dont have a public transport layout at all :D :D
Hate to break it to this guy but most US Cities have bike lanes everywhere. This guy clearly knows nothing about the US. As a kid, I was riding my bike everywhere. All my friends rode bikes. If I sat around the house it was because I wanted to not because I could not ride my bike outside.
My town of 2.5 thousand people has a bike lane
Not true at all, everything u wrote is a complete lie.
"Bike lanes". Small slithers of painted unprotected lanes next to cars going 50 mph aren't exactly encouraging cycling. A lot of bike lanes just end abruptly too, forcing cyclists to share the road with drivers.Terrible designs like this are why the US has an incredibly high pedestrian death rate. American cities are designed in a shitty way, things are so far from one another cycling is usually not an option.
@@BlueBlue-mm7kn What exacly is a lie? I can walk outside my home and take a picture of the bike lane. As a kid, I biked around my area all the time. If you wanted to hang out with friends you got on your bike and headed over to their place.
Yeah that's not even remotely true. Just because you grew up in an area with bike lanes, doesn't mean "most US cities" have them. Not by a long shot
Even Los Angeles was designed as a close knit city with a huge train network in the beginning. There are several issues that changed US cities, most of which are unique to the US.
1) the affordability of cars which used the road that trams used and delayed the trams and made them too slow,
2) the failure of many cities to separate trams from cars,
3) the huge influx of tens of millions of poor European immigrants in the early 1900s fleeing Europe's endless wars, famines, and genocides in addition to the first great migration of African Americans fleeing the Jim Crow South, caused severe overcrowding in cities like NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago
4) the amount of space available to build bigger homes on the edges of cities grew outward and outward very quickly,
5) these suburbs grew fast and trams just couldn't keep up, roads were faster and cheaper to build and the city streetcars were torn up
6) there was a huge exodus from center cities to suburbs and many of these suburbs in the 40s and 50s excluded Black people, making them more desirable to white people, which emptied out the center neighborhoods in a phenomenon called "white flight",
7) once these suburbs got set up and grew large and the inner cities were emptied, more people from outside the city worked in downtown making large parking facilities, huge streets, and freeways, necessary to get workers into the city and back out quickly. Middle class people worked downtown but did all of their other business, shopping, and recreation in the suburbs. Central cities became desolate after 5pm and dangerous well into the 80s
It's only in the last 10-15 years that many cities have experienced urban renaissances and have begun transforming their central cities into more livable, and desirable places like you would find in Europe. Many cities are burying parking lots, (ex.: open parking in Chicago's Loop have been buried and replaced with buildings and parks), building bike lanes, planting trees, and better transit, all to bring people in since the commutes from the suburbs have become unbearable in many cities and many lament living in sterile suburbs where there is no place to get a pizza at midnight.
Now, today the pandemic has changed a lot about how and where people work, so we'll just have to wait and see how that pans out and what that means for cities.
Dang, you should posted this to the main comments.
As a person who grew up in one of the major cities in the US, I personally don't mind the "sterile" suburbs. Not everyone is going to live in the city where commute to the city for work is inevitable and unavoidable.
The one good part of American public transportation is the school bus system. No kid by law can be more than one mile from a school bus stop and every kid rides the bus for free.
In europe we have school buses coming to your home to pick you up for free, education is also completely free
@@Sbinott0 Education is free over here too numb nuts smdh.
This guy seems to be stuck in a European mindset and thinks everywhere should be designed like Europe. One of the major differences between the US and Europe is the size. The US is massive and people travel a lot farther for school work etc. Walking and biking isn’t always an option. And since we have the space it’s much more cost effective to put in a parking lot instead of an underground parking garage.
This guy is 100% right and it’s sad that Americans don’t wanna hear the truth.
@@BlueBlue-mm7kn cry
Exactly.
Not just the distances but the climate. You can ride a bike when it's -10 degrees or 100 degrees. Both of which happen in the US every year.
@@AndySaputo The climate is no excuse; cycling is still frequent in Nordic cities like Copenhagen even when the weather is incredibly cold
16 year old in the US usually drive to school to be cool vs take the school bus for free. It was simply convenience and not want to ride a school bus.
The creator of the video is a fool. Lol. There are things to not like about US cities, and he is right about our public transit being generally horrible (very few cities have good rail systems, and most use busses). But please. Philadelphia has over 6 million in the metro area including suburbs... that’s why the downtown has so many parking spaces. Amsterdam meanwhile has less than 2.5 million, and is 60 sq miles smaller than Philadelphia. Now apply that to most US cities. NY has 8 million in the city, but over 23 million in the metro area and is over 472 sq miles. Parking spaces are not the problem with US cities. -_-
But I really wanna bike 5 miles to the store and get robbed and shot on the way 😣
NYC and Philly are NOT laid out like 80% of cities in the US are. I've been to most of them. There is literally no where to walk or bike in most cities and the traffic patterns all rely on heavy acceleration and heavy braking and you feel like a dumbass like you're on some kind of rollercoaster.
No high school in the US is 5,100 square feet in size. My house is bigger than 5,100 square feet. The average high school is 175,000 square feet. The biggest public HS in the US is 1.2 million square feet indoors and has a 65 acre campus. Some independent schools have several hundred acres of campus.
The 2005 square feet of parking spaces is enough for 10 (20x10) parking spaces. That is nothing for a highschool.
I can literally explain away every point made in this video. I'm not stating American cities are designed perfectly, but all his points really aren't true or make no sense.
Yea
I live in America and I can tell you right now some of his points are completely true. Unless you're in one of the wealthier Cities where they are building infrastructure often commuting in America is much more expensive and always require a car in the majority of the country. Public transport is terrible in America and it's not even available in most of the country. I currently live in Tulsa, and we have no public transport, and terrible roads with even worse sidewalks and none or few dedicated bike lanes so bicyclists and normal pedestrians kept getting hit. We were the worst city for hit and runs at one point I think. And now the city is starting to copy the European method with new designated walking and biking paths that aren't part of the actual Road. Still no public transport though. And also people in rural areas are fucked most of the time if u can't afford a car.
Right. It seems like he’s applying the way American cities are designed to European lifestyles.
Brick Frog Mix, you are talking complete shit. Watch a video on Stroads.
@@lnstks96 Then move.
That guy is fixated on how he feels as a pedestrian in America. This is one American who isn't constantly in fear of getting his by a car when walking in the city. I dismiss his emotion-based argument.
The pedestrian thinks the U.S. is terribly designed; he should try Canada -- that is terrible.
The Dane clearly doesn't understand the hub and spoke system. He'd be a wiz (not) at how to set up airplanes. Every small city will have direct flights to every other small city.
::shaking head::
Cuz it’s true. Pedestrians feel uncomfortable while walking near loud and fast traffic
@@dudeman4184 Really? When I was in highschool every day I would walk about a mile next to a 6-lane arterial road during busy hours, the only thing separating me from cars was a curb, and I never felt uncomfortable walking next to them passing by. The only thing that ever made me uncomfortable was the weather and the risk of being jumped. I really don’t understand where the idea of being scared by passing traffic comes from
@@Poopsticle_256 yea because that's all we are used to in America, walking next to cars that's not how it is supposed to be you think people during George Washington's time walked next to cars to commute to where? no they had walkable cities where they didn't have to drive every where and frankly we should be doing this because walkable cities are better for capitalism and bring in more money since people don't have to pay for a car, car insurance, gas, car repairs giving them more money to spend on local mom and pop shops as they walk by these every day we shot our selves in the foot
His first mistake was comparing old, dense European cities in northern Europe to American city planning. His only fair points are that our public transit, collectively, is behind other first-world countries and that many American towns could benefit from more sidewalks and bike lanes. Everything else is rubbish
Similar to Boston. Loads of tiny one-way streets, and not so much of a grid. Traffic here in Boston is pretty bad as a result.
"these are his mistakes however im not gonna tell you why they are wrong" Your comment in a nutshell. If you're gonna comment something like this at least tell why you don't agree lol
The oil industry is actually a big part of the reason why there's such a focus on cars in the US. They want to sell as much fuel as possible and the more people who use cars to get around the more money they make. That's why they even do something as shitty as lobbying against any attempts to improve on public transportation in major cities.
What do you think happens to car dependency when you improve upon other modes of transportation like public transit, trams, cycling, and walking? His points flow from the premises you agree with. US cities don't have to be car dependent, they're built that way for a reason. And since we already have a dependency on cars in the cities we need to expand highways that connect cities that don't improve traffic at all before we invest in real transportation infrastructure.
@@codyyh9421 The explanation is embedded in his first sentence, it just takes some reflection. "Old, dense European"...Amsterdam has been around for how long? A thousand years, give or take depending on what you consider a city. Its roadways, property ownership, and culture was established LONG before motor vehicles. To build parking lots, Amsterdam had huge financial incentives to place parking lots underground - the land was too valuable to leave it semi-vacant.
Philadelphia on the other hand, was established in 1701, but much of it's growth came AFTER the invention of the automobile, and areas that NOW are within the city limits were still the outskirts. Land was open and relatively inexpensive. There was no financial incentive to spending huge amounts to move the parking underground. It made far more sense to just buy up cheap land and turn it into a parking lot. Rest assured, property owners in Philadelphia would happily build underground parking lots in areas where they could recoup those costs in a reasonable amount of time. And in some expensive downtown areas, that is certainly the case.
While land price is the predominant factor, it's not the only one. Climate is another. The average temperature in the Netherlands ranges from 41F in winter to 58F in summer. Philadelphia ranges from 30F in winter to 78F in summer - both much colder in winter, and much hotter in summer. Biking in Philly isn't feasible when the roads are icy, or heat stroke likely on the 20+ mile average commute.
See? It wasn't that hard to figure out after all.
YAH21's was right, the Danish video creator cherry picked his information and didn't bother digging into real estate values, population density, and other fairly obvious reasons why the cities are so different.
There are also extreme cultural differences - the USA is a car based culture. There are 247 cars per 1000 people in Amsterdam. Philadelphia has 421 per 1000. And Philadelphia has one of the lowest car ownerships rates in the entire country.
I'm glad you blokes can see through this one sided provincial video. The variations in climate, geography, distance and population make this video a rediculous comparison.
Great observations!
Exactly
Ridiculous*
Sorry, I hate to be that person, but I just see so many people misspell this word all the time.
💯%
What? That's not a valid point and not an excuse for the super bad infrastructure in most american cities.
If you are just going to walk or bike somewhere in the US you would have to live in a bigger city. Some places are so rural and remote you're literally 30 miles from anything but your neighbors and maybe a gas station. This country is massive and it just would make sense as a whole for cars to be the main transportation.
I wouldnt take public transport in certain cities either. With all the things that are happening in Subways in New York City and the dumpster fire that is LA , I will skip public transport.
But most of the people live in big cities.
@@vanesa2198 I'm visiting New York soon for the first time. Should subways be avoided? We were thinking taxis but they're going to be so slow
@@thomasandersson367 Literally the majority DON'T live in major cities. The top 10 largest cities make up about 35 million people out of over 330 million. A large number of the population live in areas that having public transport is impossible.
@@mattc2824 I would guess that most people live in places where public transport i possible. Or do most people live alone in the forest far away from society?
to every american who got offended by this video... listen to what he actually said. I saw multiple people saying he said stuff like there being no bike lanes or sidewalks thats not what he said he just showed how awful those are compared to european citys and how car focused usa is you cant deny that usa isnt car based you drive everywhere which im not going to argue which is better or which is worse but then some people also said all the parkin slots are for visitors like damn amsterdamn with 1 parking slot per 3 people here going just fine and its a big touristy city or paris... ever heard of paris? isnt that a mayor tourist destination yet you dont have to rent a car or even if you live in paris own a car you just got 100 meters to the nearest buss stop or subway and go to everywhere you want fast and cheap and if you want to travel a longer distance go with the subway to a trainstation or hell even to an airport
I like how his 1st reason why American cities are poorly designed is that we have too many parking spaces.
😂😂😂😂
The amount of parking spaces in american cities is insane. No reason to be this stupid.
Here we go!!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🚗💨
Because it's true. It just reflects how car-centric the US is, and it's horrible.
@@ianhomerpura8937 huge country. we need cars. and its nice seeing US being different EU is boring as hell.
As for transport in the major cities: Chicago has many ways to get around. Trains to come in from the suburbs. An elevated subway (the L) to get around town. And buses going all over. These "American public transport" videos over-generalize and never really look at what America has. Not to mention that the Netherlands has a population of 17.4 million and America has 329 million. You can't just take a method from a small country and scale up.
Sure you can. They were comparing cities. Ironically, Philadelphia is one of the more pedestrian friendly cities in America so that was an odd choice, but.... still, the principle is the same. Things can be improved upon by modeling change based on a 'successful' example.
@@sonyabyrd8739 Chicago is also very walkable. I'm not sure what downtown city he meant.
Dude most cities aren't like Chicago. Some don't have any public transport, and terrible sidewalks. Some cities are incredibly easy to get around, but just as many I'd say are pretty bad
@@lnstks96 I have lived in L.A. San Francisco and now near Chicago and all had excellent public trans. As does New York and Milwaukee from my experience. Is it 100 percent across the entire country? Of course not. Our country is massive, diverse and sprawling. We have the space to live far from where we work in neighborhoods with personal property large enough to make walking difficult. Besides, the video maker claimed all of America had no public transport and then cherry picked a few good examples in Europe and I'm saying that there are cities in the US that have it just as good. European countries may have one or two major cities each but the US has at least 25 massive cities and a score more medium sized ones. Some are great at things and some aren't. It's not fair to lump all of America under one umbrella.
@@AndySaputo Best part of the video was the the Utopian paradise of limited cars and a society powered by the human battery...😂😂 Underground bike paths... 😂😂😂😂😂 All I could think was, "Yeah, sure, let's just build an underground bike/walking path. I'm curious as to how they will get around all the boxes and tents that will soon appear."
Europeans judging the US for not being more European is like Americans judging Europe for not being more American. It's a ridiculous critique/standard. It's like asking why a chicken isn't a frog.
Why isn’t a chicken a frog tho. Checkmate.
Does this guy not know that we have side walks and bike lanes in America? 😂
I was confused when he was talking bout it cuz I use bike lanes all the time
@@DelaHorror he’s one of those people that say Americans are ignorant but can’t even do a little research to find out that we have side walks and bike lanes just like every other country
As an American living in the South East you would be amazed if you are forced to become a pedestrian how often you find yourself with no sidewalk and forced to decide between walking in the street with traffic or walking on the edge of a steep hill or through mud etc. There needs to be improvement but I think the idea of being able to transform most American city’s to anything resembling Amsterdam is far fetched at best.
@@gacaptain that’s a problem with your city… not america. My whole state has side walks.
@@StackRunItUp Lucky for you. I've lived in three different large states in America and I can't say that any of them has side walks everywhere they need to be. If you were paying attention to the video you would have noticed that he did no say there were not sidewalks in America. He said that you could be walking on a side walk and all of a sudden the sidewalk end and you're forced to walk in the road or a hazardous area. As someone that didn't have a car for much of my youth I've experienced that in several different American towns. I don't agree with alot of what that guy had to say but let's not pretend America doesn't have some infrastructure issues. And that's one of them.
I'm happy most of our street maps dont look like a bowl of spaghetti
The guy starts with the value judgement that cars = bad, bikes = good, with no consideration whatsoever that maybe others might have different priorities. Perhaps he should get used to the idea that the United States is not Copenhagen.
Well cars involve air pollution, crash risk, noise pollution, ugly road designs, large parking lots which take up space that can be used for housing or businesses, they inspire infrastructure to be built around them which makes those without a car less able to travel, they're expensive to maintain, roads are expensive to maintain...
Is that enough? Should I...should I keep going?
@@CopperScott yes
Many Americas do have access to buses, trains, and walking paths…however driving is far more convenient, it’s quicker, and it’s private. This guy has no clue what he’s talking about.
Took me like a minute into the video to find out you guys are just completely blindfolded with the thought of having to drive everywhere and actually considering it better and/or more comfortable. Although I admit that comparing US to the most bike friendly city on planet is not really fair, your arguments are still pretty absurd.
"Imagine you don't have to worry about parking lot". Yeah, imagine that you have 330 mil country and a 1 mil city. If everyone uses a car to move in and through the city (including visitors), you have to build 20 lane highways and 5 times more parking spaces then there's people in the city. Basically turning the city into ghost town with literal asphalt desert instead of habitable buildings. Also, because it (parking and roads) take MUCH more space, your 1 mil city will now be on 500 km2 (San Jose) compared to lets say Amsterdam (200 km2).
Which means:
1) You literally can't walk or bike anywhere, because it's too far.
2) In your beloved car, you have to travel longer distances.
3) You're still going to end up in traffic jam, because of induced demand law.
4) Everyone lives near road, meaning AWFUL noise conditions, causing severe health problems (scientifically proved).
5) New homes HAVE to be build even more far away from the city centre (on the suburbs) meaning they HAVE to use car to do anything meaning you HAVE to expand highways again meaning you HAVE to bulldoze some houses that are near the highways meaning you HAVE to relocate these people to new houses which are build on the suburbs...
Now do you see this infinite downward spiral ending in complete bulldozation and asphaltation of the whole US?
Getting a strong "why isn't everyone's house like my house" message. Better public transit would be fantastic. But why do I drive? Because I have the option to not bike miles to and from work in terrible weather.
Also, pedestrians always have right of way on local streets, even if they are crossing illegally. Still, this guy's not as bad as entitled bicyclists who like to get into random arguments on the internet.
👆👏👏👏 thank you!
Sure but don't complain when planners try and move forward by taking away lanes for dedicated bus lanes and the like
The dude who made this video is a fool. I'm not just saying that because I'm from Philadelphia. It's just that he didn't remotely make the points he thought he was making. Yes. American cities are disasters in many ways. Just not the ways he talked about.
What do you feel he misrepresented?
@@sonyabyrd8739 Well I jumped the gun a bit calling him a fool. That was just hot-headedness. I actually feel he was onto something in regards to the need for stronger public transit infrastructure. My biggest problem was that he's not acknowledging the fact that the excessive parking spots in the city are there because the city grows significantly every day for work. The majority of people working there live 15-40 miles away. You can't bike that. The cars have to go somewhere. Better public transit would work a bit, but that costs a lot of money. Switzerland has a wonderful system, but it's also among the most expensive places on earth to live. Painting an entire country with the same expensive brush like he did just isn't something that's doable. I'm not really looking to argue. It's just different. When Copenhagen has as many people as Philadelphia has commuting into it each day, I'll be glad to hear all about how useful their bicycles are.
The real trouble here is with WHY so many people find themselves having to travel into the city each day to work. But that's a socioeconomic discussion, and would be a much different video. In the meantime, the comparison is apples and oranges. All I'm seeing is a dude who likes bikes a lot.
Also, I didn't proofread this.
@@daveglarner2138 I immediately knew this video was biased and full of incorrect information when he brought up the parking spaces in Philly vs it’s population. Like ok, 1.6 million people live within the city limits of Philly, but it’s like 6 million in the metro area. And maybe there’s all those parking spaces because like a quarter of the population of South Jersey (where I’m at) drives into Philly everyday for work like you said. Yeah lemme just bike down the AC expressway and over the Ben Franklin every day.
@@daveglarner2138😂 The video was just all around lazy and sloppy.
They should have compared Copenhagen to San Francisco or some other wealthy city. I mean, why toss Philly out there? Philadelphia is #5 on the top Pedestrian Friendly Cities and has the #1 largest Urban Park system in the U.S. But I guess having too many parking lots negates all of the positives. 😂
@@sonyabyrd8739 Ha! Well San Francisco has its own set of problems. Most cities are expensive to live in. San Francisco is towards the top of that list. The problem is, when you have entire areas with income like that, your industry will begin to reflect that. It'll focus on real estate. That's fine, but then the problem becomes the fact that SOMEONE has to actually build that stuff. And that particular someone is not going to be a person with the income to actually live there. So, they'll have to commute in too. And the cycle begins again. Their trolleys are certainly cool, but nobody is going to ride a bike back and forth on those hills they have.
So yes. Definitely a different beast than Philadelphia, although there's all sorts of money there too. Especially "the main line" just outside of it) but it's still all rooted in a similar underlying issue.
If a plan works somewhere, that doesn't necessarily translate to working that well somewhere else.
I know I just rambled. It's just tough for me to see people make videos on subjects that far exceed their understanding. There are reasons for everything, everywhere. Some of those reasons are good. Some of them aren't.
Next video, Why driving in Copenhagen sucks.
The guy who made the video is so ignorant on what he's talking about. He's the kind of European who looks at the US and just doesn't understand it so he calls it a problem because its not like what he's used to or prefers. He doesn't understand the geographic issues of space, parking spots are not causing space issues, its a big country and if people could make more money by putting something else there they would. He doesn't understand the public transportation issue, most people don't want European style public transportation public transportation is a last resort to most people here. He doesn't understand that Uber exist for short travel and that planes exist for long travel. He doesn't seem to know when he mentioned Houston and showed people walking around a hundred years ago that cars were less prevalent and the city was a tenth the size. The idea that having fewer parking spots would solve transportation issues is so absurd its astounding. He also doesn't understand the costs of his dream list. The California highspeed rail line is hundreds of millions if not a billion over budget and not even closed to finished and might never be. I could go on but I can't even refute his sources because he doesn't provide any. This is why I laugh at arrogant Europeans who stick their noses in the air about America, they don't have the slightest clue what they're talking about. Anyways you guys are great, keep it up, I'm gonna go to Amsterdam and complain how inefficient the canals are and how they could be roads and cut commute time in half lol.
US kids on house arrest? What is this guy smoking? When I grew up I could go all over the place from hiking in the hills up my street to biking a few blocks to grab a pizza and play arcade games with friends. Dude doesn't know what he's talking about.
This guy is nuts. As a child in the USA, I was busier than most adults. Our schools have so much extra curricular activities with free buses to and from. Also I biked everywhere as a kid with ABSOLUTELY no issues. But on a side note we usually don't allow our kids to go to the store on their own for milk.
I’m 53, I remember riding my bike everywhere when I was seven or eight years old. I checked and yes, obesity in the US has skyrocketed since then.
@@bobdobb9017 I'm not saying this is a valid reason, I'm just going to point this out. There's a definite bias here in the states towards cars. You totally can get bicycle insurance, but if you're in a city and your bicycle is stolen, police are a bit at a loss of looking for a generically similar bike as the other thousands of others of the same model and tend to have a bit of a lack luster response towards searching for it. However when a car is stolen, the police are a bit more gung-ho about keeping an eye out for it.
I had an experience where it wasn't my bike that was stolen, but someone I knew and the police were involved and they basically said they'd be able to identify the bike if they knew the serial number. . . . a tiny stamped on number on the frame of the bike usually hidden away on some obscure angle. No one ever really looks for it, so we didn't know. We truly were SOL at that point. So yes, more bikes were ridden back in the day, but today, more bikes are stolen and less is done about it. It's sad and really not an excuse over all, but it's a bit of a deterrent to some.
@@steeljawX you also have dumba$$drivers who don't look for blind spots
Making and normalizing automatic transmission was a mistake, since people are less busy driving a car and feel comfy without hitting shifts
This guys voice makes me feel dumb. Its supWising to hear how many points he made that are wrong.
Who's telling this guy this is a problem we need to fix? I don't understand that.
I think it's just the car reliancy. Probably the norm in America but throughout Europe you can get by without easily.
@@BradPixelManH if I still lived in the country I could see the nessessity for a car but in my city (its not a big city I understand) but its just not worth the cost of a car when I can get one of the many buses.
I've heard a joke about Finland and Denmark being the happiest countries, it's because all the sad people kill themselves
The sad joke in that matter is how people that live half a year in darkness, are still happier than americans.
Americans aren't happy i live in US i can tell
@@fbyi2940 I’m happy you live here
The dude who made this video doesn't seem to ever have been to the US. What bike is going to carry 5+ bags of stuff you bought? Why would I want to bike for an hour when I can drive in 15 min? Is it amazing Houston wasn't designed for cars before cars?...... uh no? Have your kid walk miles to get to school and, depending on the area, potentially get robbed or shot on the way?
I guess I'll just bike away from the next tornado.
America doesn't have the bike frenzy that Copenhagen apparently does.
Ahh, a guy from a country smaller than the state I’m from with a population lower than the state I’m from, trying to speak for Americans and what they want. He cherry picks a couple of cities and images that fit his narrative, and really ignores the vast rural areas and suburban culture, that, despite its bad rap online, is still highly desirable for a lot of people and provides large homes and plots of land, and safe neighborhoods (that children can ride bikes in 😂). I don’t think American cities are perfect or free of problems by any means, but this guy presented a totally one sided argument and seems to think that the majority of Americans are suffering from driving cars and having an excess of parking lots. I know someone will comment about how they wished the states had more public transport because they hate driving/blah blah blah and think they represent the majority.
As always, great reaction guys!
You are absolutely right. This video is propaganda. Here are the real statistics:
Houston population: 2.3 million
Amsterdam population: 1,158,000
Copenhagen population: 799, 033
Houston area: 669 square miles / 1651 square kilometers (Established on a swamp in 1837)
Amsterdam area: 84.7 square miles / 219.4 square kilometers (Established in 1327)
Copenhagen area: 34.07 square miles / (Established in 1416)
Houston temperatures reach or exceed 90 °F (32 °C) an average of 106.5 days per year
Amsterdam average high in August is 22.1 °C (72 °F)
Chicago the normal winter high from December through March is about 36 °F (2 °C)
Only 3% of the USA is urbanized 97% is rural. Do not fall for the myth of urban sprawl.
But the thing is that most of your big cities where most of your population live in aren´t larger than for ex Tokyo. And Tokyo can make better transportation why can´t usa. And your pollution dont just mess up USA it creates problem for everyone.
@@thomasandersson367 I refer you to the comment above. Also, Tokyo is an even farther stretch to compare than European cities. You can’t compare. Or, rather, you can, but it’s a terribly misleading comparison…. Tokyo is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. American cities are large and spread out. Americans like their space.
@@thomasandersson367 Because Tokyo metro is massive the biggest in the world, they didn't have another option but to make it work, there is no space there like we have in the states, and the country is only about the size of California. They still have massive traffic issues there, traffic is horrible everywhere there, I was stationed there for 3 years.
@@emobx02 Well you can take other cities most of the cities in the developed world have good public transportation. Besides It´s harder and more expensive to built trains and so on in an dense town as Tokyo because of the lack of space. So It easier to do that in the states than in Tokyo so your argument dosen´t work.
The person who made this video doesnt understand the difference in America and Denmark. He is looking at the population of the city itself and not size of the metro area that the city supports. Copenhagen is a fraction the size of Philadelphia when you look at the size and population of the metro area.
"America big" isn't really a good defense of our shit urban planning. Especially considering the geographical size of the metro area is a direct consequence of that same poor urban planning. American cities arent so special and unique that they require miles and miles of suburban sprawl surrounding them. That's a hole we purposefully dug for ourselves.
@@callowaymotorcompany I wouldn't defend our infrastructure as I know it has major issues and a lack of good mass transportation. However, this creator's simplistic explanations comparing a metro area supporting more than 6m people to one supporting less than 2m don't cover it in my opinion. There are cities in the US that would be a much closer comparison like Austin, Texas for instance. I guess my main concern with the original video is it seems to completely miss the real reason for the issue which to me is cultural differences in what people want and will accept. One example of that is the average home size in the US is 7x that of the average home in Denmark.
@@cham1592 Also most modern Urbanist forget one important thing, even with more urban living choices to choose from in cities known for sprawl, a large number of people are still choosing a suburban, personal transport lifestyle over one built around mass transit. One reason is cultural, in the south and southwest where sprawl is king, Urbanist falsely believe it all began with the car. It began with the horse, or should I say Farm culture just prior to the end of the Revolutionary war. This culture took root here in the South and later Southwest When Thomas Jefferson wrote, that his, and other Southern founders vision was an America of Gentlemen Farmers, While other founding fathers from Boston and Philadelphia's vision was an America of great cities, like Europe. (these notes and letters can be found at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville)
@@cham1592 Do you think the US became car dependent because of cultural differences? Actually? Not because of top down urban planning in the 50s and 60s?
@Jeffrey Dick What the government decides on is the preference of the american population as a whole by default? Thats news to me. In my neck of the woods, people tend to find federal policy pretty distasteful. But i suppose its possible that you live in some trashed democrat run city. In my state people generally love having the option of rail that we've built.
Hell yeah as an American I love hopping into my pickup truck for my hour commute into the city every day for work. Nothing gets me going like burning a hundred tons of carbon on my way to and from suburban hell
I get the feeling you're lying.
@@TickleMeElmo55 surburb hell is sarcasm?
Just because it's European doesn't automatically make it better.
thats not his case we built our cities like that too during the colonial times and thats how its supposed to be
@@VegaTakeOver why is it "supposed to be" like that
@@ethanpintar5454 because making you absolutely reliant on a car means you have to have a financial burden for life. You have to buy car, maintain a car, insure a car, pay taxes for the car and the american infrastructure was built in a way that many don't even have a choice in the matter.
@@4Curses Having a car also gives you more freedom of movement, since you're not beholden to the routes and timetables of public transport systems. There are clear advantages and disadvantages of both ways, the point is that you should have the freedom to do either.
@@ethanpintar5454 what freedom? Do most people care about freedom?
If they are for freedom, why do they disapprove open carry?
And cycling isn't free? Specaily it can where cars can't due to mobility size?
Where is the freedom if the car breaks down?
I don't think any American thinks our infrastructure design is perfect. But you can't just look at it from one perspective. I would say improving economic development, highway safety, congestion relief, and the ability to quickly evacuate cities are very important factors towards the design. If you have an atomic bomb headed towards your city. Good luck on your bike or public transportation.
Bud if you have an ICBM headed at your city, you will not have enough time to get far enough away to matter. If it's launched from a sub, you have 10-15 minutes. If it were to be launched from Russia, you have 30 minutes, good luck. Not that it matters, if somebody launched a nuke at us, the gov would not tell people, as there is no point. We would simply launch a retaliation strike as there would be thousands of other missiles right behind that one and life as we know it is over.
I live in the USA and that is such a dumbass middle-America/Texan take.
@@infrad3ad277 depressing thought
Actually, if you're talking about mass evacuation from a population center, a bike would be your best bet. Worst thing you can do is get into a car and try to drive out. Especially if everyone else in the city had that exact same idea.
Good point! Nice name!
I can't hate this video enough. 1st of all the Philly metro area contains about 8 million people. 2) I've lived in Philly my whole life and have never seen an road that didn't also have a sidewalk plus bike lane.
3) in America we like cars. Car culture is intertwined with American culture. This is a huge country. We enjoy being able to live in a small cottage on acres of farmland and take our car into the city for work.
"Keep your nose out of f'ing America." Thanks, Daz! I don't normally react this way but, that guy was annoying🤣
The fact that Texas is bigger than France and Europeans think the USA is the same size as Europe boggles me the US is really fucking big maybe if the Mediterranean sea and Baltic Sea’s were land than Europe would be the same size as the US but we rely on cars in the states that it’s become a norm due to its size
Ugh, yes. I saw someone arguing that Europe was larger on Twitter. What he was doing was only counting the size of the contiguous US, and for Europe was including Russia. So yes, in that case, Europe is larger when Russia gets added in.
But if just counting the continental US, which is what would be relevant here, the USA is about double the size of the European Union in area.
Lol cars are not good for going far. A train is less likely to crash, can go way faster and is way more efficent over a long distance. And we know how big the US is which is why we think that it is hilarious that the US doesnt have high speed trains.
@@toniderdon We were, but then we went for the Interstate system. Meanwhile during WWII, European rail lines were bombed to hell and all logistics stopped for everyone except the Allies who had the US with their quarter ton pickups and soldiers who knew how to drive them. If only those superior trains could have gotten around those wrecked sections of track.
But and intercontinental rail line would not make sense for the US. There'd be either too few or too many stops along the way from coast to coast. Either your goal would be to get from one coast to the other, or to get some where in between. If you're aiming in between, how do you decide who gets on the line? Regional lines would work with lines connecting those together, but 1designated line would not be economically or environmentally practical.
And technically the USA does have a high speed train. . . . Japan borrowed our research and tech and made theirs based off of it. Not the whole thing, but once the Interstate project was underway and they were interested in making their own and asked for ours, we kind of just gave them what we were working on. . . so it's like a school group project, except Japan did all the work and we didn't get a grade for it.
And yes, this comment is a snarky quip back, a technical potential solution for discussion, and a fact joke all wrapped in one.
and yet your highways are slow af and in germany they dont have speed limits and only 2-5 car lanes at most
@@smarty265 Curious, but what's considered slow af?
Every time I see this guys videos it seems he's looking at things from the perspective of where ever he is from and has no bearing on the US.
WTF 🤣 If the guy who made this video spent 27 seconds on Google he'd realize that America has a population of 330 Million, most of which are packed into just several coastal cities, and also happens to be much much larger. His European-centric mind can't comprehend that making your kids walk to school can mean forcing them to walk 2 hours every morning and 2 hours back. Riding your bike to work could mean 3 1/2 hours there and 3 1/3 hours back. Too many parking spaces? Tell that to every person in any city that spends 30 minutes driving around in circles looking for a space to park. Was this some high school kid who never left his tiny little town in GB?
The EU has a population of 445 million. Most cities are extremely walk-able and have fantastic public infrastructure. I'm American but European infrastructure shits completely over ours. I took high-speed rail all over Europe and buses within the cities without ever once thinking about renting a car. Frankly it's embarrassing that even tiny European villages have better public transit and city planning than the best American ones.
I like how he says America was "designed for cars, not humans"...as if cars aren't just extensions of people. Most americans agree it would be great if there was some usable form of high-speed rail between big cities, but there's def a positive side to just being able to get in your car and drive wherever, whenever. Also, Holland and Denmark are tiny little countries smaller than south carolina. It's just not as practical.
Yeah but with reliable public transit, it’s cheaper and feels more convenient than driving since you don’t have to worry about keeping up with the true costs of having a car.
Also, you can’t drive during rush hour, that’s fs
California has been battling for years on getting a high speed rail line from Northern California to Southern. Politics and funding is holding it back.
And, my parents paid extra taxes in the East Bay for nearly 20 years before we moved, in promise that the funding was to get the BART system from SF to our little town. 45 years later, still hasn't reached that town. So, I understand politics and money really being an issue.
@@PenelopeFrank California HSR is a joke. They should’ve connect LA to San Diego, then San Jose to SF.
It would’ve been way more cheaper and get more public support
But yeah, and I’m just as frustrated too. VTA is too slow, but (some) progress is being made ig?
yea because that's all we are used to in America, walking next to cars that's not how it is supposed to be you think people during George Washington's time walked next to cars to commute to work or school? no they had walkable cities where they didn't have to drive every where and frankly we should be doing this because walkable cities are better for capitalism and bring in more money since people don't have to pay for a car, car insurance, gas, car repairs giving them more money to spend on local mom and pop shops as they walk by these every day we shot our selves in the foot now we drive to work isolated go to a isolated suburb
@@dudeman4184 I don’t know how public transportation could ever be as convenient as having your own car. I walk out my front door and go wherever I want. Can go grocery shopping and fill my trunk with bags rather than wrestle them home on a bus or train. Making your own schedule opposed to relying on some else’s seems very convenient.
As an American, it's very clear this guy doesn't really know or understand America. How big it is, how much land is here, now far we often travel on a daily basis.
That’s the problem. You don’t travel the width of the US everyday. 40% of car trips are 3 miles or less
this response is dumb just because we have allot of land doesn't mean we should fill it with these ugly copy paste sprawling suburbs, you think people during George Washington's time walked next to cars to commute to work or school? no they had walkable cities where they didn't have to drive every where and frankly we should be doing this because walkable cities are better for capitalism and bring in more money since people don't have to pay for a car, car insurance, gas, car repairs giving them more money to spend on local mom and pop shops as they walk by these every day we shot our selves in the foot now we drive to work isolated go to a isolated suburb
I think this guy is forgetting that in terms of land mass, America is almost the same size as all of Europe combined.
Over 80% of the population lives in urban areas. You're commenting as if the population is evenly spread when in reality 47% of that land mass is a barren wasteland where nobody lives anyway.
@@callowaymotorcompany Yeah, and those rural areas are massive, not just the cities. Implementing a really affective mass transit system across the area the size of America would cost trillions and people still wouldn't use it because if you can afford a car, you're going to prefer a car.
@@callowaymotorcompany this the type of people that don't believe places like Russia and Canada don't exist.
@Betty Blue Yeah man, when i think of places where people work and live to do urban planning on, its national forests. What are you even talking about?
@@willvr4 And the 20% of people who live in massive rural areas can have no public transport. This isn't rocket science
I disagree with the entire video. More than 6 million people live in the Philadelphia metro, so parking space is designed for the entire metro. The culture around cars and public transportation is just different in the US, the US don't need to try to be like anything in Europe, just be ourselves. Plus the US is blessed with tons of space, and much of it's design and culture is built around all that space.
The problem is that you mess up thing for us in the rest of the world by being one of the biggest polluters.
@@thomasandersson367 ??
@@Lilbarii The pollution that you do affect everyone.
@@thomasandersson367 Regardless of the fact that this has literally nothing to do with the video, you know that China produces almost double the pollution of the US? And secondly, who cares?
@@legolite45 You don't care about pollution of the Earth? Interesting.
Oh, btw, responding to criticism with "Well, we're not the only ones!" is a bit childish.
Also, @Thomas Andersson was referencing the fact that Americans will drive their cars to destinations that are literally 3-5 minutes from their house instead of just walking there... or bicycling...
Whomever made that video just comes off as very anti-American and a lot of his statements are either completely biased or uneducated.
I live OUTSIDE a relatively small city in the south. Why outside? Living inside the city, you may pay anywhere from $1,000-$2,000+/mo. just to rent a small studio apartment downtown. Inside the city, but away from downtown may get you a very small house with barely enough space for a garden for several hundred thousand, or $1000-$2000+/mo. to rent. Meanwhile I live 10 miles away from downtown in the rural countryside. The reason? My 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bath house on an acre of land. My house payment and car payments combined are less than $1,200 per month, and I'll end up owning this land, house, and vehicles. It's actually way cheaper for me to buy a decent house on a decent amount of land outside the city, and commute into the city. It's this way with much of America. Also, the distances to travel anywhere on average are just much longer.
As far as public transit goes, large cities have either decent subway systems or a ton of taxis. Now with things like Uber and such, you can have 'public' transit from anywhere to anywhere, so there's no real need for extensive and expensive overhauls of the public transit systems in most cases.
What works for one country doesn't always work for another. It's an apples to oranges argument in most cases.
You've kind of proven their point though. There are more cars today than 'back in our day.' Which means, less room for bicycles - or at least less SAFE space for bike riders. Especially considering 1 out of 3 people are intoxicated and the other percentile's driving capabilities (while sober) are highly dubious at best. I took the video as simply implying things could be better if viewed from a pedestrian point of view. Taxis, Ubers, personal vehicles (literally people driving 5 minutes to the store)...it's out of control and depression and obesity rates for sedentary lifestyles only support this evidence as well.
I'm American too and no when people criticize America it isn't to be anti American and we created these problems for our selves people during George Washington's time didn't have these problems you should look up the laws that makes the housing expensive we shot our self in the foot
Office Bloke Daz, please remember how hot it is in Houston and how often it rains in Houston, then image riding a bike to and from work every day. Your suit would be soaked with sweat or rain by the time you reached the end of the block. Image waiting for a bus in the Phoenix, Arizona heat or biking in Juneau, Alaska or any of the northern states. Bikes don't work well in the snow. The gentleman in the video has a myopic viewpoint and a Eurocentric worldview.
I disagree with this video. The US is far more spread out than Europe. Sure, Philadelphia may be somewhat similar sized to Amsterdam (although Wikipedia says Philadelphia is actually about double the size), the totality of the metro area is about 4x the population of Amsterdam and it's surrounding area. You can't bike from a suburb 20 miles away to downtown.
Just because the city is planned differently doesn't mean it's a terrible design. A lot of people like to live outside the city where they have large yards, trees, space, etc.
AMERICA is not terribly designed it just not designed for some people and it designed for cars then people walking all the time especially in big wide spread city other than new york where it common for people to walk cuz the space is small
The reason places like Philadelphia have nearly twice as many car spaces than residents is because of commuters. Detroit has a population of nearly 1 million but it will have more than twice as many people in it and working on a daily basis
yea and you know why there's allot of commuters???? because we are dumb and place them in suburbs far away so the only option is to drive instead of making it walkable
@@VegaTakeOver don’t they choose to live in suburbs though? The reason Suburbs are separated from metro areas, is because someone doesn’t want sound constantly. At night, they want quiet.
I like how he thought it was an amazing thing that Houston ca. 1920 didn't have tons of parking lots and had loads of pedestrians. Uh, it was 1920. There weren't many cars around guy.
Yes, that was the point he made.
Actually there were a lot of cars around Houston in 1920, the commute into town was just shorter, and Houston's population was considerably smaller then. Most middle class and wealthy Houstonians that could afford to shop downtown, didn't live downtown. They commuted in by car or street car. Those crowded pedestrian streets emptied when the stores, theatres, and offices closed every evening pretty much like every southern city that wasn't Atlanta or New Orleans. Unless you were the working poor, an artist, gambler, or bootlegger, a southern city was someplace you went to for shopping, business, or entertainment, not someplace you lived.
But that's the point. You guys messed up your downtowns all to accommodate cars.
Which is a better "design"? The hodgepodge of roads going every with no order to it, or a logically actually planned out grid system that is much more easy to comprehend and navigate? Christ, just look at the two examples in the thumbnail. Which one seems like it was actually designed, and which one looks like a hodgepodge that they just kept adding pieces to?
I'm guessing that people from Denmark live in some kind of mystical world where everyone loves their neighbors and are happy all the time.
Bitter much?
@@sonyabyrd8739 not at all.
@@bigtimebobby6644 Okay. It's hard to discern tone and I was curious about your choice of words. But I do agree that the way they portrayed the wealthiest European cities as some sort of Utopian paradise was elitist and condescending to say the least.
Copenhagen is literally the richest city in Europe but they compared it to Houston, TX and Philadelphia, PA. Seriously...
I mean, why not San Francisco, CA that can go toe-to-toe with their wealth AND snobby, elitist attitude. 😂😂😂😂😂
@@sonyabyrd8739 Don't let all that new tech money in N California fool you, San Francisco can't hold a candle to old money Philadelphia elitism. Mainline old money society is quiet, but weighs heavy like a 300 year old hammer. Doesn't matter how many $billions facebook paid you for that hot tech startup, even Bezos, and Musk's money is considered too new and vulgar to be let in to some circles along City Line ave.
@@tyreedillard 100% correct assessment. Perhaps I should use 'rich' instead of 'wealth.' 🤣
East coast in general is old and the west is fresh[er] and that's kind of where I was steering comparisons. 'If' there were places/people in the U.S. that would consider investing 💰 in such structural/social experiments, it would be silicone valley. Not Philadelphia nor Texas as there would be zero incentive.
I feel like this guy got some culture car shock coming to the states and decided his way was better and nitpicked everything he could find to justify his case. There are bike lanes around, ( a lot of our cities aren’t flat, try bike riding around the hills of San Francisco! 😳 you have to stick to certain areas certainly not the whole city! And try riding a bike at altitude, or in the rain, in the freezing cold, or scorching hot or humid cities! ) and has he never heard of the metro population? Most people don’t live in the city they commute to. So the population doesn’t matter when in regards to parking lots, there’s tourism, and major cities usually have major sports/events that draw huge crowds. You need those parking spaces. And American cars on average are bigger than European cars so the spaces/lots need to be bigger.
As for high schools, again most high schools have sporting events (HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL IS HUGE!) fairs/ weekend markets, that draw more people. Would it be better to have a small parking lot then have visitors park all throughout the neighborhood and then walk? And what if the high school expands? Has additions built to accommodate more people/students/teachers?
As for mass transit? Lmao 🤣 mass transit works okay for the big cities, AMERICA IS HUGE with large distances between places/cities. But you need a car for every place else, as for Amtrak? Again LMAO 🤣 it’s way too expensive! Flying across country can be cheaper and faster than Amtrak. Comparing Amtrak to Swiss transit is a joke. I mean in California we’ve been stuck in high speed rail Hell. We were supposed to have a line from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area, and it has cost literally billions, and is such a money pit that the plans have been tossed and it’s now just for Southern California and isn’t even done being built! How much are those tickets gonna cost whenever it’s actually finished? 🤔 $$$$$
As for buses, again, they work in the cities okay, (I mean they’ll get you where you need to go IN THE CITY) but again why would you want to ride in a long bus ride from city to city when you can drive and have no stops? The distances are just too big for great mass transit. And let’s not forget safety! Some of these buses/metro rail stations aren’t in good neighborhoods/areas, where your physical safety could be compromised. 🤕😵
I mean if you have to go travel by bus, Greyhound transit has been around forever and is still popular choice for those who wish to travel that way.
Great reaction like always! 😀
What a great response!!!
I mean busses work for the poor. Its impossible to get to work for many people without them. And I've never been to an American town that didn't have a regular local bus route in 2021. So for him to say that he couldn't take a bus was probably false.
Yeah but when 80% of your population lives in urban areas, don’t you think it would be more sustainable to have mass transit for those areas?
@@dudeman4184 I mean of course it would. The problem is funding for it. The cost of buses/drivers/maintenance/trains/rail employees, would mean a lot of money from the city. How would the city pay for it? Raise taxes? Cut funding somewhere else? There would be pushback from others and it would get stuck in perpetual limbo.
Take Los Angeles for example. LA had the start of a great mass transit system going. But what happened? The automobile and gas industry lobbyists were able to get their way and basically kill the mass transit system. So that people would buy more cars and gasoline. It’s all about the money.
Imagine what traffic would look like in Los Angeles if the mass transit system had been able to be built the way it was imagined?. They had a plan and were going to do it, but ultimately the city went with the money.
And now it’s kinda too late to really do it like they wanted without spending BILLIONS. No politician is going to want to campaign for that.
@@nazcahari but you’re saying that as if there’s no cost to building and maintain roads and highway widenings. Highways and roads are very expansive to maintain.
With low density, there’s not enough tax revenue to support the cost of the road infrastructure hence making the city unsustainable.
Also, we do have the funding to make a good public transit system, it’s just the car and oil companies campaign for leaders the implement policies that make cities car dependent.
I live in America and I can tell you right now some of his points are completely true. Unless you're in one of the wealthier Cities where they are building infrastructure often commuting in America is much more expensive and always require a car in the majority of the country. Public transport is terrible in America and it's not even available in most of the country. I currently live in Tulsa, and we have no public transport, and terrible roads with even worse sidewalks and none or few dedicated bike lanes so bicyclists and normal pedestrians kept getting hit. We were the worst city for hit and runs at one point I think. And now the city is starting to copy the European method with new designated walking and biking paths that aren't part of the actual Road. Still no public transport though. And also people in rural areas are fucked most of the time if u can't afford a car.
Gas is cheaper in the US. That means everyone can afford to travel by car (for the most part). And so, cities are designed to that preference.
That was true in 1960. Cars are huge expense for a lot of Americans, not to mention the pollution they cause. We need to really invest in public transportation
@@Prrocess Not just 1960. 91% of Americans have access to a vehicle (lease, own, rent). We do need to invest in public transportation both locally and regionally.
@@Prrocess No thanks. Hard pass.
@@jarronkhan3641 Right, my point is simply that being forced into debt, whether leasing, renting or owning, in order to fulfill the basic necessities of life isn't exactly the peak of city planning. We have cars because we HAVE to have them, not because people can afford them
@@Prrocess No, we have cars because we want them. Curb your car phobia.
This guy is could not be more wrong. Pedestrians never "fear for their lives", people just can't walk on highways. Anyone who grew up outside of a major city, which is most of the population rode bikes everywhere, safely. Your bike was basically your main mode of transportation until you turned 16.
@Elder Tree To find your friends, we'd just ride around the whole town to different friends' houses til we found the one with all the bikes in the driveway/front lawn
I'm not sure that this dude understands how differently each country works.
We from outside the US understand it very well.
Urban planning in the US simply sucks. Too car-centric. And people wouldn't admit it.
@@ianhomerpura8937 as an American I agree with this statement. I actually hate living in the suburbs. I hate it when one of my family members ask me to pick something up, want to know why? Because it's a 15 minute drive to that place and another 15 minutes back by car. That's 30 minutes wasted, and I didn't even include traffic and those damn traffic lights! I'm actually sick of it! We never design our towns by proximity.
We had wind gusts up to 75/80 mph the other day and the dust storm that came with it made a complete brown out. Let’s see biking in that
This dude just doesn't like the US. It's flawed but it isn't Europe. All of Europe would fit inside the US and is much more densely populated. We also enjoy our freedom and turning 16 and getting your driver's license is a right of passage.
Oh the typical American illusion thinking you life in a free country. 😂
@@hyenalaughingmatter8103 like I said it's flawed, but you do have the freedom to come and go in your car, especially away from large cities and the majority of the US is rural.
Hey Philly, we changed your city for the better to make downtown more bike friendly! Fucking great, it’s 23 degrees out and snowing… let me get on my beach cruiser…
I don’t think this guy realizes how big the United States is
The United States is 3.8 million square miles. Europe is 3.9 million square miles. It's not about how big the US is.
@@acslater017 Our population density is much lower. Things are much more spread out and we like the freedom that comes with private transportation. We aren't going to change. You might as well complain about us not using the Metric system because that ain't gonna happen either.
@@acslater017 the US is a single country. I’m sure not every country in Europe does things the same way
@@acslater017 Europe is a continent the us is a country it is about how big the United States is because Europe is run as one and they both have extremely different topography also every state individually handles stuff like this it isn’t across the board and like I said most states in the us aren’t suitable for plans like this and the reason the video is so flawed is because he literally doesn’t know what’s he talking about because he’s not from the us and he has only visited once
Its really fun cycling in four feet of snow in the winter on the east coast of the US.
Also, it's really not that expensive to own a car in America. I have had one since I was 16 yrs. and I bought it myself.
I think he is saying about other brand or newer cars
I live in Phoenix, the public transportation is slowly improving here but is still behind in other major cities
This guys needs to see a doctor for his car phobia. Haha. Daz with a great point as to topography. Comparing only population is laughable.
Edit following full viewing: still disagree. However I do agree we have a massive infrastructure issue in the US.
It's mainly about city planning and culture, not topography. Yes, hills can deter people from riding bikes. But most auto centric cities in the US are not hilly, and one can find plenty of hilly ones such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston that are much less auto centric than average.
@@acslater017 I was only commenting on the comparative analysis. Of course there’s lots of things to consider.
One thing to consider is industry’s affect. In the northern cities there’s a lot of things he’s advocating for as they are far more urbanized. But if you look at say a city like OKC where oil maybe ranching were the main industries at/near inception of the city, you can reasonably see why urban areas weren’t as built up and thriving in a place like OKC vs. a Boston or NYC. More space leads to more development further away from those centralized urban areas if there’s not much reason to be in the city.
Also can look to the changes desegregation brought and the move from urban to suburban. Long story short is, it’s about more than cars in my opinion.
@@acslater017 Americans like their cars. You just need to come to peace with it.
@Bwen FYI Yeah I agree that we do have issues with infrastructure, mainly a lot of aging bridges and utilities, we don’t really have a lot of design issues. Also, it’s funny how Europeans never bring up how insanely accessible the US is to people with disabilities and wheelchairs.
Why would you bike if your not 10 years old? Also Philly has like 6 million people. He is right that your basically on house arrest til you could drive though because theres no where to go.
Loved the reaction, I just thought that the guys video didn’t make any sense? He pretty much just said he prefers bikes and public transport to cars
The number 1 reason this video is irrelevant is that 2/3 of the country live in an environment with mountains/large hills and have winters that avg 20 degrees or lower for 3+ months of the year. Go ride your bike in that shit once and youre getting your car lol
One other point, America is about the size of ALL OF EUROPE, we have room to build parking lots and we don't necessarily want to be stacked up on top of each other staring at some chicks unshaved Pits like they do in Paris.
Parking lots look ugly and look of city matters!
If your city looks lifeless, people are going to be lifeless and chose not to serve the community, look at US shortage of workers or labours, Americans pefer to go offgrid, move to cheaper country or die as homeless than go to work and pay taxes...
Also USA miltary is having issues with recruitment
Compared that to hard working dutch/Finnish serving their country
@@fbyi2940 Sounds like you heard a lot of things from people that don't know what they are talking about.
You can’t compare America with Europe! Ridiculous! In Europe you have no choice but to use a bike!
Houston population in 1920: 140,000. Houston population today: 2.3 million and still growing. And that doesn't even count the other 5 million who live in the surrounding metro area, a large portion of whom commute into the city to work. But hey, let's all act surprised it has a fundamentally different layout today than when it had 1/20th of the population.
As an American, I actually found European cities refreshing, the good thing about promoting public transport and biking is the traffic is less, pollution is reduced which is a major problem for most of our big cities and reducing our increasingly obese population. However this guy is exaggerating to make a point because there are bike lanes in America, they aren't everywhere but they are in specific areas. It's probably too late to promote this because it will affect the car industry here.
This guy is biased with the POV that public transportation is better than private transportation. Those old European cities were formed long before modern transportation and adapted new tech to fit into that landscape. While America is fairly new and embraces new tech and it's business opportunities. People in the US prefer to have the freedom to move about at their own pace and schedule.
If there's a disaster class emergency that required evacuating the city, everyone in the European city would be stuck waiting for available trains and such. Whereas in the US most people can hop in their own car and hit the highway. An enemy nation can cripple a European city by destroying or capturing the railways. Can't do that in America.
Cars are better. Bikes are trash
We have plenty of kids with bikes. Most cities have sidewalks. Texas cities have sidewalks. The city 10 miles down the road from me has sidewalks. I don't get why they are saying there aren't any. And who is cycling in Philly in below zero weather and a foot of snow? 2. I live in the country and my job is over 6 miles from my house.
Yes let's all ride bikes in America. Good luck with that with our weather and varied topography (as Daz mentioned). It would be a fun morning commute riding your bike to work in -30 degree temperatures or coming home in the summer on your bike when it's 100 or 110 degrees. What do these people do during a hurricane or blizzard and you have to get to work? The fact that we have a population density of less than 100 people per square mile compared to Denmark's 350 and Netherlands 1,300 also makes widespread public transportation impractical in much of the country.
"What do these people do during a hurricane or blizzard and you have to get to work?"
Well during a hurricane if you're going to work, you're an idiot. But during a blizzard, layer up, nut up and get it done. They do make studded tires for bikes, I've ridden in a foot of snow to work, it's fun, I look forward to big snow days. I don't worry about setting time aside to exercise, I get my exercise on my commute, which gives me more free time to do the shit I actually want to do.
@@infrad3ad277 Obesity rates aren't sky high for no reason. Any excuse at all will be grasped and justified.
@@infrad3ad277 how do you hold 20 bags of groceries on your bike and how do you avoid being shot and/or robbed?
A bike ride to work would take me at least an hour 😂 living out in the sticks in Pennsylvania is bad enough being far away from things, I couldn’t imagine the Midwest
@@sonyabyrd8739 But the public transportation set up has existed for several decades and precedes the obesity epidemic. If we're going to spend money to get people to lose weight, rather than wasting it on public transportation projects that will no doubt be seriously delayed and come in overbudget, we could just give people gym gift cards.
Per wikipedia: Philadelphia's GDP per capita is $64,023; Copenhagen's GDP per capita is $54,197. You would think they would be much more productive in their modern more efficient city.
I disagree with this. While yes we could have better sidewalks, trains and buses, and stuff. Getting rid of parking is not the way, and cars are not the way. For many Americans like myself that live in rural areas that are 30 miles or more from the closet town, the idea of biking or walking is just an insane Idea. Where I live right now if I was to say bike to the nearest store for groceries it would be an all-day event if not two days and forget about walking, and the whole idea of moving into the city is not something everyone wants, can afford, or even can do.
But most americans don´t live like you. Most people live in big cities and there they don´t need cars. But even in rural areas you could use public transportation. I have friends that have longer distance than that and they take speed train to work,
,@@thomasandersson367 I did not say most I said a lot. And as I said yes trains and buses and bikes would be nice in towns but getting rid of cars and parking lots would not work. You do have an interesting point.
@@brendaguthrie3470 You dont have to get rid of all parking lots and cars. But in many times it´s more effective with public transportation. Thing for ex if 1000 people goes to a work place everyday and the drive there own cars. That is 1000 cars. Put them in a public transportation and It´s more effecient and you need less road and so on.
@@thomasandersson367 true, but in a culture that cars are linked to being successful, it would be hard to convince people to change and even harder trying to convince the government.
@@brendaguthrie3470 It´s hard but not impossible. People have had the same wiews on cars over here and many still have. But we have changed wiew. By information about pollution. Also by making gas prices wery high. But most important is the kids and the young people. They are the easiest to change. In the big cities over here many young people don´t even take driver license. They don´t feel a need for It. Besides people can still have a flashy car but they can use It for road trips and so on and take the train to work. Jay Leno said a good thing about cars. He loves cars but he want more electrical cars and so on. Because he want to save earth. He said that he can take out the sportscars on the weekend.
I think he is also forgetting that the Greater Houston area is 26,000 sq km (10,000 sq m). Lol good luck getting from one side to the other on a bicycle in a timely fashion.
To put that in perspective, the state of New Jersey is 22,600 sq km (7,350 sq m).
It just sounds like the guy doesn't like cars or parking lots.
Probably just an environmentalist.
@@syrtycon7299 With a manbun.
Comments thread filled with offended Americans.
Relax guys there are people who do things better than you. It's okay. It doesn't mean you guys are dumb.
That's the thing. This is not a case of something being done better because the US is so different from small European countries. He attempted to claim that things are done better there, but that could only be true if the two places being compared were similar in size and population density. That's what most of the comments are pointing out. What's feasible and necessary in a small country with ONE large major city cannot necessarily be duplicated (nor should it be in many cases) in the 3rd largest country in the world both in population size and land mass. The US is built for cars because in most areas of the US, getting places is highly inconvenient without a car due to the larger distances we have to cover, as well as more extreme whether conditions than what you experience in Europe. I live in Chicago, and there are many days when I would not have made it to work without a car due to weather being so extreme as to make walking outside torturous, and taking a bike impossible. So, we rely on cars far more than Europeans do.
@@anyaw340 That's exactly his point. The US didn't have to make their cities so big (by land area) but they did. A need for cars was created, which was further added upon by the lack of proper public transport. I have been multiple times to the US and i only had two options for intercity travel, cars or planes. Although, i don't complain about this as being a car lover, it was an absolute delight to drive around in bigass trucks, even for short commutes.
But personal preferences aside, Europe is really planned very well. One thing not mentioned in this video is the availability of everything one might need within a short distance. Even with all the snow and rain, the aesthetic appeal of their cities is not lost.
That being said, it doesn't mean that American cities are bad. They're better than most cities around the world (trust me) but some cities just have the edge.
I personally feel Tokyo is the best in the world when it comes to planning cities.
@@anyaw340 Also, glad to meet someone from Chicago. I have really good memories from Chicago and it has never failed to impress me whenever i have been there.
I live in the U.S and in a mountainous area and having to bike up all those hills would get old.
12:57 WHY. DO. YOU. THINK. THEY. HAVE. TO. LIVE. SO. FAR. AWAY????!!!!!!???
oh my god this whole commentary makes me want to kms (sorry for the dramatics but god damn)
OK, this guy is right in that America needs to invest in public transport. Our train and bus systems are pathetic. That being said, some places in the United States are just too damn far apart that I doubt any public transport system would help. I commute 45 minutes to work ONE WAY daily. This sounds nuts to Europeans, but it is not unusual for Americans. Ninety minutes spent in a car every day is just ... life. It sucks, no doubt, but I don't see a way around it.
What people don't get is, that it's actually good for car drivers to have more cyling and public transport in cities. That way people have alternatives to using a car and only people who want to drive or need to drive use the car. That way it's a lot less traffic and driving is way more comfortable
When I first traveled for business I went from a mountain state to a suburb of Detroit. Upscale hotels with shopping malls nearby. Not a sidewalk to be found in the entire area. When I asked a local why I was told there are parts of the city you would not want to be walking in due to crime. They don't even bother with them in new construction as people use cars, taxis, shuttles and buses.
Only poor people and health fanatics walk in the US. Walking is for peasants.
Don’t go down south. For some reason they don’t like sidewalks
cheaper on the long run, to own land than to lease someone else's building. also cities grow sideways faster and much cheaper than of growing up. cities like tokyo, shanghai, london, newyork, amsterdam, theres just no benefit in constructing a building 10-15 miles away, the land isnt cheap bc theres no more near.
Copenhagen is the size of a small American city. Of course they can have good public transit. America is huge. It would take 2 weeks to traverse it by train. A car can do it in a leisurely 5 days. Most Americans don't work in the cities they live either. Who wants to wait around for a bus after work or ride a bike like 15 miles? What a Danish dolt...
You are comparing traversing one city to the entire country. He isn't saying ah yes you could swap out your daily commute and walk across America, Also not saying that America is to just abandon the car. Instead stating that the options are poor and a lack of forethought has been put in to hold up to the current state of things. Improvements are nothing to hide away from, just like cars improve so can expenditure placement and the lives of those who would benefit. Just seems like such a self centred sentiment.
Bikes are fun for very short distances in good weather if you have nothing to carry, which excludes 99.9% of the american poluation.plus there is also the cultural problem, riding a bike in other countries is socially acceptable in america only kids and people who have lost their cars due to DUI, ride bikes.
In the US we have massive distances, extreme weather, hills, mountains and other dangerous conditions. The guy in this video has no clue about anything. Try riding your bike in 4 - 8 feet of snow for 30 miles to get to work. Put a small child on a bike and have them pedal 20 miles to school in extreme weather? Not to mention the threat of kidnapping, etc.
we as a country created all these problems for our selves just because we are a huge country doesn't mean we should build like this and mountains aren't an excuse because Switzerland did it and places in Europe have better laws for snow removal than the ones here in the US so you don't know the difference because that's all we are used to here and the reason you drive 30 miles is because you live in a far away suburb design for you to use a car this is not the best way people during George Washington's time didn't have these problems
I live in Cleveland, a mid sized city. The buses run everywhere, every 15-20 mins at each pick up spot until 2-3 AM. And it's free transfers if u need to hop from 1 bus traveling from 1 destination to another.
I live in Chicago. One day I to be all over the city. In the morning I got up, took the bus then a train then another bus to my first destination on the West Side. After that was done, I headed to the downtown taking another bus. I then connected to a bus that took me to the South Side. I took my last bus to the SW Side. I basically traveled in square.
People come into Philadelphia to work from the surrounding suburbs. Getting a parking spot in downtown Philly is very difficult. Parking Lots are a very lucrative investment.
Thank you!!! This guy clearly doesn't know what he's talking bout
@@DelaHorror He does he just isn't as stupid as the average US american who is brainwashed enough to think everything america does is right.
There is a bus system to get to the outside spokes to outside spokes in Chicago. People Don't use it a lot. Who wants to spend 2 hours twice a day to get to and from work? The Elevated Train System he's pointing to Generally Runs to the Edge of the City. There is a complete other Train system that runs to the Suburbs. But you are talking 15-20 miles out of the Center of Downtown at that point. So if your 15-20 miles away from work, that pretty much eliminates the chances we're going to Bike to/from work. Despite that, HAVE YOU TRIED TO BIKE IN CHICAGO IN THE WINTER?! Let Mr. Copenhagen try pedaling through a foot of snow.
I don't understand why the world is so mad at the US for driving. Outside of emissions issues, which was not mentioned, idk why everyone is so upset.
I will agree, that inner city, walking, biking, etc is probably the best way to see a city.
Acting like parking lots have destroyed cities is quite mind boggling to me.
Also, to act like a person just getting rid of their car and walking would suddenly greatly effect the climate is a joke. If Climate change is as bad as they say, it is caused by developing countries with fossil fuel for electricity and industry. Car emissions are not a huge contributer.
well they kinda have, search up how huston looked in the 80's more parking lots than actual buildings it looked so gray and disgusting
The world isn't mad. More just baffled
Oh we have dedicated bike lanes. What you won't see is anyone using them.
We have tons of city buses that drive around all day empty, trams and mono-rails that do nothing but suck money down the drain.
In fact they just recently put in a new tram system here. It started with all sorts of promises that it was going to be great, it was going to pay for itself, it would totally change the face of traffic and drive an increase in business and population for the downtown area.
It took just one month from opening before they were begging for more tax money, and slashing ticket prices to try to get more people to use it. The whole effort immediately went bankrupt and become yet another pathetic eyesore that the tax payer is being made to support.
It's been nothing but a massive waste of resources.
You know what we don't have here?
Enough parking.
As soon as I saw the header I knew this was made by a foreigner. What people forget is the US is huge and the metro areas of cities are expansive and unless there is a good public transportation system you are driving everywhere. However where there is good public transportation you can get around pretty easily (DC metro is great).
Edit: also there were historical racially motivated reasons why public transportation in many cities was setup the way it was. Also the issue with Amtrak is the railways are commercially owned
When I lived in DC, the metro was great if you had an apartment or condo within walking distance of a metro station like I did in Arlington. But In Falls Church, i had to drive to and from my Metro station. The coverage is still better than most, especially LA.
@@tyreedillard i lived along the EPA corridor so there were shuttles to and from the station and they partially subsidized your metro card. It was so convenient. I pretty much only drove my car on the weekends. One thing I really miss about the area
He does not put into the account of suburbs witch is a very American thing my city is only 1/2 million but 1.5 in the city metro it takes 30 mins to drive from the edges to the city center if you take the bus it takes 1 hour bus rid forget biking and walking
That guy doesn't understand the distance in America. He keeps saying we should just walk or ride a bike to school. My closest school was 40 miles away. Even in cities, they have fewer, larger schools. And the USA is VAST. That's why we're a car society.
You can't just look at one factor, like distance, in a vacuum. Why is it that everything is spread out in the first place? The fact that most Americans have to jump in their car, drive it a few miles, and park it at a shopping center to get basic necessities is mostly to do with city planning/zoning decisions made in the 20th century that prioritized the automobile.
Sweet summer child, I wish I could go back to this stage in my knowledge of urban planning. It was much simpler then
So terribly designed?
And that's not why you are a car society, because it wasn't like that before the car.
@@steph_man372 it's like he missed the part where the US stayed the same size but became car dependent. The US has terrible infrastructure it's no secret
There are such distances here in Sweden, but we can do it with public transport. I grew up in northern Sweden. Went by bus to school every day. No problem. Here, everyone goes to school by public transport.
Something to think about, in reference to the Houston deal. These cities grew much more rapidly than their European counterparts. With the majority of Americans owning cars, the infrastructure had to adapt. Cars are essential due to the mere size of the US, meaning the infrastructure has to be able to accommodate them. If my kid walked to school, she would walk approximately 20 miles per day at the age of 7 to get to and from school.
which means your urban planning sucks.