it is so alienating to walk through suburbia, and feel like you are walking out of bounds in a video game

@thelonercoder5816

2 жыл бұрын

No it isn't. It can be peaceful not feeling like someone is breathing down your back all the time. I like mid-sized cities for this exact reason. Not too crowded.

@proallnighter

2 жыл бұрын

I agree. Suburbia is so sterile. It reminds me of the movie Vivarium. Growing up in the city is so much better

@fluidthought42

2 жыл бұрын

@@thelonercoder5816 At least in ghettos if you're jumped you know there'll be witnesses, even if they don't report it to the cops. In suburbia you could be chased by a rampaging maniac with a chainsaw for a mile and you'd never know if anyone ever heard your cries for help.

@thelonercoder5816

2 жыл бұрын

@@fluidthought42 Bud I think you're confusing suburb with rural. There are alot of people in the burbs and alot of them even have downtown centers. Kids are playing outside and there's alot of neighborhood watch groups with old people who have alot of time on their hands. I'm guessing you've never actually lived in a suburb before. What you're saying only applies to deserted areas, like rural environments.

@appa609

2 жыл бұрын

@@fluidthought42 If you don't have a chainsaw just outrun the maniac

Walking through a dirt path to the parking lot of a shitty strip mall to spend the money you made mowing lawns. That sounds familiar. How many of us lived the same shitty suburban upbringings, and how are so many people so blind to how shitty it all is (including me until I travelled abroad)?

@jasonwhitler4167

3 жыл бұрын

I used to ride my bike thru a river just to get to my friends house in the adjacent town. They put up a pedestrian bridge after I moved away.

@Azivegu

3 жыл бұрын

I did, Bloomington, Minnesota. To get to the Mall of America, me and my friend would take our bikes and chuck them over and through fences, cross a freeway exit ramp, and bike through a parking lot that felt like a trek through the Sahara.

@NotJustBikes

3 жыл бұрын

@@jasonwhitler4167 there's a common quote I hear from urban planners in Canada: you don't justify building a bridge by counting the number of people swimming across the river. I guess your case was the exception! 😂

@jasonwhitler4167

3 жыл бұрын

@@NotJustBikes Thankfully there was at least a ford for me to ride across. Apparently some farmer built it before my suburb was built up.

@alanthefisher

3 жыл бұрын

Luckily I lived between the two extreme's so I could see the difference, but yes so many people have no idea that it could be better.

1:22 ...Grocery stores are supposed to be in walking distance? The Midwest must've missed the memo

@seththomas9105

3 жыл бұрын

They USED to be if you lived in a small town. The one thing that the USA has is a virtual Zoning Gestapo, except maybe Texas, that segregates zoning of land use. A commercial property MUST NOT be anywhere near residential property. These zones are strict and must not be mingled, and the only way that the access of one zone vs. another is by use of a automobile. All others are verboten.

@mindstalk

3 жыл бұрын

@@seththomas9105 Except for Houston. I think the rest of Texas is just as bad in exclusionary zoning. And even Houston used to have big minimum lot sizes and parking requirements that mandated low density.

@monkeywkeys3916

3 жыл бұрын

@@mindstalk Houston, Brazil.

@mathiastwp

3 жыл бұрын

Here in 50s Norwegian "suburbia", I have two within short distance. I also have a 3-story mall down a hill that used to walk/bike to, but now I'm lazy and take the car because the hill is a binch.

@theactualslapmaster2466

3 жыл бұрын

@@mindstalk Houston is literally the worst city in Texas though 😂

"This is Monroe Street" *Looks at sign that says Monroe Avenue* Sure it is.

@bradarmstrong3952

3 жыл бұрын

I live on a street where the street sign is actually incorrect, in that it ends in RD instead of the correct DR. I did look up this location in Glassboro though and AVE is correct.

@Ometecuhtli

3 жыл бұрын

I work in Reforma Street which is also for some reason called Reforma Avenue, but then this is Mexico where things are done on purpose to confuse you.

@honkleretta1050

3 жыл бұрын

HA,.....they fooled you too.

@callmeswivelhips8229

3 жыл бұрын

At least in the states, the different names for streets actually mean something. They tell you specific things about it...someone made a video about that, but I forgot who. For example, I live on a Randolph Place. So-called, I believe, because the street is so short that it feels more like a destination in an of itself.

@umamifan

3 жыл бұрын

@@callmeswivelhips8229 I think street is west-east, and avenue is north-south. The road endnames appear to have correlation to the environment they reside in

So this is why people still drive if their drivers licence is suspended or revoked

@oceanusprocellarum6853

3 жыл бұрын

In driving courses, they repeat that phrase "driving is a privilege" referring to state laws and their ability to revoke/suspend your license, which is kinda insane considering the alternatives. Now, it makes sense to revoke/suspend licenses because driving is so dangerous. But at the same time it's a testament to how shitty this entire system and activity is, and the insanity stems from how integral automobiles are in US society.

@JoshCraver9000

2 жыл бұрын

This is also why drunk driving is a big problem!

@Miami1991

2 жыл бұрын

@Transitive Wisdom drove a year with no insurance no license (suspended) I always drove the speed limit , I drove in familiar áreas , always checked waze for police . Never got pulled over Settled my issues got a better job can afford insurance. Sure did some risky things

@arabcadabra8863

2 жыл бұрын

Yep. Business interests colluded with local governments to make things this way for profit. Isn't the free market grand!?

@ColinTherac117

2 жыл бұрын

@@arabcadabra8863 Big business colluding with government is not a Free Market. That is the opposite of a Free Market. It is the economic portion of Italian Fascism.

Gotta love the discussion of "Fast Food Planning" with a Taco Bell in the background.

One of the worst things is that those dead ends are BY DESIGN, to "calm traffic" and prevent people from using those streets as a thoroughfare. Because why let people have four different ways to go, when you can bottleneck them all into two? It's one of the most infuriatingly frustrating things about suburbia: all the things that make it hard to get around are ON PURPOSE.

@Sebasstiano

3 жыл бұрын

The inner suburban NJ townhouse complex that I grew up in is like this, only one entrance in and out and the rest is deadends or fences that separate it from the surrounding city street grid. The walk to the bus stop and to businesses is 0.75 miles when it would be 0.25 miles if the townhouse complex was connected to the larger street grid.

@cpufreak101

3 жыл бұрын

and this is exactly why I fail so hard in cities skylines for traffic management.

@JimmiG84

3 жыл бұрын

You can still restrict thoroughfare traffic by having the roads narrow into pedestrian/bicycle roads only. We have those everywhere in my city (in Sweden). It's infuriating when you're driving and the street suddenly turns pedestrian only so you have to turn around, but at least you can get around easily by walking or cycling.

@cpufreak101

3 жыл бұрын

@@JimmiG84 knowing how people are here, without physical barriers to separate it as pedestrian only, people would still drive on it lol

@edwardmiessner6502

3 жыл бұрын

And all those things done ON PURPOSE are driven by the banks who don't like innovations, they prefer formulaic solutions.

This reminds me of something that bothers me a lot sometimes about the suburbs, what I like to call “sidewalk islands”. New construction will often add sidewalks to the street, but absolutely no effort is made to actually connect these sidewalks to each other and create useful walking paths, so you end up with a bunch of disconnected sidewalks which independently only lead to the other end of a parking lot or to 3 of your neighbor’s houses. Also, large new residential developments having decent sidewalks within that ultimately lead to nowhere is expected, but sometimes even these planned constructions will have big gaps in the sidewalk for no good reason.

@alanthefisher

3 жыл бұрын

Thats often caused by towns forcing the individual home owners to construct the sidewalk instead of it being the towns infrastructure problem. Which is one of the dumbest ideas in American planning.

@seththomas9105

3 жыл бұрын

@@alanthefisher Or having bike/walking paths that don't really go "anywhere". Walking and biking are for leisure activity ONLY in the USA, don't you know. How dare you want to ride your bike two miles to a hardware store!! Just blows my mind.

@toolsteel8482

3 жыл бұрын

Agree totally

@robertvirginiabeach

3 жыл бұрын

I live in a senior apartment building on a municipal bus route. There are nice sidewalks on the property but none along the edge of the busy three lane street (center lane is for left turns). Bad enough there's no paved pedestrian route for the FEW hundred yards to bus stops in both directions, there are steep sided water collection basins that make it unsafe to walk on the grass.

@callmeswivelhips8229

3 жыл бұрын

I found one of these neighborhoods close to where I live. I like to go on long 3-5 hour walks if I end up having long stay-cations. One time I found a neighborhood with sidewalks. But once you get to the highway the neighborhood is built off of, nothing for pedestrians. You're literally trapped. Except for a bikepath through a small patch of woods...also completely encircled by other similar such highways. So you can't go anywhere on foot unless you walk on these small highways. Which I did. For fun. Because fuck this country's planning. Good grief!

''Not walkable'' NO ''Lackawannability'' YES

@maknyc1539

2 жыл бұрын

cutoff

Another issue with a lack of walkability is the lack of jobs for teens from families that can't afford to give them their own car. Without those part time jobs, it makes it incredibly difficult to save money for college, save money for your own car which you inevitably need, to start a credit line in order to be able to buy an apartment or car down the line, and in general have a fucking social life. I fucking hated my town cuz nothing was in walking distance and we tried the self made lawn mowing/lemonade stand kinda shit, but in an area where people love their lawns and buy expensive mowers to mow it themselves, it makes it super difficult to make money even IF you weren't an introvert who had trouble selling yourself to strangers with a complete business model.

@alanthefisher

2 жыл бұрын

I have a few videos planned on the topics that you mentioned, def stay tuned :)

@lzh4950

Жыл бұрын

Fortunately companies in more remote locations in my country e.g. factories in industrial estates often have free shuttle buses for their employers to the nearest train station. I've seen the reverse problem when some companies don't have enough space for car parking on-site. Our government also controversially started charging public school teachers for parking on campus as otherwise it deems free parking a "hidden perk" that would violate a "clean wage policy"

@Cal90208

Жыл бұрын

@@lzh4950 Train stations aren’t always walkable either

@3g0st

11 ай бұрын

Yep, and in states like MD where getting a license is a process that requires someone else with a non provisional driving you around a lot... paying for gas, first of all, lol The catch22 that never ends. Then boomers have the audacity to pretend like we can simply get jobs with word of mouth these days. This was my pain in the rural area with 0 public transit (swamp/beach areas)... 15 yrs ago, yet the same issues cycle because the systems are not built for us.

Add that to a more recent suburb that has a cul de sac system where whole neighborhoods are near eachother but don’t connect, and you literally can’t even leav your neighborhood walking, and that is suburban hell!

@PascalGienger

3 жыл бұрын

The problem is that those house owners really want it like that. The argument you will constantly hear is "CRIME CRIME CRIME". So allowing entrance to the neighborhood only by one access street is one step before becoming a gated community. In Europe people would verbally lynch you as politician and city planner trying to separate residential areas preventing easy walks from one to another. People over there are much less fixated on that constant fear of CRIME... Americans even built interstates to divide neighborhoods with no path from one side to the other (prominent example is I95 through Atlanta separating "Sweet Auburn" from rich white neighborhoods and downtown.

@katherinespezia4609

3 жыл бұрын

@@PascalGienger My understanding has always been that it's not so much to do with crime as it is about reducing vehicle traffic, mainly to keep noise down. The idea is that there will be less cars on the road if you can't use it as a through street. This isn't inherently bad, but for it to work you need to connect things together with walking/bike paths, which nobody in America does.

@edwardmiessner6502

3 жыл бұрын

@@katherinespezia4609 except reducing vehicle traffic is always imu a euphemism for preventing CRIME.

@pawelabrams

3 жыл бұрын

It actually happens in recent years in Europe, too - at least in CEE parts. There is a park here near where I live, a place of an umpteen small blocks, ten households each. Across the park are single-family houses, zoned up to the horizon. Recently they built a few larger blocks at the end of my neighbourhood. The single-family housing side of the park is now fenced with only one gate with coded access. It was the easiest way to get on foot from our main road to their neighborhood's main. Oh, and a few blocks have put a fence around their part of land, just 'cause they could. Previously they put posts to disallow through traffic and that's alright, but now no one from our side of the street can get to the supermarket in a straight line, it's either a muddy path around or a significant detour for you, better go shopping on your way home or it's a smallish general store for you (and not one of the cosy mom and pop ones).

@robertvirginiabeach

3 жыл бұрын

A bus route goes right in front of a strip mall about five miles from where I'm living. There's a branch of a MAJOR grocery/department store chain in the strip mall but a row of outparcels containing smaller retail outlets like restaurants and convenience stores line the street. Several sidewalkless driveways cross a virtual moat of storm water retention basins that separate the outparcels from the WIDE summer sun baked parking in front of the grocery/department store. As far as I can tell the busses can't be bothered to detour into the strip mall.

It's quite weird watching these videos, because being English, walkability and public transport is engrained in every single city in the country. My town only has about 60k people - quite small - but still we have eight or nine bus lines, six passenger rail stations, and you can walk from the suburbs to town easily. Must be strange living in the States

@Azivegu

3 жыл бұрын

I live in the Netherlands, city of 150k, 2 stations, and if we get lucky, maybe a third. How the hell do you have 6?

@RailPreserver2K

3 жыл бұрын

My friend you have no idea

@MrCzechTexan

3 жыл бұрын

I went to college in a town of about the same size here in the states. The only transit was a couple of campus shuttles that only the students could use. No train station, no bike lanes, and hardly any sidewalks off campus that were in passable condition. Everyone (off campus) drove and you never felt safe if you walked or biked - in fact, you might get a weird look from a passerby or an angry honk from a driver if you were in the crosswalk for half a second too long. Parks were trashy and run down, but the highways and main streets were immaculate. It took FOREVER to walk anywhere because everything is built to a scale accommodating cars, it took 20 minutes to walk from my apartment to get to the closest store that sold food - which was a gas station. The old downtown was half demolished and full of antique shops, insurance offices, an (admittedly) awesome cafe that was never busy, and a couple of bars that students occasionally went to. And if I had to hazard a guess, there's a good chance it's physically 2-3x bigger than your city because of all the wasted space for 6-lane boulevards and subdivisions. Living there was super bizarre, but thank God I now live in an older walkable neighborhood in a different city... well, walkable by American standards...

@goombacraft

3 жыл бұрын

@@MrCzechTexan the biggest road in this town is a highway that ranges from 2-4 lanes. The biggest road with people living on is three lanes. I think the problem is population density, because I live in a region (basically a state) with a population density higher than any US state. NJ has 1200/sqkm, we have 1300/sqkm

@GriffenDoesIt

3 жыл бұрын

I think the work you're looking for is bad. It's bad living in the States. All our infrastructure is built around the assumption you have a personal car that you can pay to maintain. If not, you're forced to live in poorer urban neighborhoods with what little transit we have, or out in the middle of nowhere with a car you can't afford to fix or replace if something goes wrong.

I have to say I was amazed when I visited the USA that walking was almost a criminal act This amazed me coming from Europe I stayed in a hotel on one side of a highway and there was a strip mall on the other side It turned out it was impossible to get to the strip mall safely even though it was less than a few hundred metres away except by car. Net result - I didn't go. My experience of riding on buses was that: I was the only person between the ages of 16 and 70 on the bus I was the only non-black person on the bus and bus frequency was atrocious meaning I often as a result walked a lot.

@VideoNOLA

3 жыл бұрын

Welcome to the land of all talk and no walk.

@TheLolzKnight

3 жыл бұрын

... Man, this is comment look so much like an abstract poem criticizing this kind of zoning. You had me reading you in my internal poetry voice and looking for meaning XD. But yea, I also live in Europe, and I have... more than 5 convenience stores in 2 minute walking distance, probably twice that many non specific shops (pharmacies, clothing, flowers, fruit... second hand jewelry and travel agencies. I'm not ashamed to admit those last two kinds are probably laundering money from the illegal drug dealing that happens nearby, but at least they aren't ugly), and if you expand the radius to 5 minutes walking, at least 8 restaurants I've been to. And it gives the area flavour. I sometimes play videogames set in small US towns and keep thinking "This all feel so fake, like this place was poured out of a mold. The programmers must have been lazy or something", and it's always so socking to find out that it really is like that. Never any high-streets, it feels like a giant Ikea.

@johncrwarner

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheLolzKnight My style is a homage to Lillian Lieber, who wrote several "science for the man in the street" books in the 1940s And I am also reading a verse novel called "The Lehman Trilogy" in English (I am reading it in the original version in Italian "Qualcosa sui Lehman") I am enjoying it and probably replicating the style BTW - I am reading the verse novel S L O W L Y as I read it "out loud" in my head.

@TheLolzKnight

3 жыл бұрын

@@johncrwarner I like your written style, magic wordy man. And this coming from the human thesaurus. I also really like your focus on scientific communication, because although I know all the science, i lack the patience to explain it to others. The fact you immediately affected a certain emotion with your written style is a good sign for your communication capacity. Thumbs up!

@johncrwarner

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheLolzKnight LOL My partner says I am a schmooze-merchant but that is from a decade of teaching mathematics to reluctant teenagers in Britain. My teaching was part of a PhD study where my departments style was compared to another and I weirdly had very high effectiveness in building confidence and ability in tackling mathematical problems When in social situations if I mention "I am /was a mathematics teacher" the majority response is often "I was no good at mathematics at school" if the conversation continued on this topics often the statement "I think if you had been my teacher..." came up LOL BTW I just discovered the teacher who taught me Russian in a one-year course in 1977-1978 is still alive aged 102. He was an amazing guy teaching French, German and Russian but in WW2 had been a Naval liaison officer with the Norwegians and spoke Norwegian too The Queen and the King of Norway both sent him "telegrams" on his 100th birthday Though I didn't pursue languages except as a hobby He inspired me in many ways to try learning a few.

Cars are expensive. My wife and I just bought a 2019 Honda Accord. Let's say the car will be driven 12,000 miles in a year at an average rate of 25 miles per gallon. In a year: Loan repayments: $5,300 Insurance premiums: $840 Gasoline @ $3 per gallon: $1,440 Maintenance: $300 That's $7,980. And I'm not going to get into depreciation. Imagine how much more freedom we'd all have if we didn't have to pay anywhere from $6,000 to $12,000 a year on just _getting around._

@TheAmericanCatholic

Жыл бұрын

That is a seden I can’t imagine a suv or pickup truck cost

Long vent incoming... My town, Rock Hill, SC, has less than 100,000 people but takes up literally half of the county. The closest grocery store is something like 6-7 miles away and you have to cross a major highway, and my school is 3 miles away on country backroads that don't have sidewalks and instead have ditches. Nice! What sucks is that, if I want to continue living where I live and have access to literally anything, I gotta buy a car. No wonder the south has the Highest obesity rate in the nation and Incredibly bad traffic due to ridiculous car dependency and the fact that the population is shooting up and all these new people moving in need to buy a car. The sprawl of my town is absurd. Actually absurd. The bad thing is that NOBODY CARES TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS!!!!!!!! I have been trapped at home since I was young, unable to go anywhere or do anything on my own. This is the same for many many many people across the United States. This is turning kids into sheltered, awkward, isolated, obese weirdos who can't do anything on their own because they were never able to do anything on their own until they were 16, AKA when it was too late. I'm infuriated at this. I hope sometime soon enough people get FED UP with this car-centric development and cities change for the better. I've seen more videos like this recently and this is good news. Cars are ruining our climate, our environment, our children, our health, our wallets, and our towns.

@UserName-ts3sp

3 жыл бұрын

something about southern suburbs are worse… ive been down to the charlotte area (though not rock hill) many times, boy the sprawl down there is bad. i mean i live in a suburban area but it seems like there is way more sprawl down there

@xoranginho

2 жыл бұрын

sus

@tomisaacson2762

2 жыл бұрын

Can confirm. -a sheltered awkward isolated weirdo

Does anyone else feel really helpless watching videos like this? I live in Texas where strip malls are like 90% of my city. I feel like there's nothing I can do to change anything.

@alanthefisher

3 жыл бұрын

Understanding its a problem in the first place is half the battle, the next part is to make others think about their surroundings too, which is hard for some. Change doesn't happen over night, its a fight, but it can change.

@brandoncharles4415

2 жыл бұрын

I hear you could try to visit town hall meetings, but you'll have to search for them.

@D_Marrenalv

Жыл бұрын

@@brandoncharles4415 Even if you do find one, it's too bad most American "taxpayers" are a bunch of NIMBYs (so very little will change, if at all).

@TimurTripp2

Жыл бұрын

Most of us in the USA feel helpless after these videos. They're honestly depressing. Not much you can do other than pack your bags and relocate someplace better, but good luck finding a walkable neighborhood for a reasonable price anywhere in the USA that's not in the middle of nowhere, they all cost a fortune...

@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333

Жыл бұрын

@@TimurTripp2 Not most. Not enough people realize this is a problem. If more people did, then more could be done to fix it.

Unfortunately, we are repeating the same mistakes here in my town! New subdivisions have no shopping facilities, downtown stores are closing, while super markets are thriving on the outskirts, situated amidst huge parking lots in industrial zones. Ugly! What was once a fully functioning village, has turned into a lifeless suburb!

Holy jesus imagine living in the us without a car. F for the teens not yet old enough to have one

@brandonbollwark5970

3 жыл бұрын

ya it sucked

@Beelsoranges

3 жыл бұрын

Unfortunately, as a teen living in the US, I have to take the school bus everyday because my high school is too far for me to walk and is really dangerous considering you need to go on one of the main highways to get there..

@Beelsoranges

3 жыл бұрын

I would love to be able to go out on my own and buy things, but the problem is that EVERYTHING is too far away for foot. I don’t have a driver’s license yet. Which means I usually stay at home most of the time due to my parents having to constantly work all week. I just want to live in Europe just so I could be independent without having to always use a car.

@sentfromheaven00

2 жыл бұрын

I’m a teen not old enough to have one and it sucks. I got a bicycle and it’s a lot better than walking but a lot worse than a car

@dannyv2230

2 жыл бұрын

My family never had a car growing up in the US (don’t ask how hard it was I still have PTSD from it). I remember the worst times were always taking walks or crossing streets was awful. Sometimes there would be no sidewalk at all and you had to walk in the middle of the road and keep an eye out that no cars were coming to hit you. Truly horrifying

One of the first things I noticed that is just horrible here in the US when I emmigrated. There's absolutely no walkability here, unless you live downtown, of course.

"As a kid - buying steam cards". This sentence quite possibly made me feel the oldest I have ever felt. Great video though. Walkability of shops is a curious thing. I'm in the UK and have a few small grocery stores within what should be an easily walkable distance. However my house is atop a very steep hill, so I tend to jump in the car anyway.. What a lazy bum I am. I know I should walk it...

@goodmaro

3 жыл бұрын

One thing I find amusing is the British way of saying "pavement" for sidewalk -- when the roadway is also paved. In the USA there are two places where they use the word that way: Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Everywhere else, any paved way is a pavement.

@AssBlasster

2 жыл бұрын

This is the worst thing about USA, the lack of connectivity between your home and a grocery store. I had to walk 4 km to the nearest supermarket from my apt just to get a loaf in Florida. Now, I live in a town with multi-use paths and sidewalks that connect to most grocery stores in town and makes it easier to live without a car.

@GamesNosh

2 жыл бұрын

@@goodmaro the word sidewalk is inherent to the US because its where you walk off to the side of the roads. Where as in the UK there's thousands of interconnected walkable pavement trails in a neighborhood or city that are nowhere near a road, so it'd be asbsurd to call them 'sidewalks'.

@goodmaro

2 жыл бұрын

@@GamesNosh And where they exist here, we don't call them sidewalks either. But if the phrase "paved walkway" or "paved walk" is used, it's unambiguous anywhere English is spoken. There are walkways that are not paved (including indoor ones), and there are pavements intended to support various sorts of traffic, so the specifications of type of surface and type of traffic need to be independent -- as well as independent of whether they're on the side of a road.

@HxTurtle

2 жыл бұрын

I went off to the comment section for the exact same reason! I better not tell here what I did as a kid, lol. simple words like, "history" do get a very new meaning look at under this impression, lol.

I live in Germany where everything (that wasn't destroyed by a recent-ish war) is designed for pedestrian use and I can only confirm that it is just great; little traffic, more greenspace, and more exercise for the citizens. When I visited some relatives in the US I was just astonished at how no one was walking to a store just half a kilometre away. My uncle looked at my like I was crazy when I said I walked to the store. I think most americans don't even know a better alternative because they've never experienced it.

@chrismckellar9350

3 жыл бұрын

That is why the USA has obesity related heath issues to the car based urban policies of the 1950's.

@cpufreak101

3 жыл бұрын

I feel this. had a local corner deli that was very much walkable for the neighborhood, with people usually walking in the summers even. but then it burned down and now nothing is in walkable distance :(

@chickenpommes19

3 жыл бұрын

Nah it depends where, theres plenty of ugly suburban development that forces you to walk half a km the wrong way to a pedestrian light first here too

@tomo9126

3 жыл бұрын

My grandfather walked from the coast of France to Berlin. It was very noisy.

@lagrangewei

3 жыл бұрын

american spend too much time trying to use the land they took from the natives rather than to ask if they should spread out of the town. the mindset that town are "evil" and everyone should get their own piece of land... that's wild west thinking, it really need to die before we all run out of resources. all these lands could have been growing biofuel or gazed by wild animals. we could have done so much more if everyone who ain't farming the land live in proper towns.

I'm so glad I grew up in a small Midwestern town in the 70's and 80's I could walk or ride my bike anywhere and at the time pretty much all our needs were met by local businesses. We had drug stores, a dime store, Bakery, men's clothing store, women's clothing, dry goods store, lumber yard, hardware store, cafe, shoe store/leather repair, creamery/meat locker, newspaper/print shop, 4 gas stations(not convenience stores) feed mill, motel, pizza joint, auto repair shop, appliance sales and repair shop, drive in burger joint, dance hall/tavern, all gone. Now, 35 years later Main Street looks like a Neutron bomb went off and most all the business are gone. The town went from 2,300 people to 1,600 and when Walmert went in 10 miles away it killed main street. 20 years ago there were two full service grocery stores. The last one closed this spring, after Dollar General opened up two years ago. SMH.

@spacejunk2186

2 жыл бұрын

It's amazing how America bulldozes its own cities for endless deserts of concrete. No war could have done what car centeic urban planning did to American cities.

I was shocked when I visited my sister in the US for her graduation ceremony and there weren't even sidewalks between her house and the closest supermarket which was 2 km away, I really don't get how people can live like that, I don't even have a driver's license 😅

@arabcadabra8863

2 жыл бұрын

We're born into it and constantly told that we are the best ever. Too self interested to even realize there is a better way or blocked by business interests with infinitely deep pockets when we do. We've been sold out.

@emilyb3875

2 жыл бұрын

It SUCKS. Thankfully at my current apartment there’s a park and a grocery store within walking distance but I am very lucky by my city’s standards. I grew up in the country where even McDonald’s was 10 miles away, I was basically under house arrest until I was 16 and got my license because even my friends’ houses weren’t in walking distance.

Great video, man! Not providing sidewalks so literally one of the most fundamentally human activities (walking) is criminalized is really cool. There was a 20 year gap in my city's history where installing sidewalks wasn't required, and it's nearly impossible to rectify it. Also, that Glassboro downtown is crazy. I'm not usually into planned urban communities like that, but when they're actually built in the middle of a town, and not a suburban lifestyle center, it's quite interesting!

@alanthefisher

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah in the future I'll do a video (with interviews) on the major changes that happened in Glassboro

@brandonbollwark5970

3 жыл бұрын

@@alanthefisher Please! I start at Rowan in the fall! Im from a town in Northern N.J so rural that we do not even have sidewalks.

I cannot express how much i *hate* Auto oriented development. There’s literally a mall behind the apartment complex i live in but i have to walk 750 meters just to get there when im literally 250 meters away. As a fatass, i see this as a micro aggression. 👁👄👁

@coastaku1954

3 жыл бұрын

Then just drive, easy as that

@alextaylor9746

3 жыл бұрын

Mate just cut a hole in the fence at night... Wear a mask for covid...🤣

@PlaystationMasterPS3

3 жыл бұрын

@@coastaku1954 that's a problem

@PlaystationMasterPS3

3 жыл бұрын

@@alextaylor9746 agreed. direct action gets the goods

@coastaku1954

3 жыл бұрын

@@PlaystationMasterPS3 Why?

I live in a suburb of Atlanta and this whole places pedestrian infrastructure looks like weve been recouping from a natural disaster. I remember going to a gas station thats only a 2 minute drive from my house on foot to buy chips and arizona green tea and having to walk a sidewalk that just sort of ends for no reason so you had to walk along the dirt for a quarter of the trip.

This video is brought to you by *my dumbest roommate getting covid.* So I had to change my video plans well I was stuck at my parents place in my hometown...

@SohamChanda42

3 жыл бұрын

lmao

@jaytb5815

3 жыл бұрын

Vulfpeck

I can't believe I just found this. I'm from Deptford and I got my degree in Urban Studies mostly out of spite for the place I grew up. The street I lived on had no sidewalks and people went 55+ MPH. It was depressing and dangerous. Walking in most towns like these is terrifying, especially if you're a young girl like I was, just trying to walk to my job.

for some reason this reminds me of my continual failures in Cities skylines. I've never experienced a non-car centric life, so as such I build very car-centric cities, then end up with a near-unsolvable traffic mess, until that one city where I got to 100K pop and completely forgot about public transit lmao

@Codraroll

3 жыл бұрын

I think that's some of the most fun gameplay in Cities Skylines: Loading an old, messy city you made many years ago, then fixing it by implementing public transport, better city planning, some walking paths, and possibly a few mods. It's possible to almost eliminate the use of private vehicles, which leaves a lot more room for commercial delivery trucks.

@coastaku1954

3 жыл бұрын

@@Codraroll Owning a vehicle is rewarding and fun

@Codraroll

3 жыл бұрын

@@coastaku1954 Yes, but it remains a question whether society can actually afford to base its infrastructure around everybody using private vehicles to travel.

@DarkDutch007

3 жыл бұрын

@@coastaku1954 Not much fun of owning a vehicle if everyone needs a car to go to the places they need to go and all be happy and stuck in traffic. Better to have alternative ways to reach a destination, bicycle paths, foot paths, public transport, that way you can use a vehicle with less people being stuck infront of you.

@coastaku1954

3 жыл бұрын

@@DarkDutch007 Yeah thats true, I just hate it when people mock cars and my decisions and likes. I'm a bit of a contrarian since I diss anti car stuff here, then promote Biking on pro-car urban planning videos

4:30 that is so insane to someone who lives in a walkeable city. Building a decent walking path in this location would cost a fraction of what the yearly maintenance on that road right next to it would cost, and the path would last decades without major maintenance or any major maintenance costs. In my city we have cycle paths that are used by thousands of cyclists a day, that are 20y old, and are exactly as they were 20y ago without ever having needed any major maintenance. And the parts that did need maintenance or renovation? The parts where cars cross over or drive over the paths... Cars are bankrupting cities and neighbourhoods. It's as simple as that.

I often wonder if poor walkability is designed to keep "the other" out of neighborhoods? The fence reminds me of a time in the 2000s when some neighborhoods built new fences and blocked existing walkways.

@VideoNOLA

3 жыл бұрын

In New Orleans, that impulse grew so great in two particular neighborhoods that the residents commandeered "their" street by blockading it at one end, in a (thankfully vain) attempt to make it "private". Turns out you gotta pay for that! Fortunately, public pushback was even stronger, and the rich scaredy-cat homeowners were forced to undo their walls.

@mindstalk

3 жыл бұрын

" I often wonder if poor walkability is designed to keep "the other" out of neighborhoods?" Yep. No poor/black people wanted.

@fall190

3 жыл бұрын

@@mindstalk cars are cheap as shit in the US

@mindstalk

3 жыл бұрын

@@fall190 Not so cheap that everyone has them. And more important is what people believe. White suburbanites have literally blocked expansion of public transit on the grounds that it would let "criminals come rob our houses".

@kilobyte8321

2 жыл бұрын

I know! I know! Imagine the thought of people not wanting all that extra foot traffic in front of their homes. But blame the strip mall!

Came here from Not Just Bikes. As a fellow South Jersian I had to subscribe. As a kid I would walk to the corner store with my friends but it was a trek. It involved utilizing broken fences and walking through peoples lawns just to get places because there was no direct path. And some neighborhoods just completely lack sidewalks at all. We definitely need more. I feel like we zone everything in the suburbs. Like if you're a pedestrian, even on a sidewalk people look at you weird like why are you outside. If you want to go for a walk, it's like you need an excuse to be there (kid, dog etc). Why aren't you holed up in a sweaty gym or in your house on a boring treadmill! People get so confused when seeing pedestrians most places because we all know deep down that things are designed so poorly for walking we're surprised people make the effort! Glassboro's down town area is actually pretty nice in comparison, there are at least sidewalks and open areas for walking. We like going over to Haddonfield's main strip because we get to visit a bunch of stores just by walking instead of another car trip every time. (support small businesses!) Plus its right near a train stop, so it's super convenient to go. We need more places like that. Also, the new light rail connecting from Glassboro up to the Patco in Camden is really exciting for me, as someone who had to drive 30min to a Patco station for many years. I imagine so many cars will be taken off the road for that alone and a lot less traffic. Imagine if businesses popped up to line the train stations for convenience. So many possibilites. Always excited for new trains!

@a2wingedeagle

2 жыл бұрын

I'm from Haddon township, between haddonfield and Collingwood, and one of the things I noticed is that even though our town has a nice main street and is small enough you could ride your bike there (but probably not walk), none of the businesses on Haddon ave are really the essentials. It's mostly restaurants and smaller stores that sell very specific things, like antique stores etc. So you still have to drive out of town to get groceries and such

Seeing walking footage of an american town really flares up my ptsd from having lived in he USA and never having a car. It was a nightmare. Here in Finland I still have no car and no one abuses me from passing cars.

@fluidthought42

2 жыл бұрын

Oh yeah, the dudes who like to yell at pedestrians. Fun fact, suburban assholes like to yell at you randomly _even more_ if you're not white! Learned that one through trial and error.

"And the problem is that big box stores and strip malls absolutely suck at integrating themselves into neighborhoods..." 😱 I didn't realize they sucked at it, I thought they didn't even try. They're like that song, "Move b*tch, move out the way!"

@noradlark167

3 жыл бұрын

"Move b*tch, get out the way."

@elvi5_40theparakeet_gaming9

2 жыл бұрын

Big box stores: *The bronze medal knob meme comic* Warehouse club stores like Sam's Club: *Principal Skinner pathetic meme*

This video came up in my recommended and then I get absolutely blindsided with a walk through PITMAN and GLASSBORO. Wow. Worked at the old pizza hut in Glassboro in that exact shopping center for 5 years (which I believe is now some sort of mattress store) and went to church in Pitman for years. Even seeing your shot of that k-mart sent me back. The EB Games there was where I called daily to get my first wii. Real talk though Peking Buffet is 10/10. That downtown of Glassboro being upscaled was mostly for Rowan though wasn't it? I lived in one of the newer ones my final year there and the plans for the town seemed great, but I thought they were mostly for university students rather than residents.

"But where's the short term profits in that?" Every big box retail CEO probably.

This video was recommended from Not just Bikes and it started out with a jojo reference so I subbed immediately lol

@callmeswivelhips8229

3 жыл бұрын

¿Eres de Mexico?

@Gwestytears

3 жыл бұрын

Oh no

Also from South Jersey, but I grew up in Cherry Hill. This whole video felt eeriely similar 😓 The Garden State Racetrack shopping center is a prime example of new "upscale" strip malls that waste space and attract soooooo much traffic through rt 70 and Haddonfield Road.

I somehow doubt the homeowners behind that shopping mall really want traffic passing through their property, even if it means a more walkable neighborhood. Pushback from suburbanites is always overwhelming and vocal, even against matters of convenience, once they convince themselves that "homeless people will get access to my stuff."

@mindstalk

3 жыл бұрын

They or their kids could access the mall by foot if the fence didn't block them. You don't need to allow car traffic through.

@VideoNOLA

2 жыл бұрын

@@mindstalk Guaranteed they instead think of any opening as a means of quick egress for muggers. Heard those very words when I tried to get my town to re-open a pedestrian walkway (that the city owns!) which residents had illegally boarded up. Been that way for 20 years now.

@ANTSEMUT1

2 жыл бұрын

@@VideoNOLA who they think muggers are? Usain Bolt? Also orienting the shopping space towards the residents would make it awkward to would be muggers to escape, rather then just offering pedestrians back door access.

Not having a car in these areas suck so much. My entire teenage years I felt so isolated whenever on summer break because there was nothing in walking distance to do and none of my friends lived within walking distance either. The only exception is every once in a while when someone's parents gave in and drove us all somewhere (which was very occasional). Technically speaking we have a bus stop but it runs so infrequently I think I see it once per week max. Now I have a car and I'm doing whatever I can to move out of here

I went to Minnesota on a business trip once, and the hotel I was staying in was located in what I can only describe as an industrial park of hotels and other big box businesses with absolutely NO walking paths whatsoever. This was truly great, because I didn't have a rental car, which meant I was essentially stranded at the hotel for three days outside of work when I was picked up and driven to where i had to be. Thank Christ the food at the hotel restaurant was good, or I would have went insane.

@jaxietoon

2 жыл бұрын

Out of curiosity, where in MN were you at?

@runswithraptors

2 жыл бұрын

@@jaxietoon I would bet money it was within the cities metro

@jaxietoon

2 жыл бұрын

@@runswithraptors Oh, no doubt at all! I’m more curious the specific area of it if it were

reminds me of the shophouse, a staple in Southeast Asian city planning of the late 19th century. And then developers here in Indonesia created a bastardized cookie-cutter self enclosed complex version of it surrounded by asphalt/cobblestone and fenced throughout with very few pedestrian access since the late 20th century

@ANTSEMUT1

3 жыл бұрын

We have something very similar to that in Malaysia too, but also big as roads from one shophouse to another but pedestrian bridges placed in the most random spots.

@Sofiaode18

2 жыл бұрын

Pedestrian access is the worst in Indonesia, Jakarta does better with it, but in other cities, sidewalks aren't common and pedestrians are forced to walk on the edges of the street hoping that drivers are careful enough to not run them over.

My current neighborhood in Spokane Valley, WA doesn't even have sidewalks, and any store is a mile or more walk.

One of the towns a few miles from me has a special path that is inaccessible to cars, allowing for the apartment complex zone to have truthful "NO OUTLET" signs to minimize through traffic, while allowing foot and bike traffic to leave the other side (the side facing the town center). It's wonderful at maximizing accessibility and encouraging walking and biking over taking a car all the way around an extra mile or two just for some food or something

You should see "Trolley Square" Shopping Center" in Santee, CA. It is a shopping center built around a San Diego Trolley station. Sounds great, right? It would be, but the shopping center is surrounded by an enormous parking lot. Any other destination takes at least five minutes of walking while dodging cars and without any shade. I have never seen a TOD so pointless.

@PowerfulSniff

2 жыл бұрын

Brings back memories. I used to have to ride that trolley daily

On the list of things I was expecting when first clicking this video a JoJo reference was not among them. Bravo. Well played.

growing up in a small town in australia i never knew what walkability was, i just assumed everyone drove everywhere to do everything, live in germany now and my god its amazing, i hardly drive, life really is just so much easier when you have shops within walking distance.

You could design strip malls with some of the principles of main streets. For instance by setting the stores closer to the road and provide underground parking, reducing the tarmac field. You could also integrate them with parks, setting the president that it’s for pedestrians.

@MontyBoosh

3 жыл бұрын

Or just put the parking around the back and sides so the shop can sit closer to the main road for pedestrian access; with the size of that car park, it wouldn't even be that much further to walk.

A Jojo reference followed by some Vulf? I had to seriously make sure this was actually happening because I’m in love 😍

Homie.... I'm the guy who "modified" those fences around shopping centers wherever I lived. I'm not about to walk a fucking mile round trip to get to the sto behind my house.

@ryank6322

2 жыл бұрын

Nice. How'd you modify them?

@NbaDan1

2 жыл бұрын

@@ryank6322 wire cutters

I'm wondering if the families that live next to the strip malls, separated by the 8-foot fence, really want to have direct access to the back of the complex? I could see them thinking, and rightfully so, that "undesirables" and crime might follow and that the tall fence protects against that. I agree that philosophically the strip mall is a bad idea for the reasons that you state, and that better perimeter access paths are needed in the Pitman example, but I can also appreciate that providing access in the back may not be the best idea either.

@alanthefisher

3 жыл бұрын

I'll probably make a separate video about how the suburbs are designed to be unfriendly to certain groups of people. But yes I had a part of the script written to address this point, but I felt as though it would require another whole section to explain how to fix it. The design of a strip mall, aka a shopping center that only faces one direction, inherently makes it difficult to incorporate anything if it's located behind it.

@seththomas9105

3 жыл бұрын

@@alanthefisher Love to see the video.

@Default78334

3 жыл бұрын

Also, the developers of the mall don't want customers walking around the back and seeing all the loading docks and trash compactors.

@ANTSEMUT1

3 жыл бұрын

It is design to look that way, they could have oriented that retail space in such a way that taking/giving access the closer route wouldn't look so dodgy.

@Neville60001

3 жыл бұрын

@@alanthefisher, this is why I'm glad some of these strip malls/plazas here in Toronto that went under are now going to become condos (even though I personally have problems with the condogentrification of Toronto.)

Those urban planning videos about the US make me realise I've been taking for granted the fact that I have 7 grocery places within walking distance... I'll never complain about them again now, damn...

So basically the small town layout is best. Everyone built houses around the main hub of businesses so they could easily access them back in the day

@music4thedeaf

3 жыл бұрын

No he means the prewar pre suburban sprawl pre car dependency layout is best

@Rusty_Nickle

3 жыл бұрын

@@music4thedeaf also known as a small town. I'm not talking about some Urban City.

@music4thedeaf

3 жыл бұрын

@@Rusty_Nickle yea but big cities like san fran aren't suburban hell and they aint small town use

@music4thedeaf

3 жыл бұрын

@@Rusty_Nickle usa*

@Rusty_Nickle

3 жыл бұрын

@@music4thedeaf small town meaning less than 3000 people. Like we have here in the Midwest. Everything's laid out surrounding a main Street. And that main Street is usually next to a railroad because that's how they used to get supplies to our towns

Suburbia is why I'm getting an electric bike. Walking is impossible, but I don't want to drive a car, so I'm getting a more eco-friendly vehicle that is road-legal and can haul cargo.

@thelonercoder5816

2 жыл бұрын

Same here. I'm basically forced to get an e-bike lol.

In Russia, we are now also having more and more problems with the rise of malls and cars-oriented culture. It's awful. I'm feeling like Russia has just been copying all the bad stuff from the US for the last 30 years, and now it got even worse in Russia than in the US in some instances. (The example with dirt paths for pedestrians you showed has reminded me of what I now literally have to experience with going to a mall near my grandma's apartment block). And in summer the aforementioned mall's parking ground turns into a more than a 100 F melting pot for your brains if you have to go through it. P.S. Well, at least we still have the Soviet Blocks. They're not pretty, but at least they are quiet, peaceful, with a lot of shaded green spaces in summer and protection from freezing winds in winter, and with amazing walkability (you can go miles without even needing to cross a road, and school is usually about 10-20 minutes of walking distance away). And with some investment, they can be made pretty (by using decorations like plaster and wall art)

Hell yeah, to hell with strip malls and mega malls, especially their oceans of parking deserts surrounding them! Ugh.

@scottcampbell2707

3 жыл бұрын

The advantage of the strip mall over the mega mall is that they are a lot more walkable -- you can park right by the store and don't have to walk through huge parking lots to get from your car to the store.

@seththomas9105

3 жыл бұрын

OHHH YEAHHHHH!!!!!!

@robertvirginiabeach

3 жыл бұрын

@@scottcampbell2707 Not so much with a busy mega department store without enough handicap parking spaces.

Oh man I haven't even started watching this and I know it's gonna be gud

Great video! I also live somewhere where the suburbs are somewhat dense and we have a lot of nice shops and a grocery store nearby - but there's literally no sidewalk to get to them, so you have to either drive or dodge cars by walking on the side of a busy road. If they even just built a damn sidewalk, then people could easily walk to a nice coffee shop, grocery store, ice cream shop, and several restaurants. So much wasted potential.

I like the way you transmit your urban experience. It's obvious this is an area you know well and love/hate. I live in a similar place in Mexico City, with almost no walkability. Although of course it's very different, the lack of urban planning at it's core faces the same issues on this video. Nice!

When it says strip malls in the title I thought you meant Main Street local stores on either side of a road going through a suburb (I live in Australia where your "strip malls" exist but no one ever goes to them) and I was ready to type out a comment about how main street local shops are extremely walkable and I love them. Luckily, we were not thinking of the same thing.

The nearest "strip mall" to me growing up was walkable for no one. Sure once you got there it was pretty nice to walk around. But without a car it was only accessible to a small suburban development. There was an even smaller strip mall within walking distance. But it had even less to attract people and was kinda miserable. But you wanna know where things were great? In the walkable downtown! You could walk downtown. It was small but there were shops, cafes, banks and businesses all within a few blocks of each other. You could walk across the river (on a bridge, we weren't magical) and be in another walkable downtown with even more shops, cafes and restaurants!

Wait, the transit stop actually tells you what routes pass there and you don't need to text a number or look it up online?

@alanthefisher

3 жыл бұрын

Both on the sign and on google maps yes!

@grahamsmith9541

3 жыл бұрын

In the UK in built up areas a lot of bus stops will not only tell you what routes pass. But where busses are going to and real time countdown to when it will arrive. All railway stations have real time boards. Usually for the next three trains showing destination, stops along the route, time due, and actual expected arrival time.

We don’t have strip malls in New Zealand but we do have similar things. In my town there’s a shopping area that’s a giant carpark and then the shops are around the outside. There are two big shops and about 15 small ones. When they made the small shops they made them human size and not car size and there’s a small little courtyard surrounded by a couple restaurants which would be really nice to sit and eat in and talk. The problem is no one walk there. Because they surround a giant carpark, it can feel like you shouldn’t be walking there and all the shops feel so far apart. It makes me sad because I really like that courtyard but it’s off in the corner where no one goes. Everyone drives there and I think because of that a third of the shops are still empty even though it’s been like 3 years. Luckily they’re building a new shopping centre just down the road. This new one is going to be pedestrian focused and is mostly made from pedestrian paths. There is one road that goes through the middle but they’ve made that road feel like the cars are intruding on pedestrian space instead pedestrians feeling like they’re intruding on car space.

I live in the suburbs of Broomfield Colorado and there’s a surprising amount of walkability! Yeah, things are still spaced out quite a bit but they have sidewalks connecting a lot. There’s a nearly direct sidewalk path to go to a grocery store about a 10 minute walk away, and it cuts through neighborhoods and goes under the major road with a tunnel.

Was NOT expecting a Mr. Plinkett reference in this video. But anytime is a good time for that.

I wasnt aware that strip malls were even still a thing. All the strip malls in my area have closed down over the last 20 yrs. Theres one enclosed mall left around here, and its more than half empty. Walmart, Target, and the internet did them all in

Wallmart used to do that in Brazil and they just broke because people don't want to go to such an inconvenient place. Our shops know that, and they are far better integrated in the city (we have strips too, but they're more like this: You're coming back from work, need to do you monthly shop, so you have a big shop next to the road where you can buy your things, and go into the neighborhood)

2:00 So, would this be the Lackofwalking cutoff I've been hearing about so much?

I could improve access to that mall for $30. Its called getting a pair of wire cutters from Harbor Freight. Seriously, neighborhood I grew up in that is exactly what would happen if they didn't put a gate it that fence to allow access for the locals.

@maraschwartz6731

3 жыл бұрын

If I lived there Id destroy the fence and risk getting caught

@G-Mastah-Fash

3 жыл бұрын

@@maraschwartz6731 I'd just jump it every day.

@Nik-ny9ue

3 жыл бұрын

@@G-Mastah-Fash works when you're 16 try it at 40 and come back to me...

The issue I see with making those 3 cut-throughs (I include the one which should have been there on the bulbed cul-de-sac) on the backside of the strip mall is that you'd still have to walk around the building in order to access the front entrances to the shops. But if there was access granted through the back of the strip mall lot, I'm sure a canny developer would be wise enough to maybe retrofit the property to shorten the walking distance by taking out a shop space or two. At least, I'd hope so.

@AndrewAMartin

10 ай бұрын

Still better than crossing the parking lot on foot...

When I was active in puttering around the city of Medina, I dealt with missing sidewalks and strip malls by riding a very tough mountain bike. If I were active, today, I likely would own a Surly Big Dummy cargo bicycle with massive tires , so that I could jump curbs and the like. As regards lack of walking access, stop whining--and have your city council pass appropriate legislation, and get the strip mall property owners involved as early as possible. They'd like more customers.

More Pitman and Glassboro vids, please, and maybe a video on the new light rail that's being planned.

@alanthefisher

3 жыл бұрын

I do plan on covering the GCL at some point

It was really weird to find this video on this channel for two reasons. One, I used to live in Pitman for a few years (sadly in one of the most car-centric parts of it) and would visit this shopping center all the time... and I would've never thought to try walking there. Aside from the general lack of pedestrian infrastructure in that immediate area, if you live anywhere in between Woodbury-Glassboro Road and Delsea Drive, those roads are really your only two options to get there. And if you tried on, say, a bike... good luck hope you don't die! Two, because it was posted on my birthday. How nice :P

I experienced this personally on my most recent trip to the USA; we were actually very lucky in that we had a Walmart right outside the massive suburban gated community we were staying in - walking it still required taking a desire path awkwardly between some bushes and crossing an access road. We ended up stopping at a large strip mall one day to get some ice cream; I’d wanted to hit a book store and they had a Books-A-Million. Turned out the thing was a fifteen minute walk away, across an undeveloped section of the mall… with no sidewalk. I had to go back down to the main road and use the sidewalk there, then awkwardly squeeze across a Target parking lot. The whole place was just completely hostile to walking :((

Looking at the USA city planing as an argentinian suprise me. I don't imagine having to drive everywere. My departament is at 4 blocks of my university, I have a local market in the same building, and the nearest supermarket is 5 blocks. The city of La Plata may be insecure, prone to flooding and a transit chaos, but at least I can walk in a proper path without being blocked by some random fence Awesome video. My only problem with it is that the background music is a little too good haha, hearing Fugue State and the DiRT Rally soundtrack suprised me.

@emiliofernandez7117

2 жыл бұрын

I have to walk 30 minutes to my nearest supermarket in my city :(( and I can’t afford to live closer to the city centre as it’s crazy expensive

love your content!!! so interesting, keep it up please!!

I've never lived anywhere where anything was in walking distance and the closest gas station was a good 10 minute drive from my house

@davidty2006

2 жыл бұрын

im currently living in an area where most things are a 1-2 mile walk away and it's really nice. Though i am in the Uk that has different zone laws and commercial is alot closer normally but i know areas that are mostly just urban sprawl most of them being new builds and not dense terraced housing like most older buildings.

I moved into a condo community this year, and at some point I realized how many stores it would be easy to walk to if not for fencing. Instead of just walking south for a few minutes, I would have to walk the opposite direction (a longer distance than the distance to the store), then out of the community, right onto a street all the way to the end, then another right where I then have to walk an even longer distance to get to the stores. Instead of just...being able to go south. Walking anywhere here is automatically a long trip

Maplewood near where I live has “The Village”, which is surrounded by houses, a school, the NJT station, and has many small stores in the heart of the town. Kids can come to the village after school, and then walk to their houses. People walk from their houses into the village to get some coffee, and then commute into the city. People studying in the library nearby can get a quick break. It’s really well designed in my opinion.

Lol they just demolished an entire strip mall down the street from me in order to build more houses. The strip mall wasn't doing too good anyways

Imagine walking 14 minutes just to go to Staples

I love how you talk about where you're from and how you want to improve it. So relatable I love small cities and all the problems they have.

I hear that fearless fliers in the background, always dig your music on these videos man!

Not Just Bikes sent me here.

There is a new kind of strip mall that is so spread out and built with pedestrian barriers that you must get in your car to go from store to store. See Turkey Creek Knoxville Tennessee.

@alextaylor9746

3 жыл бұрын

The American dream

You got my sub with the Mr Plinkett reference. I quote it often myself.

I think strip malls could have a place in walkable design in the future. Imagine if that strip mall added apartments above the mall, and connected to both of those dead ends. Add entrances on both sides, and you would have a great space. I don't think it's shortsightedness, like you mentioned with fast-food city planning, more of the inflexibility of zoning laws that we have in America that make these large commercial islands a requirement.

@davidty2006

2 жыл бұрын

I know 2 retail parks near me that are slight bit better by that i mean they got the loading bays right next to a rail line with 2 bridges and dual carrageway with atleast 2 crossings over it. Main difference being the footpath actually connects up with them. Other than that they are still mostly cars.

Very cool

how long till 'land of the free' becomes ásphalt of the dependent?

I couldn't even bike to a strip mall. Nearest one was only two miles away, but I had to ride down razor thin bike lanes on the most dangerous road in the county, and cross the second most dangerous road to get there. Speed limit was 45mph but everyone drove 60. A bunch of blind bends. Swamp on either side of the road. No shortcuts through sidestreets. There used to be another route with a dirt path along the road, but an interstate was built across this path in 2002, when I was 8. The interstate crossed the safer road with a signle-point-urban-interchange, which is a death trap for bikes and pedestrians due to short light cycles and free flowing on ramps. There was a pedestrian bridge, but to reach it, you had to bike down that dangerous two lane winding road. The fact that there were three crosses at different spots memorializing kids who had been hit over the years made it even more foreboding. My parents knew it was shit, but they expected to only live in this town for about three years, not 30+. I ended up spending way too much of my childhood online. One day my friend and I said fuck it and rode our bikes over the SPUI. We almost got hit, but we made it and were able to rent movies at Blockbuster and eat ice cream. Then on the way back, my dad saw us crossing the SPUI and said that if he ever saw me on that intersection again he'd sell my bike. My older brother was three months away from getting his license so I didn't bother doing it again.

As an infrastructure enthusiast who just so happened to go to Rowan from out of state this was super surreal to see with locations I’m familiar with! Great video!

If walkability and public transit attracts undesirables, then is Alan an undesirable since he uses them? Makes you wonder...

@alanthefisher

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah no one likes me 💯

@ANTSEMUT1

3 жыл бұрын

It feels like American city planning turns people into so called "undesirables" rather then people who use them are already undesirables. This strip mall could easily make the back entrance feel much more friendly to pedestrians but it is made to feel unsafe and scary.

Something about strip malls, regardless of whether I'm driving past or walking through them, makes me feel immediately sullen. I'm glad I now have a proper reason to despise strip malls other than how ugly they are.

Gee, ......why wouldn't the people living behind the plaza,...... want the people who hang around the back of a plaza to have easy access to their yard.

@KaosFireMaker

3 жыл бұрын

The mall probably built the fence, not the residents, and that doesn't explain why the fence doesn't have permiability at sidewalks and roads.

Dude this is too cool. I go to this strip mall all the time. Can't believe I'm seeing this quality of video in my backyard!

Crazy how all those strip malls look exactly the same. That stucco and paint. I appreciate the joke in the captions at the end slide.

Cars ruin everything in general.

@coastaku1954

3 жыл бұрын

No they don't, Cars are awesome! They're fast, sound great, make you look cool, and are really fun on bendy country roads

@jelatinosa

3 жыл бұрын

@@coastaku1954 or in other words, they're dangerous, noisy, give people a false sense of superiority and can be a necessary evil that can cause motion sickness on bendy country roads.

@coastaku1954

3 жыл бұрын

@@jelatinosa Bendy country roads are a lot of fun!

@penguinsfan251

3 жыл бұрын

@@jelatinosa You are a soy boy wimp who can't drive a clutch.

@jelatinosa

3 жыл бұрын

@@penguinsfan251 lol you are an actual beta idiot

I once walked 35 blocks when living in LA. When explaining that to local at coffee shop I went to they seem to think I was insane. Weirdest thing no one ever bothered me. Except one young man who politely tried to sell me crack. He was quite understanding but was also confused by my walking because I wasn't poor.

I’ve been binge watching all these type of videos and I made and they are so nice to just lean back and relax to

I moved to America from Kazakhstan to study and dude, it feels so wrong that I don't have a grocery store within 1 km from my home. Of course, as a student I have no car, so I just feel completely powerless and pathetic. The public transportation is trash as well. The buses sometimes just don't stop because the driver doesn't see you.