The Truth about American Cities - Part 1 - Strong Towns [ST01]

What Hacker News said

Strong rec acchow · 2022-09 · on “Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (But Finnish People Can)”

I love this YouTube channel. They did a series summarizing the findings from Strong Towns - US-style suburbia is fundamentally unsustainable. [this video]

Strong rec iknownothow · 2024-05 · on “Parking reform legalized most of the new homes in Buffalo and Seattle (2023)”

I think everyone should watch the Not Just Bikes YouTube channel especially their series on Strong Towns [1]. It shows just how bad parking mandates are and just how bad American car centric city planning is. As they article pointed out, you need such vanguard cities to pave the way for better cities, with less parking and fingers crossed, fewer cars. [1] [this video]

Recommends Improvotter · 2021-12 · on “Changes in Dutch streets throughout the years (photo album)”

I think this is due to how car dependent North America is. There are so many aspects that are missed in these pictures or what you are for example experiencing. It's not that you're situation is improving, it's most likely not. But that's not due to car independent cities being bad, it's because changing from being car dependent to car independent is hard and takes time. I would recommend you have a look at Not Just Bikes on YouTube, a Canadian that moved to the Netherlands. He talks about car independent cities in Europe, more specifically The Netherlands and compares it to car dependent North America. Here is a video that talks about how these "car independent" countries are still the best

Recommends atoav · 2022-07 · on “Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco”

Profitable. For whom? For the municipiality a 6 lane street vs a two lane street with public transport and bicycle lanes can make the difference between neverending debt and prosperity. Places with good public transport and bicycle infrastructure and denser mixed use pay more tax revenue. Spread out urban sprawls and suburbs give the municipiality a lot of street surface to maintain, for very little tax revenue in return. A good introduction on that part is the strong towns playlist by the youtube channel Not Just Bikes: [this video]

Recommends xorfish · 2022-10 · on “Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?”

Fixing infrastructure is not always useful. Infrastructure for low density suburbs is a money pit that bankrupts cities. Here is a good playlist that explains why this is the case: [this video]

Recommends barrystaes · 2022-12 · on “People Hate the Idea of Car-Free Cities–Until They Live in One”

If you are from the US and wonder whats up with the bike hippies: All cities you know are car-centric infrastructure, and i'd have a hard time seeing the problem also. Just watch this: [this video] Im dutch and despite being able to ride over in 5 minutes and park my beautiful car right behind the stores, i still prefer to use my bike for daily groceries to get there faster and easier. The cities are designed for this. A bike never has to cross a 4-lane road with homes nearby.

Recommends rglullis · 2025-09 · on “Why, as a responsible adult, SimCity 2000 hits differently”

No, suburbs cost more per capita than people living in the inner city, generate less tax revenue and end up becoming a net negative to municipalities: [LINK] The whole series of videos from Strong Towns are good, you should take a look: [this video]

Cites jgtrosh · 2021-01 · on “The people the suburbs were built for are gone”

Another source making similar claims and who claim to back them up are Strong Towns: [LINK] I haven't looked into it, but I heard about it via the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes whose creator makes videos based on his experience and on his reading of Strong Towns. Starting point: [this video] Disclaimer: I'm a dirty European with a natural bias against American suburbia and I haven't read the strong towns book. Also strong town's presentation looks a bit like a cult but that might just be my impression.