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15-minute neighborhoods
Feb. 25th, 2023 07:26 amSo, cities in some states are finally starting to take steps to not be as car-mandatory as they've been. Greater Phoenix will have two light rail lines soon. Tempe has a streetcar now and supposedly they're building a car-free neighborhood nearby; I'm a bit skeptical that it'll actually play out like they're planning.
and as you know, conservative ideology says we're not allowed to fix anything, all the things that are making us miserable are sacred elements of freedom, and that includes long car commutes and giant parking lots everywhere, and pumping as much CO2 into the air as possible. It makes non-drivers second-class citizens because we're just worse than the rest of you I guess, that's the natural order of things as Henry Ford decreed. If we're extra-nice and promise not to be woke then maybe they'll let us hire a self-driving car.
Urban planners coined the phrase "15-minute neighborhoods" to refer to places where your home, supplies, and maybe even job are close to each other, so you no longer have a long-distance commute every single day. Conspiracy theorists have co-opted that term, redefining them as ghettos that you can't leave without government permission, so their liberal bogeyman of choice can control us all, just like the masks and vaccines.
A few years ago I attended a large public meeting in a school auditorium, about proposed bike lanes on McClintock Drive, and the audience was full of drivers who hated bikes with the fire of a thousand suns, and they said the existing sections of bike lane were crowding the remaining car lanes on McClintock and trapping them in their neighborhoods. it was the most hostile crowd I've seen in person, in my privileged suburban life.
i don't know how to end this post
and as you know, conservative ideology says we're not allowed to fix anything, all the things that are making us miserable are sacred elements of freedom, and that includes long car commutes and giant parking lots everywhere, and pumping as much CO2 into the air as possible. It makes non-drivers second-class citizens because we're just worse than the rest of you I guess, that's the natural order of things as Henry Ford decreed. If we're extra-nice and promise not to be woke then maybe they'll let us hire a self-driving car.
Urban planners coined the phrase "15-minute neighborhoods" to refer to places where your home, supplies, and maybe even job are close to each other, so you no longer have a long-distance commute every single day. Conspiracy theorists have co-opted that term, redefining them as ghettos that you can't leave without government permission, so their liberal bogeyman of choice can control us all, just like the masks and vaccines.
A few years ago I attended a large public meeting in a school auditorium, about proposed bike lanes on McClintock Drive, and the audience was full of drivers who hated bikes with the fire of a thousand suns, and they said the existing sections of bike lane were crowding the remaining car lanes on McClintock and trapping them in their neighborhoods. it was the most hostile crowd I've seen in person, in my privileged suburban life.
i don't know how to end this post
