The Dumbest Excuse for Bad Cities
2,519,108
Published 2023-06-19
I have no interest in making “debunking” videos, but there’s one lame excuse that is so common, so prevalent, so ubiquitous, that I was literally forced to make this video. It's true: I had no other choice. My hands were drawn to the keyboard to write this script like they were possessed by the ghosts of people killed by cars.
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References & Further Reading
Downtown Houston, 1912
hdl.handle.net/1911/62636
Country size comparisons
www.thetruesize.com/
Number of Vehicle Trips by Trip Distance
US Department of Transportation
nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips
NHTS BRIEF November 2006
National Household Travel Survey - Commuting for Life
nhts.ornl.gov/briefs/commuting%20for%20life.pdf
Urban sprawl erodes rural lands
www.farmprogress.com/business/urban-sprawl-erodes-…
Ontario loses 175 acres of farmland to urban development a day, says farmers group
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/urban-development-di…
[Netherlands] Agricultural export in 2021 in excess of 100 billion euros for the first time
www.wur.nl/en/research-results/research-institutes…
Ray Hill’s Tunnel photograph (2019) by Michael Manoni
www.alltrails.com/members/michael-manoni
www.alltrails.com/trail/us/pennsylvania/pike-2-bik…
Why did Minneapolis tear down its biggest train station?
www.startribune.com/why-did-minneapolis-tear-down-…
This video contains content licensed from Getty Images.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:57 People don't know this stuff
1:42 The excuses begin
2:30 Most travel is local
3:41 Life is more than commuting
4:35 America was built for trains
5:40 Even intercity travel is regional
6:41 Conducteurs sans frontieres
7:45 Walkability can exist anywhere
8:34 It's all land use
10:43 Wrapping up
11:31 Try Nebula, it's great!
12:42 Patreon shout-out
All Comments (21)
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If you are upset by my "tone" in this video, then I have some great news for you! There are over 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute! So go watch something else. If you are happy that someone is finally saying these things bluntly and without pussyfooting around, then you might enjoy watching my content ad-free on Nebula! You can save $20 per year by signing up at go.nebula.tv/notjustbikes Or support the channel on Patreon if you prefer: patreon.com/notjustbikes.
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The argument "The U.S is too big for trains" is immediately disproven by how Russia's cities are connected by rail and the country is twice the size of the continental U.S
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I don't get how people think you can't have rails across the entire U.S., but you can have highways across the whole country.
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Canadians: Our land is scarce which explains our sky rocketing housing prices. Also Canadian: That gravel surface parking lot with a size of two football fields at downtown core absolutely is needed and makes perfect sense.
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Hilariously, saying the country is too big to have walkable cities is just an admission that because we have the space we plan our cities poorly.
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"American cities were not built for the car. They were bulldozed for the car." A quote for the ages.
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The most annoying thing is that politicians talk about electric cars instead of this.
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"The Dutch make great cities, while North Americans make excuses" Murder he wrote
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It was said many decades ago that we in the US don’t drive because stuff is far away, stuff is far away because we drive.
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Its crazy how America only got so big that we needed cars until the 1930ish. It must have suddenly grown in size after then.
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The fact that we as Californians can't build a high-speed rail across our state displays the political gridlock that exists in this country.
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I like how you, CityNerd, AlanFisher, and ClimateTown are linking up now like the Justice League of Urbanism
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We also need to acknowledge the influence of car manufacturers in lobbying for the perpetuation of a car dependent society.
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I am so shocked that some American cities actually looked good in the past. It’s awful to see what they have become.
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I forget the exact phrasing but "America will always do the right thing, after exhausting all other options." As an American, this is painfully true.
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Mongolia has the lowest population density in the world, yet the country manages to build railways connecting small towns along their routes.
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Thank you for addressing Australia in the same light as US and Canada. Very much needed.
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"American cities were not build for the car, they were bulldozed for the car." what a line
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A great example of this is our universitys. They are made to be walkable and have many of the same features as European cities.
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Saying America is too big for trains, buses, or bikes is like saying it's too big to have sidewalks.
