A century-old planning paradigm still embedded in the physical fabric of suburbs nationwide is driving a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions.
Easily believable. I used to live in a place in California that was maybe 200 feet away from a local shopping center / strip mall kind of thing; groceries, restaurants, laundromat, couple assorted stores. It would have been real convenient except going there directly would have required walking through a neighbors yard and jumping their fence; so instead the only path to get to this place (again, 200 feet away if I were a bird) was to get in the car and drive in the opposite direction to leave the neighborhood and then double back along the main road.
200 feet became about 3 miles, about half of which had no sidewalk for people on foot.
Most suburbs in Australia have a park &/or pathway between houses every few hundred meters. The only places I can think of with bottlenecks like that are hilly areas surrounded by creeks and gorges.
Here in my part of the US we do build with shops outside of neighborhoods. The problem is that these shops are rarely prime real estate so the stores that move in are rarely something you want to walk to
For example, outside my neighborhood now is
A convenience store, A dry cleaners, a sports bar, a military surplus store, an office for a business that builds floating docks, a tow truck company, some kind of repair shop for hydraulics, a Wendy’s, a burger king, and a bait-and-tackle store
Except not all of that is on my side of the street. If you left my neighborhood and went north you would run into the stores. Then there is a road, some more stores, and then another neighborhood. But that road between the two lines of stores is a major road. 8 lanes where I am. (8 lanes all-together. 4 east, 4 west)
So yeah, I could walk to the sports bar because it is close, but also I have to cross 8 lanes of traffic. And the other neighborhood could walk to the convenience store, but they also have to cross 8 lanes of traffic
On paper it’s ideal. In reality not so much
Sometimes you luck out and you’ll get a mom-and-pop sandwich shop or a small grocery store or something, but most of the time it’s dance studios or a place to buy used vacuum cleaners. Just random, lower-rent shit.
If you keep walking you can find more useful things. There’s a Starbucks and a doughnut shop close by. If I wanted to ride my bike there is a grocery store… but that just means crossing more main roads. Not 8 lanes, but still. Not 2 lanes with 25mph traffic either. It’s like 45mph 4-lane roads
And of course this is more difficult if you have kids. I’m not sure I’d feel safe riding my bike to the store with my young child. So if we need to go to the store, or even the playground, we drive. It’s not that it’s so far we can’t walk, it’s that the walk is sketchy
If you want to walk and shop, we have places built specifically for that. You drive there, park, get out, and then the next like 4 or 8 blocks or whatever is designed just to be for walking and shopping.
It’s not an easily fixable problem through. Unless you’re going to tear down a bunch of houses this is just kind of how it is
Then again, with everything costing $1000, I’m not sure who’s walking to buy anything. I do well for myself but I’m still not going to walk to a sports bar regularly and buy a $9 hamburger and spend $7 on drinks. So really, I don’t even care anymore.
Easily believable. I used to live in a place in California that was maybe 200 feet away from a local shopping center / strip mall kind of thing; groceries, restaurants, laundromat, couple assorted stores. It would have been real convenient except going there directly would have required walking through a neighbors yard and jumping their fence; so instead the only path to get to this place (again, 200 feet away if I were a bird) was to get in the car and drive in the opposite direction to leave the neighborhood and then double back along the main road.
200 feet became about 3 miles, about half of which had no sidewalk for people on foot.
Most suburbs in Australia have a park &/or pathway between houses every few hundred meters. The only places I can think of with bottlenecks like that are hilly areas surrounded by creeks and gorges.
That sounds lovely. I wish our planners did it that way.
Here in my part of the US we do build with shops outside of neighborhoods. The problem is that these shops are rarely prime real estate so the stores that move in are rarely something you want to walk to
For example, outside my neighborhood now is
A convenience store, A dry cleaners, a sports bar, a military surplus store, an office for a business that builds floating docks, a tow truck company, some kind of repair shop for hydraulics, a Wendy’s, a burger king, and a bait-and-tackle store
Except not all of that is on my side of the street. If you left my neighborhood and went north you would run into the stores. Then there is a road, some more stores, and then another neighborhood. But that road between the two lines of stores is a major road. 8 lanes where I am. (8 lanes all-together. 4 east, 4 west)
So yeah, I could walk to the sports bar because it is close, but also I have to cross 8 lanes of traffic. And the other neighborhood could walk to the convenience store, but they also have to cross 8 lanes of traffic
On paper it’s ideal. In reality not so much
Sometimes you luck out and you’ll get a mom-and-pop sandwich shop or a small grocery store or something, but most of the time it’s dance studios or a place to buy used vacuum cleaners. Just random, lower-rent shit.
If you keep walking you can find more useful things. There’s a Starbucks and a doughnut shop close by. If I wanted to ride my bike there is a grocery store… but that just means crossing more main roads. Not 8 lanes, but still. Not 2 lanes with 25mph traffic either. It’s like 45mph 4-lane roads
And of course this is more difficult if you have kids. I’m not sure I’d feel safe riding my bike to the store with my young child. So if we need to go to the store, or even the playground, we drive. It’s not that it’s so far we can’t walk, it’s that the walk is sketchy
If you want to walk and shop, we have places built specifically for that. You drive there, park, get out, and then the next like 4 or 8 blocks or whatever is designed just to be for walking and shopping.
It’s not an easily fixable problem through. Unless you’re going to tear down a bunch of houses this is just kind of how it is
Then again, with everything costing $1000, I’m not sure who’s walking to buy anything. I do well for myself but I’m still not going to walk to a sports bar regularly and buy a $9 hamburger and spend $7 on drinks. So really, I don’t even care anymore.