4 ms·

> its not very walk-able, it gets hot and humid in the summer. You Americans are so funny. Japan is hotter and more humid yet public transit and walking are no

> its not very walk-able, it gets hot and humid in the summer. You Americans are so funny. Japan is hotter and more humid yet public transit and walking are not an issue. Taipei similar story, rapidly building out rail in a hotter place. You build the rail, then upzome the areas around stations and over time those giant ashfault lots go away and become urban centres.

infecto 9mo ago
> You Americans are so funny. People like you are funny too but its easy to make posts like yours. Density in most urban parts of Japan and Taipei are wildly higher than say a Houston Texas. Again like I said, you are oversimplifying the problem which I get it, its easy to do. I don't think this is as simple as "build the rail, then upzone the area around stations", would happy to be wrong but I think like all of the world there are cultural and historical reasons for the difference. It would take decades, you need buy in from both tax payers, commercial buildings, retail spaces, home builders etc. It would be great if you could have a central planner like a China to just build a city with all the infrastructure in place but in places like America, that does not happen and so its a very tough egg to crack. Keep in mind its not just about being hot, definitely lots of Japan and Taiwan are very humid but you are also in city centers that have 8-9x the density of Houston. Lots of things to do and often you are most likely not walking that far, relative for city walking. I could walk a mile in Houston and still have not left my starting spot.
rascul 9mo ago
> Japan is hotter Is it? https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/9247~143809/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Houston-and-Tokyo https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/9247~143809/Comparison-of...
- piperswe 9mo ago
  Having spent time outside in both Tokyo and Houston in July, Tokyo might be slightly cooler but the humidity makes it more unbearable than Houston (even though Houston is already very humid).
HDThoreaun 9mo ago
Houstonites do not want to live in dense cities. “Just live like East Asians” doesn’t work when the people you are talking to despise the lifestyle of East Asians.
- array_key_first 9mo ago
  Yes, they'd rather spend 2 hours a day commuting and then grow fat and die young from heart disease. And before anyone says anything: I used to live in Houston. Truly an awful, awful place to live. It's not even a concrete jungle, it's more like a concrete prairie.
  - cindyllm 9mo ago
    [dead]
  - HDThoreaun 9mo ago
    You don’t have to agree with them, but yea, that is legitimately the way they want to spend their life. I think that’s the issue with these urbanism discussions. Your preferences are so different that you can’t even comprehend them so you end up talking past each other.
    - array_key_first 9mo ago
      And I can respect that - the problem is that urbanism, at it's core, is an organization problem. It internetly involves other people, regardless of if any one of them wants it to or not. I mean, ideally, I could say I want to live all on my own in a mansion far away from everyone else. But I still want access to the world's best food, entertainment, and socialization. But it's just not possible. Everything is compromises. We can't be erecting hundreds of miles of road and acres of parking lots so people have a 10 by 10 foot lawn, you know? And ultimately it will come back to them, too. Because commuting does suck, and I think most people know it sucks. They just can't, or won't, put two and two together on their lifestyle and commuting. They're inherently linked!

infecto 9mo ago

> You Americans are so funny. People like you are funny too but its easy to make posts like yours. Density in most urban parts of Japan and Taipei are wildly higher than say a Houston Texas. Again like I said, you are oversimplifying the problem which I get it, its easy to do. I don't think this is as simple as "build the rail, then upzone the area around stations", would happy to be wrong but I think like all of the world there are cultural and historical reasons for the difference. It would take decades, you need buy in from both tax payers, commercial buildings, retail spaces, home builders etc. It would be great if you could have a central planner like a China to just build a city with all the infrastructure in place but in places like America, that does not happen and so its a very tough egg to crack. Keep in mind its not just about being hot, definitely lots of Japan and Taiwan are very humid but you are also in city centers that have 8-9x the density of Houston. Lots of things to do and often you are most likely not walking that far, relative for city walking. I could walk a mile in Houston and still have not left my starting spot.

rascul 9mo ago

> Japan is hotter Is it? https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/9247~143809/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Houston-and-Tokyo https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/9247~143809/Comparison-of...

piperswe 9mo ago
Having spent time outside in both Tokyo and Houston in July, Tokyo might be slightly cooler but the humidity makes it more unbearable than Houston (even though Houston is already very humid).

HDThoreaun 9mo ago

Houstonites do not want to live in dense cities. “Just live like East Asians” doesn’t work when the people you are talking to despise the lifestyle of East Asians.

array_key_first 9mo ago
Yes, they'd rather spend 2 hours a day commuting and then grow fat and die young from heart disease. And before anyone says anything: I used to live in Houston. Truly an awful, awful place to live. It's not even a concrete jungle, it's more like a concrete prairie.
- cindyllm 9mo ago
  [dead]
- HDThoreaun 9mo ago
  You don’t have to agree with them, but yea, that is legitimately the way they want to spend their life. I think that’s the issue with these urbanism discussions. Your preferences are so different that you can’t even comprehend them so you end up talking past each other.
  - array_key_first 9mo ago
    And I can respect that - the problem is that urbanism, at it's core, is an organization problem. It internetly involves other people, regardless of if any one of them wants it to or not. I mean, ideally, I could say I want to live all on my own in a mansion far away from everyone else. But I still want access to the world's best food, entertainment, and socialization. But it's just not possible. Everything is compromises. We can't be erecting hundreds of miles of road and acres of parking lots so people have a 10 by 10 foot lawn, you know? And ultimately it will come back to them, too. Because commuting does suck, and I think most people know it sucks. They just can't, or won't, put two and two together on their lifestyle and commuting. They're inherently linked!