From an outside perspective: The US can’t even agree that there’s a problem (yet). Most people will proudly defend the car dependent way of life. As soon as there is a consensus about needing to change, the process could start and then it will take 30 years. Clock hasn’t even started ticking yet, so yeah, lost cause for now.
America is too big to “fix” as a whole, you have to fix it city by city. For example, I spent about 10 years biking around Chicago mostly w/o a car, but to think that same infrastructure can expand all the way to NY is either too unrealistic or just too lofty of a goal to take on. We need to start by focusing on the largest of American cities and work our way down.
Comparing America to the Netherlands isn’t fair as the US is 237 times the size of the Netherlands, but we can start making sure that our most populous cities are bikeable/have good public transport.
It’s not about the size of the country as a whole. 99% of people aren’t making that commute from Chicago to New York, so walkability is a non-issue. Not Just Bikes actually has a recent video on this.
What you say about cities is correct though: they need to be made people-sized, not car-sized. That is, stores need to be closer together, sidewalks more spacious, much less car traffic, areas with storefronts that are easy to access without a car, and outdoor spaces for hanging out. The cities and suburbs are what need to be corrected, not the empty land between them.
Between cities are where high-speed rail would be necessary and extremely helpful in order to take cars off the road and ease traffic congestion.
There are plenty of cities that are willing to be trailblazers in this space. Many city planners fully realize that the current build environment is unsustainable and harmful. There’s a lot of momentum to fight against, sure, but this is a solvable problem. It just might take some time.
You don’t fix a continent. And he forgot about Mexico, but whatever. You make towns and cities better, here and there, as opportunity permits. And that, my friends, is of course feasible during our lifetimes.
Yeah, there are definitely places in North America where you can live car free (they also happen to be super unaffordable, but that’s another story). There’s no reason you couldn’t try and live there if personal circumstances permit you to. It’s not like Europe is 100% bike friendly either, there’s a ton of places where not owning a car just isn’t practical either.
I was really disappointed in these comments.
NJB has been upfront consistently about how they aren’t an advocacy channel and I don’t fault them for not jumping into how to fix North America’s transit/urban planning issues. That’s simply not a focus of their content.
I also don’t blame NJB for not wanting to have that fight anymore and doing what he sees as the best move for himself and his family. Good for him.
However saying “just give up” helps absolutely no one, and completely overlooks the fact that millions of people can’t simply relocate to the Netherlands like he did whether that be for monetary or personal reasons.
It’s exceptionally callous and pessimistic reasoning.
There are lots of pockets across the US and NA where they’re getting it right, and it’s my belief there’s so many more areas where people don’t actually know an alternative actually exists.
Change can happen. As others have pointed out in this thread, compare Portland in the 70s to today, NYC is taking strides, cities across the country are revoking parking minimums, and hundreds of other examples show this to be true. NJBs success is built on this shift in thinking.
Change has to happen.
I believe NJB, and similar content, is crucial to getting people to realize how much better things can be if we want them to be. But it will be a slow process that will build momentum over time. There are no silver bullet solutions and no immediate answers.
For similar urbanist content that overlaps NJB, but from an urban planner based in the US I highly recommend City Beautiful
For inspiration
It’s not phrased the best it could be here, but he isn’t talking about all of NA, but he is talking about a majority of it. There are pockets here that will get better, and are doing so, but there’s also massive amounts that just can’t get better without razing them. The exurbs being built on top of prime farm land in Ontario is a perfect example of this. Those places can never, and will never be fixed, at least not within my lifetime. And it is a waste of energy and time to try to fix those places.
If they go bankrupt and people move away for newly pedestrianized cities that are nicer to live in, perhaps they will be razed eventually 🤔
For a channel that constantly compares America and Europe it’s hard not to feel tired and pessimistic about it. Things are improving every year albeit slowly. And channels like NJB are helping. But it can seem like we are pinnning him line a saviour and that’s a lot of pressure.
Hopefully despite the way he phrased his comment there’s more young people going into roles that can make change and undo damage.
But he doesn’t say to just give up. He doesn’t want to do advocacy for American infrastructure but he clearly states that there are other people that do and that he points people towards those resources
People should give up on North America though.
That’s the first line of the quote. If that’s not what he meant, it’s awfully confusing.
It’s important for a movement to have both practical, achievable goals and aspirational ones. There’s plenty of room for content from people showing us how good it can be, without really caring about how we get there.
That’s Not Just Bikes niche, and he does a good job at it.
I think he has a point that fixing the US is somewhat hopeless. There are many pieces that go into the puzzle that is the United States and its citizens and together they create such a hostile and undesirable place that is adamantly resistent to change. Not only were our cities literally demolished to make way for the car, the whole idea of driving and what that means is deeply engrained in our culture and identity.
This isn’t just about removing stroads and designing some cutesy livable spaces and parks in cities. This is about changing the identity of what it means to be an American. Do you think you could convince even a portion of Americans that the European old way of living is better than the American way?
Do you think you could convince even a portion of Americans that the European old way of living is better than the American way?
You would loose them at first idea “Imagine going to grocery shop by foot.” They would be more disgusted than by bidet.
As an american, I’d love to be able to walk to a shop.
but I cant. Because America decided to build out in the most stupid way possible, and put shopping and such as far away from living areas as humanly possible.
Cars are the only viable option in the fucked up american reality.
And don’t even mention buses. In my area, it takes 2 hours by bus, to get somewhere it takes 10 minutes to get to by car… and the shitty thing is, the bus trip isnt even all bus. half if it is by foot getting to your next busstop to pick up the connection.
We would have to create entire new ecosystems, cities and towns with incredible public transportation that is flawless and easy to understand and use and either dirt cheap or completely free. And even if that happened all over the US by some magical means like all the billionaires who own our country decide to unite and rebuild the country (hah!), it would only be kids and teens using it because they don’t drive yet and it’s more independent than asking their parents. Then that generation might finally be the change that makes it normal and permanent.
by some magical means
It could probably be done by the government, but it would mean forgoing an aircraft carrier.
gasp how could we possibly manage without another carrier? We just barely have more than every other country in the world and you jest about not building another one? Just because you said that we’re going to throw another billion of un-asked for cash into the “defense” budget.
A partner’s friend came to visit us in New York city once. We were walking from one bar to another, maybe a ten minute walk, and she was like “are we going to take a car?”
We were all like what, no, it’s like ten minutes.
She was like oh. That’s far, isn’t it? We don’t walk that much in Illinois.
This is in Brooklyn. Like the most walkable part of the united states.
I think about this a lot.
I have an F150 with a small bed in the back, heated seats and working AC. I can drive 15-20 minutes to the big-box or local grocery store rain-or-shine and load up my truck bed so I can feel like I’m actually getting some use out of it and grab a latte from Starbucks on the way back in like an hour and a half total. I’ll get home, backup into the driveway and unload into the freezer in the garage and the fridge/pantry in the kitchen. Done.
“Yes but imagine if you could walk to the grocery store and have nice things to look at! Imagine spaces that feel comfortable and inviting, small cafes on the corner and people out and about instead of just a bunch of cars.”
So what am I walking for? I just want to get groceries and get home why would I deliberately take longer to do a chore? And where do I put all my stuff after checkout? They have those locks on the carts now so you can’t even take them outside of the parking lot, do I like bring a duffel bag or something? What if it is raining? I’m not sure where I put that umbrella I bought 10 years ago for my vacation. And snow? Forget it, the plows push all that muddy ice up onto the sidewalk, I could never even make it out of the house.
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This guy has the car-brained mindset so ingrained, that it’s not even crossed his mind that grocery stores could be closer than a 15 minute drive away.
I’m trying to determine if this is satire or not. I’ll respond anyways if it is just to share a point of view for anybody else reading though.EDIT: I just saw the username and saw you commented above. The below still stands for everything the average big truck American embodies though.
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Besides the fact you have an oversized, $30,000+ vehicle for just grocery shopping (as you say “so you get some use out of it”), the ideal walkable/bikable city will save you time plus has the added benefit of making you healthier too. The exercise you get and reduced air pollution will have a noticeable affect on health and lifespan.
As for time saving, you say you spend ~40 minutes traveling to the big box store, but a walkable city would have more stores closer to you so you could just take a short 10 minute walk or 4 minute bike ride to them.
The umbrella and bag situation is an easy fix though, just spend like $100 on raincoat, backpack, etc.; you didn’t mind spending $30,000 on a truck. I know some people need a vehicle for longer travel, but that’s the point people are trying to make. Having every American require a multi-thousand dollar more of transportation when $500 for a bike and equipment is just insane.
I probably should have put /s or something but it isn’t necessarily sarcasm. While my above comment isn’t my take, it is the mindset of most folks in the US (can’t speak for Canada). It isn’t like they are inconvenienced by driving cars, they think it is great. The downsides of car culture have been slowly eroding all of us from the inside like a parasite we don’t know we have. Trying to convince this very realistic F150 owner that they don’t need a car, and that there could theoretically exist a world in which they can walk and shop smaller and deal with the weather like the rest of the world is not going to be an easy task because it is a universe away from their current reality, worldview and identity.
My intention isn’t to be all “doomer” about this, I really do hope we fix things here. But hard work isn’t going to be enough and I guess that is where I’m going with this. To fix America’s landscape/infrastructure we need radical revolution levels of change and there are several, imo, higher priority things to do before we even get to those items. I don’t blame folks for just up and leaving if they have the means. I plan to and my life and my family’s life will be better for it. Universal healthcare, free/affordable tuition, walkable living spaces that feel like home, schools that don’t have to do active shooter drills, safety for LGBTQIA+ people, reasonable laws and fewer fascist neighbors: all of these things exist already in places around the world. NJB moved because he could and is shitting on the US because frankly it deserves it and maybe the shock treatment will wake up a few minds to their reality. Is he an asshole? Maybe, but he isn’t wrong.
When everything is built to only be convenient by car, of course it’s going to be more convenient by car, and most people are going to use cars. That’s the entire problem.
If your local grocery store was 5 minutes walk or bike away in a dense city without highways everywhere and unlimited free parking, you would walk or cycle instead.
We aren’t blaming individuals here, the entire culture and built world in the US is fundamentally broken.
And I can walk to the grocery store, buy my groceries and be back in less time than it takes for you to drive one way.
It’s great.
The point of walkable grocary shopping is that you don’t have to get so much stuff at once. You just quickly go in on your way home get a few things ang then go home. That way you go grocery shopping more often, but it’s not a trip anymore.
And that would be great, but Americans don’t have even a remotely close concept of how this works. You may as well be speaking a foreign language to them because our reality is so incredibly far away from this alternative way of living.
This is very true. I lived in a big city for a couple years and I still ended up ordering a huge batch of groceries on the weekend instead of visiting a local store every other day. It’s an extremely hard habit to break off.
If we all adopted NJB’s mindset we’d just have our grandkids asking why WE didn’t do something.
For the most part, we win cities and towns, not countries (and especially not big countries like USA, Canada, and Mexico) and certainly not continents. It’s way easier to hear about national news than local news, and even moreso local news that isn’t from your city. Urbanist communities often portray stagnancy, but that’s often not the case, for better and worse. Houston still sucks but it’s better than it used to be. Philadelphia is still one of the better US cities for being carless but for a variety of reasons (shitty Democratic mayoral nomination that proves we need to end first past the post, crime related decline in public transit ridership) it is likely to get worse (and to be clear, Houston and Philadelphia are both relatively low-income cities. They do not have the money to make the big transformation Paris did, and that’s in spite of Philly literally being designed to be like Paris) Neither of these facts should have the response of “give up.”
In my city (Portland, Oregon, USA), consistent nagging finally got us improved bus service and frequency, road diets, and “express” buses that have signalling priority over cars. One of my friends’ father works for a local organisation that advocates against car infrastructure in favour of better public transportation and biking infrastructure. In the past ten years, we have had:
- Entirely new light rail line extending south into the suburbs
- Scrapped motorway expansion in exchange for improvements to a commuter rail line that runs parallel to it
- “Frequent service” bus routes that run every 15 minutes or better during peak hours
- Free public transportation for students during the school year and over the summer
- Tolls on a major motorway to offset maintenance and improvement costs
- “FX” express bus routes with nice bus shelters, signalling priority, and those long accordion busses
- Big pay rise for bus drivers, up to $25/hr now I think
- Road diet on a large arterial street in the southeast, adding bike lanes and a median
- Lowered speed limits across the city
- Designated “neighbourhood greenway” bike routes
- Major downtown arterial shrank to 2 lanes, with a segregated bike path installed in the freed space
- Improvements to the Springwater Corridor bike trail (use for commuting also)
I’m in a nearby city (moved out of Portland in 2006), and we are in serious need of modern transit here. Would you be willing to share the name of the org your friend’s father is with in Portland? I would like to see how they operate to help us start getting some improvements in our city.
We do have at least a couple of city council reps who are on board with railed transit and limiting parking, as well as a city planner who is a Strong Towns member, so there’s running room to get started. Having a group to help channel the public’s desire to have non-automobile transit (and related laws) would be a next huge step for us.
I looked it up and it turns out, he’s the president! The organisation is the Parking Reform Network. It seems they’re specifically against car parks but listening to him talk I though it was against all sorts of car infrastructure.
This is great! Thank you so much. I’ve been reading through their materials, and they’re definitely focusing in on the parking/wasted space problem that all too many cities have created for themselves.
As I keep pulling materials together for my city council & city planner discussions, I’ll be drawing on this work when I can.
Please thank your friend’s dad for me when you get a chance. It’s people like him that help to make our cities a better place to live.
Came here to comment about PDX, looks like you’ve got it covered :)
See you out there on these streets (and on a bike)
Over the school year I live in Corvallis, OR (attending Oregon State Univ) where it’s extremely walkable and likeable. Free public transit but only on weekdays, unfortunately. Regional buses connect with the train station in Albany.
Sadly, over the summer, I’m back at my parents’ place and they live on a very steep hill 20 minutes by foot from the nearest bus stop, and the bus only comes every 45 minutes so there’s really no option but to drive :(
The reasons are systemic. Americans need to live out in the countryside because home ownership is the only viable path to wealth of any amount and wealth is the only viable path to stability. Americans need a car because living in the countryside means buying groceries for the month instead of the next two days, commuting long distances to disparate locations and home ownership requires doing as much shit yourself as possible and that means needing to carry stuff from the lowes and that means having a car, the bigger the better. Americans are secretly all poor and nave no free time, so when driving to or from work, the grocery store (which closes sooner and sooner each year), school or any other place they happen to need to go, a cyclist slowing them down on curvy roads with no safe place to pass is a crisis.
While there has been a set of regulatory factors that influence the physical size of cars, the material reality of the car buying public has to be considered.
And this is to go even further: safe streets is so far down on the list for your average country mouse it’s laughable. Start with food distribution, day care, water and septic, literal anarcho-food not bombs-ist brake light clinics so that we don’t get unaffordable tickets while driving our rattletrap death machines to the jobs we can’t afford to quit, the creation of community activities and the time for people to do them.
So yeah I guess it’s a right answer/wrong formula situation.
This mentality is what allowed the problem in the first place. Radical change is possible. I’m never giving up.
I’m at least not going to shut the fuck up about it haha
Incredibly based points. I live in urban hell small town Saskatchewan. I feel the same way.
If only millenials could kill the car market just like how we’re killing the {diamond, fabric softener, housing, cable tv, beer, yogurt} markets.
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I mean, as a ‘Murica citizen, I’ve given up on the particular area that I live in. But that does not mean that other places won’t improve as more and more people advocate. I simply don’t have faith that the people in my area will advocate
This is one of the main reasons I don’t really like the channel.
I like the content, I like the ideas presented. That is why I watch it.
I kinda don’t like the guy though.
He also has major grass is greener syndrome in that he has distilled his entire life seemingly to the specific issues he talks about in the video and nothing else.
Like the Netherlands is his main place right? Well they are pretty damn racist over there. Even if it isn’t in your face, it’s always subtle. And to other white people. Romanians and Bulgarians get discriminated against all the time.
Example: My cousin gf (Romanian) applied for housing as as she now has an internship. Over email and the phone she was told yea there are many units available.
First time she goes to talk to them in person, all of a sudden nothing is available. Listings still show housing availability lol.
Her English is pretty good, but she has a clear accent.
So she makes my cousins (her bf) go in person. Except he doesn’t tell them he’s with her. He has better English, more neutral accent. There are units available of course.
Lol.
I’m glad he refers people to other resources to check out, but……I just don’t like his attitude lol.
I was literally about to bring this up. You can tell he’s a white dude with his whole “move to Europe” argument. That’s only feasible to white people. Europe is way more racist than the US. Imagine how they would react to black and brown inner city residents moving over to Europe.
I haven’t heard such a bad case of racism before to be honest, but you’re somewhat right about racism. Although I don’t think it’s completely ungrounded, there’s a lot of immigrants here, out of which not all are such good workers. Although that obviously doesn’t say anything about your cousin’s girlfriend
Not even trying to say the Netherlands is a bad place or anything. My point was more to bring up the idea that our “just not bikes” friend is really focusing on a narrow list of things, when there are many reasons to not move somewhere new.
His idea that we should all abandon North America is just wild to me lol. There are so many other things to take into account.
My salary would drop by almost half if I got an equivalent job in Europe. Bro, this is why I live in the US to begin with lol.
Not really sure what to make of those comments. I love Not Just Bikes and have binge watched his videos lately, but I really do get the impression that the solution is everyone move to Amsterdam (which is not practical for so many reasons). I’ve recently discovered the channel “Shifter” and I find him to be more realistic about biking in North America, and a little more positive and recommends attainable solutions (more so than Strong Towns) for the individual.
Knowing that The Netherlands has a worse housing crisis than the USA and Canada (Anglo-North America’s housing crisis is “it’s too expensive.” The Netherlands’ is “there are no houses even if you’re a billionaire”) really drives this point home.
