Because most people don't have the luxury of choosing those things.
- I don't have any meaningful control over where I'm allowed to work
- I don't have any meaningful control over where my spouse is allowed to work
- I only have a tiny amount of control over where I'm allowed to live (most of it prices us out, despite being above-average income)
- even if I do exercise some control, it can be changed or stripped from me by others at any time. (You may get laid off and have to find a new office. Or your office may move away from you -- when you are hired, the office might only have been 12 miles away, but later they moved the office so it's now 25 miles away)
- You may not always be allowed to move in response to those changes (you might not be able to afford to move your whole house every two years, when job situations for you/your spouse change. And if you have kids, doing this super disrupts any chance they may have at a social life via school)
- You may not even be allowed to change home or school locations. (Divorced people exist, shared-custody children exist and are in some places, the most common form of parenting in 2023, you might not be allowed to relocate your kids schools ever)
A lot of anti-transportation "15 minute city" idealists like to handwave away how incredibly complicated it is, to magically get your entire life to line up such that you don't ever have to travel medium-sized distances. That is an extreme luxury that most people will never have.
The 15 minute city isn't one you never leave, it is one where basic tasks of life are within 15 minutes. Most people will leave it for work, but they will stop and play within 15 minutes of home.
Otherwise you are spot on. If your company moves offices within the same city's MSA they assume you can get there. If they move office to a different city they will pay to move you.
> Most people will leave it for work, but they will stop and play within 15 minutes of home.
Even that assumes you don't have relatively specific hobbies. Which I guess is true for many people, but it's highly unlikely that (for example) my preferred martial arts instructor and my preferred dance instructor are going to be within 15 minutes of where I live.
And of course, your girlfriend/boyfriend, if you don't live together.
What are you getting at? Are you incapable of nuance? It was already stated that a 15 minute city isn't a place you never leave, it's a place where you can meet your daily needs within 15 minutes. If you want to go to a specific martial arts instructor, then yes, you probably have to leave. But if you just want a place to work out, that will be around. If you want to go to a specific grocer, you will probably have to leave, but there will be a place where you can get your milk and veggies within 15 minutes. If you meet someone from outside your neighborhood, you'll have to visit them, but if you spend more time in your neighborhood, you'll likely make stronger bonds there.
> What are you getting at? Are you incapable of nuance?
Your rudeness aside, what I'm getting at is that I'll likely have to leave once or twice a day even not accounting for work. I live in a European city and get everywhere by car BTW.
I lived 5 miles away from my downtown office in Chicago. My apartment was 5 minutes from the train and my office was 1 minute on the other side. There were no connections, so this is an ideal public transit situation. It still took 40+ minutes each way versus 20 minutes by car during rush hour or ~10-15 outside of rush hour.
This is the third largest US city and one with comparably few major thoroughfares (compared to many other large US cities). It seems that it’s just really hard for public transit to beat cars at any distance.
Moreover, lots of people are constrained on where they can work and live. I think a lot of the anti-car rhetoric in America seems to assume everyone is a healthy, childless, young urban professional who aspires to live in the densest habitat he can find, and this is a very unrealistic portrait of Americans.
In truth, an environment built for people over cars is better for everyone. Including those that can't drive (which is all children, and many with disabilities) or can't afford to drive. Your case sounds like a perfect situation where a bike with proper cycling infrastructure would be the best option.
Not really. Chicago is pretty damn cold in the winter and hot in the summer and very wet in between. Of course, a Sufficiently Committed Cyclist can and will cope, but that's an unrealistic expectation for the majority of the population. Moreover, my example was an idyllic case for public transit (or as idyllic as it gets in the US). Most places are far less dense than Chicago and traveling by car is easier.
To be clear though, I would like to see more walkable places, and while "people over cars" is hopelessly vague and verging on ideology, I probably agree with some of what people envision when they make this statement. I think it would be great if our urban and semiurban environments had more, smaller shops and more safe infrastructure for bikes and cars. More separation of fast moving car traffic from side streets. Etc. But we have a loooong way to go before bikes or public transit are more practical than cars, and as others have pointed out even the most bike-friendly countries in the world still have high (and growing) rates of car ownership.
Cars are undeniably handy for all but some people in the densest environments, but we still need to take care not to overfit to cars.
Whenever I've heard people make that argument, what they actually mean is "The huge house I want to live in I can afford if I spend an hour a day in the car, oh and people that live in the cities should not make it harder for me to pursue such a path by restricting car usage. Externalities be damned, won't someone think of my being unable to afford a 5 bedroom house with a big garden in the city".
>> Perhaps because real estate/rent is simply too expensive anywhere closer.
> Whenever I've heard people make that argument, what they actually mean is "The huge house I want to live in I can afford if I spend an hour a day in the car...."
Or it's because it would require 3x-6x their income to afford to live anyplace closer. A major factor of employee shortages is exactly that. There are no homes within 50 mi (often much further) of that job that can be afforded with those wages.
We live 45mi out from a (until recently, inexpensive) US metro area and we require 4 incomes to cover basic expenses.
It is both the desire to not live in an apartment, but rather have a detached single family house with a garage and backyard, and also a desire to live away from people below your socioeconomic level and near people at or above your socioeconomic level (referred to as “good schools”).
If Americans were okay with living in Tokyo sized abodes, then there would be sufficient density for sufficient housing and job opportunities to exist in a region that could support sufficient public transit.
There’s plenty of detached houses in Tokyo (even in the 23 wards) and they cost 1/4 of what they cost in a major American city. Tokyo is denser than any American city but less dense than Paris, and greater Tokyo, which is even cheaper for housing, still has great transit/no need for a car for most people and has a density of only 1000/km^2. Also available in Tokyo is small apartments for single people. A minimum wage worker there will live in a small apartment, yes, but can survive without 5 roommates in a moldy basement suite.
Americans would be okay living in “Tokyo sized abodes” if they knew what that actually meant and didn’t assume all of Tokyo looks like Shibuya. One thing I’ll grant is that garages are rare, because they count as finished space for property tax purposes.
Tokyo is actually a great example of what a city without car-centric planning and free parking everywhere can be like and a perfect example of a “15 minute city”. It’s not only about transit, but what transit and walkability encourages. I lived there for 6 years in a very residential neighborhood, but I was still within 10 minutes walking of virtually any daily necessity, 5 or so grocery stores, dozens if not hundreds of restaurants, 3 public baths, one of which was a legit onsen, a few furniture stores, and even 2 aquarium shops. I’m trying to think of a counter example and I can only think of one thing that wasn’t a ten minute walk away: a movie theatre, although there were multiple within a 15 minute train ride.
Tokyo style abodes are illegal in a huge part of many urban areas.
Given the choice between a some of the shitty living situations I dealt with while living in the US, and an affordable, compact efficient apartment. I'll take the latter
Humans have always been that way. Adam Smith observed in his "wealth of the nations" that once someone has enough to eat and other basics, increases in income are mostly used to make their house better (mostly meaning larger). If your plan for bettering the world doesn't account for this, then you have lost.
That might have been the case a decade ago, but with the uptick in real estate prices it's not even that any more.
I have friends who bought an apartment in a small town next to the city where the jobs are because they didn't have the credit score for anything closer to work.
This is the reality (and realty) people in the market for living space are currently facing.
I think you're missing the point... If you reject car ownership and the associated commute etc, you structure your life around that. You get a job and a house that are compatible with that philosophy. As a couple, neither of you would have a job that requires you to commute such distances.
Couldn't think of a better argument for why most people do not reject cars. Restricting your employment options to a small, say cyclable area around where you live can be extremely limiting for your employment opportunities, especially if you have a partner that also works. Especially considering the point another commenter said that oftentimes central business districts where the best jobs are can be prohibitively expensive for housing.
I'm not one to discount the cost of a long commute, and I'm hopeful that more remote and flexible work options will make it so people have less time commuting. But people like to own cars because in most cases they can be incredibly useful, and ignoring that fact won't help people transition off them.
>Restricting your employment options to a small, say cyclable area around where you live can be extremely limiting for your employment opportunities
You're missing the forest for the trees. If you live in a mid-sized city in the Netherlands and want to limit yourself to a 1 hour commute by public transit, there are just as many, if not more opportunities than if you live in a mid sized city in the US like Richmond because the Netherlands is that much denser, and transit optimizes for commercial centers. The difference that in the Netherlands, you still have the option of commuting by car, whereas, in the US you'd have to move.
But that's precisely the point. Many people (and arguably the young people in the OP), value life over "employment opportunities". That's the philosophy behind why many of us reject cars in our daily lives. Those hours of commuting I don't have to do I spend with my children. Equally, the commuting I do do is free exercise.
That only holds true when your basic needs to survive are met such that you're able to entertain a philosophy such as "reject car ownership". I suspect most people are going to abandon such a philosophy as soon as "putting food on the table" is no longer possible.
Conflicting ideas such as these crop up all the time. For instance, "commuting in a car is dead time, at least I can read/work on the train". A reasonable position at face value, but entirely useless to the person who finishes work at 17:00 and must pick the kids up from school at 17:30. The 30 mins car ride may be "dead time", but the 60 mins by public transport obviously doesn't work for them.
I would guess that the "rejecting car ownership" types probably have this as a subset of a broader philosophy where they've somewhat rejected wealth in favour of something else, or already have the economic freedom to make such a choice.
It's true you often need a car but it shouldn't be the case. Cars are terribly inefficienct way to get around. They are more expensive and slower (once there are enough of them) than alternatives. The anti-car sentiment is about changing the infrastructure so the cheaper/greener and faster alternatives get a chance.
Public transport is one alternative but I think small personal transport devices are more promising.
“Rejecting car ownership” types will probably live walking distance to schools. This doesn’t even have to mean living in a city centre somewhere, if anything schools are the one thing in America designed for local people as opposed being designed for cars.
Yes absolutely it's about choices. I would argue the debate is more worthwhile than that because it's good to think in terms of "what would be ideal" so that as a society we can plan for that. Too often, such public debate become bogged down with a view that those that oppose car usage as part of a daily routine are fundamentally opposed to car usage. In fact, typically we can see a better world and want it for everyone. Since improving things for drivers generally necessarily makes things worse for everyone that isn't in a car, the practicalities of reducing car usage are actually a reduction in existing privilege (which people will always fight tooth and nail).
And you're missing the point that these types of jobs are in or around the big cities, where people cannot afford housing. Well, maybe 5% can, the rest of us will commute.
I've moved between jobs every 1-2 years for the past 10. I've never been more than an hour away (and that was one job that was particularly far away). In most cases, because we have a good public transit system, I'm within 10-15 minutes by subway or 30/40 minutes walking. I don't even consider it too much. Never moved house.
So only one person instead of two has to suffer through a dreadful commute, you need only one car instead of two, one parent works close to where the kids go to school, etc. If you live in the middle, everything is far away for everybody.
That doesn't mean it's not viable to live in the middle, but I think these are some pretty good arguments why it's often preferable to live close to at least one partner's workplace. Obviously it's not going to work for everybody, but if you're thinking about where to buy your house, this may be worth taking into consideration.
Would you volunteer to have twice the dreadful commute for the benefit of your partner, or do you see yourself being the beneficiary of this configuration?
The average in the Netherlands is 20 kilometers if anyone is wondering.
I think public transport is pretty good if you live in the Den Haag-Rotterdam-Amsterdam area. Which in America would be considered a single metro area. Something like 5 million people.
Ebikes also tend to change the equation. I live 37km from where I work. By bike its 1hr20 when its not too windy. By ebike its 1hr flat (ok, its a speed pedalec, requires a license). By car its 45 min. By train its 1hr10. Despite having the means to own a car I sold it a few years ago and never looked back. I rent one every few weeks I need one.
