We visited the Netherlands recently and had a lot of fun. It’s a cool country that lines up well with our interests in cycling and urbanism, and if you regul...
This is a great counter to the video that NJB put out, and his comments on bluesky. You don’t have to move to an urbanist paradise to be happy. Even if you feel like you do, you don’t have to leave North America to get that.
In Georgia, a very car centric place with a shit ton of suburbs, there’s a town called Peachtree City. Nearly every place is connected by paths that you can drive golf carts and ride bikes on. That’s just one example of many, but if all you listen to is NJB and some people on here, you’ll get the impression the US is a black hole and cannot be fixed.
For those of you who mention “yeah but those places are really expensive to live”, okay, and? Most countries are going through a housing crisis right now, so if you wanted to move to a country like Amsterdam you’re not exactly going to have much of an easier time. Moving to a different city in the US or Canada is way easier than uprooting your life, learning a new language and begging whatever country to let you stay there as a resident.
But in general, the argument of “just move” is dumb. A lot of people can’t. There are people who deal with more than just bad city design and even if they wanted to move, they can’t. In the case of NJB, he has explicitly dedicated his channel to this. In essence he has told us that he doesn’t care about our advocacy in our cities and thinks we are a lost cause, and we should give up and move. His channel is, by his own admissions, for people rich enough to escape the plight of the common man and get the fuck out of where they live. How is this productive?
You don’t give a fuck about advocacy and wanna move? Fine. Do that. But don’t seed fear and despair into those who can’t and fight to make their communities better. Change only comes when it is fought for.
“yeah but those places are really expensive to live”
They’re expensive because they’re rare. Supply and demand. If more places became better at walkability, then everywhere already walkable would get cheaper.
This is a great counter to the video that NJB put out, and his comments on bluesky. You don’t have to move to an urbanist paradise to be happy. Even if you feel like you do, you don’t have to leave North America to get that.
In Georgia, a very car centric place with a shit ton of suburbs, there’s a town called Peachtree City. Nearly every place is connected by paths that you can drive golf carts and ride bikes on. That’s just one example of many, but if all you listen to is NJB and some people on here, you’ll get the impression the US is a black hole and cannot be fixed.
For those of you who mention “yeah but those places are really expensive to live”, okay, and? Most countries are going through a housing crisis right now, so if you wanted to move to a country like Amsterdam you’re not exactly going to have much of an easier time. Moving to a different city in the US or Canada is way easier than uprooting your life, learning a new language and begging whatever country to let you stay there as a resident.
But in general, the argument of “just move” is dumb. A lot of people can’t. There are people who deal with more than just bad city design and even if they wanted to move, they can’t. In the case of NJB, he has explicitly dedicated his channel to this. In essence he has told us that he doesn’t care about our advocacy in our cities and thinks we are a lost cause, and we should give up and move. His channel is, by his own admissions, for people rich enough to escape the plight of the common man and get the fuck out of where they live. How is this productive?
You don’t give a fuck about advocacy and wanna move? Fine. Do that. But don’t seed fear and despair into those who can’t and fight to make their communities better. Change only comes when it is fought for.
They’re expensive because they’re rare. Supply and demand. If more places became better at walkability, then everywhere already walkable would get cheaper.