[RichEO]

> you're in a city, what did you expect? If you want to spend time walking outside drive to one of the many National Parks

Is this a joke? I hope this is a joke and I’ve misunderstood it.

Cities are not synonymous with cars. There are lots of walkable cities in the world. Driving to a place where you can walk is a very strange inversion of the norm.

[inglor_cz]

" Driving to a place where you can walk is a very strange inversion of the norm."

Can is a strong word here.

I am an avid walker with around 13 thousand steps daily on average (counted over last three years), but in my daily life, I generally take some form of transport if the expected walking time exceeds some 25 minutes. A tram or a bus, but I don't regularly walk 7 km to the centre of my city and back, even though I certainly can. It would simply take too long.

[thaumasiotes]

> Driving to a place where you can walk is a very strange inversion of the norm.

There's no way for that to be true; driving to a place where you can walk is a possibility. Walking to a place where you can drive would be useless, because you wouldn't have a car there.

[zimpenfish]

> Walking to a place where you can drive would be useless

You could walk to a vehicle rental shop or (eg London with Zipcar) walk to where a vehicle you can rent is parked. But not a normal situation, definitely.

[acchow]

> There's no way for that to be true

Humans have had cities for thousands of years before cars.

So, yes, driving to a place so that you can walk is an inversion.

[Gud]

Sorry but you are wrong.

I live in Zürich, in my experience the city with the best public transport system(Stockholm a close second, but Switzerland has much better public transportation overall). In case I need a car in Switzerland I would simply rent one for the day using one of the many rental options.

Public transport for 95% of my trips, 3% cab, 2% rental. It’s better for me, it’s better for the environment, the people around me. Reducing cars on the road also makes it so much more pleasant and nice just to be in the city. I travel frequently to London and it’s unbelievable how big difference it makes to be in a city designed for pedestrians and not cars(and London is absolutely designed for cars first).

I travel world wide for work and my default option is always public transport, with the occasional cab ride for convenience. In some places it sadly doesn’t work out so then I end up renting a car.

[orwin]

I mean, walking from my home to the beach is almost as fast 70% of the time (the summer month make finding nearby parking spot really difficult and time consuming), and it's definitely better to come back walking too, as I don't like sand in my car. Going to the farmers' market by foot is faster (unless I go at 6am and find a free parking spot), and less alienating (I say 'hello' to a dozen persons on the way, another dozen on the way back, meet friends, flirt a little). The only exception is going to see my parents, It's definitely faster to drive around the small marsh than the 40 minutes it takes to cross it, but I usually cross it, and when I don't, I use my bike rather than my car.

And when I used to drink, I definitely walked to my bar rather than drove to it despite the free, often empty parking nearby and the 10 fewer minutes it took.

I honestly don't see situations where a walk is worse than a drive in my living area. At worse I take a bike? When I was alone, I managed with rentals only tbf (now it's a bit more difficult, also the windsurfs are easier to handle with a car, and are the primary reason we own one)

[HeatrayEnjoyer]

Why would you need a case there

[stuaxo]

Yeah, but you have to find somewhere to park at both ends which is a hassle, you are limited in where you can go - couldn't stop and have a drink with friends either.

[lxgr]

> You would prefer to walk around a city because it's that's dense as opposed to walking around nature that's specifically set aside for this type of enjoyment?

I've taken some very enjoyable walks in cities that I wouldn't rank either above or below some of my favorite hikes. It's just a completely different type of experience.

Rather than discovering interesting birds and plants, I can notice architecture, discover new restaurants and cafes and maybe check out their menu, window shop etc.

> I don't understand the complaint, here, other than "America is unlike Europe."

Even though America and Europe have developed differently, what's wrong with reevaluating some of the results of these developments in American cities, in particular with regards to whether they're meeting the needs of the people living there?

[piaste]

> Were they designed intentionally as such or this that an outcome of history?

Oh, it's definitely intentional. Sure, pre-industrial cities had narrow streets that were poorly suited for car traffic, so you could say that walkable cities were technically the default.

But a lot of those European cities were intentionally changed towards car transportation in the middle of the 20th century, when cars became widespread and a symbol of post-WW2 wealth, widening street and turning historical squares into parking lots.

And most of those cities were turned back into walkable (or bikable) cities since the '80s onwards, by banning cars and reusing the parking lots for other purposes.

Here's [0] an article about the Netherlands's intentional policy in that regards, and here's [1] a more recent effort in Spain. A lot of Reddit's popular "then and now" posts show this off [2].

[0] https://www.distilled.earth/p/how-the-netherlands-built-a-bi...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/11/barcelona-laun...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1cv555r/my_hometown...

[jrimbault]

> Were they designed intentionally as such or this that an outcome of history?

Both. And with different constraints at different time periods.

Aside, people in the past weren't stupid and they built cities purposefully. Just like cavemen weren't stupid, they just had less _stuff_, knowledge, tools, etc.

> In any case what value does this "norm" have?

Using less fuel. Enjoying a more healthy body and mind, enjoying life. Leaving a better world for its future inhabitants.

> You would prefer to walk around a city because it's that's dense as opposed to walking around nature that's specifically set aside for this type of enjoyment?

Strawman ("because it's that dense"). I like walking in cities AND nature. Both can be true.

Also, why should nature be "set aside"? What a weird notion. Why shouldn't we have more "nature" in our cities, in fact we know it's probably better to do exactly that, for a myriad of reasons that have been scientifically researched. Why should WE "set aside" nature, as if it was somehow external to us.

[piva00]

> Were they designed intentionally as such or this that an outcome of history?

Amsterdam was re-designed for cars in the mid-20th century, it was not designed for cars and had been historically for walking. Then they realised the mistake in the 70s and started to re-design the city again prioritising walking, and biking, now we have Amsterdam as the poster child of a city designed for that.

You seem to forget that in the mid-20th century everywhere was being designed for cars, we are seeing a response to that after the failed experiment.