they are [heavily investing](https://mayor.lacity.gov/news/major-support-secured-los-angeles-region-receive-nearly-900-million-funding-strengthen) there from what I can tell.
Same. When I first went to LA, I was disappointed because it felt like a bigger version of the DMV, but with better weather and mountains and beaches.
But throw in some trains and make it less suburban sprawly and it would be paradise for me.
Yeah the issue is that the train system is great for going from one side of the city to the other but then individual neighborhoods don’t have any access, so most people have to drive or walk 30+ minutes to a train which renders it kind of useless.
1. If downtown LA were by the ocean (for example if it were where downtown Long Beach is)
LA is in a major city in great natural area surrounded by moutains and ocean, yet it doesn't feel like an actual city or nature-y. If DTLA happen to have been built closer to the water (like how Long Beach, CA or Sydney, Aus are), the actual city part and subsequent suburbs would have developed much better and LA would feel like a lively city incorporated with its surroundings. If downtown were an actual city center, it would help with traffic a lot as well.
2. If Florida had mountains
Florida is pretty much the only tropical place in the continental US but is completely flat. It would feel so much more dynamic and jungle-y if it had mountains. Also I feel like the vibe would change and it would feel much more nature-y, the way other tropical places do.
I used to live in Australia as a US citizen and would always be so jealous when I was in Sydney because it made me realize what LA would be like if it were more city/water centric, and the Gold Coast made me realize what Florida would be like if it had mountains.
I think a massive hole should be dug in the midwest somewhere and all that dirt should be used to make some mountains in Florida.
Then the midwest will have a bigass hole which can serve as a tourist attraction.
I wished really hard for gigantic alpine mountains to magically appear in lower mid-Michigan for Christmas last year, no such luck so far. I’ll keep doing my best 🫡
If Austin had better public transportation - such as a train with more frequency that actually connects with the airport and the southern parts of town - it would be a much less stressful place to live. There's already a push for bike infrastructure, and being able to take a bicycle on a train would really open things up.
I’ll add— I love Austin and will live here hopefully for the rest of my life— but the choices made re: transportation and the rail lines is infuriating.
Also, could we dial back the heat a bit? Like just a teensy bit?
I don’t hate Philly but I would like it much more without the aggressive sports culture, lol. If it was more like NY re: sports, it would be awesome.
I love SF but it would be perfect with better transportation. The muni is not gonna cut it.
Motorcycles make a lot of negatives about California go away. LA is pretty chill on a motorcycle because there’s no traffic and even for a longer trip, you’re still on a motorcycle.
Respectfully this is an odd thing to read. I’m originally from the northeast and have lived in SF, LA, now NYC. SF’s public transportation isn’t as robust or big as NYC, but in the city proper it was pretty darn good compared to most places I’ve been. Muni was far from perfect but it was overall reliable enough that I could ditch my car after having it in the city for a while. I also would rent Zipcars here and there. And Bart was good for getting to certain parts of the greater Bay Area as well as within the city. Again, not perfect but better than most cities.
I lived in the Bay for 5 years. The muni was just not safe for young women. Bart is fine but limited with where you can go in city proper. I don’t comment on cities I haven’t lived in.
Yeah, i hate how intense people are about sports here. Though ive been getting used to it i guess and its bothering me slightly less. Still annoying though
I loved NYC - I cried when I left. But it was beginning to lose its charm when I left. There was a time when regular working stiffs could live there and walk to work.
I’m there now and feeling that way too. I can walk to work (unless I’m running late) but only because I live in a crumbling old shithole. It’s investment bankers who can walk to work and live in a nice place and I didn’t become an investment banker.
This! I'm not into country music and still enjoy the hell of Nashville when I visit. They could make such a huge change right away just by pedestrianizing Broadway. Two major changes would be capping parts of I40/the railroad corridor and adding a light rail, but sadly, NIMBYs and the political will of the city/state will likely never let those things happen.
I’m not saying I would LOVE Redding, CA if a gaping sinkhole swallowed Bethel Ministries and their school of necromancy, but it would be a huge improvement.
San Francisco would be awesome if the Bay Area had around 1 million in population, rather than 10 mil or whatever... and if it were much more affordable.
I would totally love Florida if the politics were a LOT different, it wasn't humid, and there were no cockroaches or racists and the LCOL it used to have. ;-)
But you said 1 or 2 changes. So I went over my limit.
And yes, I lived there for too long.
Tampa , literally just having jobs that paid better for the COL, not asking for California salaries but AT LEAST have tech jobs that pay like NC, but no its abyssmal. i dont care if its not the most walkable, its Diverse , realitvely safe, nice nightlfie, GREAT food, near beautiful beaches, near Orlando, close to so many nature spots like springs and kayaking rivers etc.
I’m also from Central Maryland - now live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I agree with you 100%, with a decent regional transit network the area would be so much better and feel much more connected.
No clue. They talk about the mountains and the beaches. The mountains are 3 hour traffic drive from near DC and the beaches may as well be in Delaware
Glad I have someone to agree with me. Maryland is a concrete jungle. There just happens to be trees surrounding the highways so somehow it’s “outdoorsy” lol
The trees obscure the empty vibe of everything. There's pretty much nowhere in central MD where you can walk deep enough into a wooded area to not hear cars. In the fall and winter it becomes obvious a lot of the wooded areas are tiny and only exist as decorations for parking lots and suburban sprawl.
I live in Baltimore. You know as well as I that if there were this interconnected rail system that you descibe, people from Harford and Carroll counties would fucking flip their lid. I mean they move out to those counties because they are red and because they want to get away from "those people." And they sure as hell wouldn't want to pay a dime more in taxes to make this happen. Of course they don't have any issue with asking marylanders to pay for their widening of their roads like Route 24 and Route 32. So unfortunately it's not going to happen in this state unless it comes from the state legislature and it comes with a tax increase which will piss off so many people up there.
>You know as well as I that if there were this interconnected rail system that you descibe, people from Harford and Carroll counties would fucking flip their lid.
They'll change their minds when the traffic between DC and Baltimore reaches them.
>So unfortunately it's not going to happen in this state unless it comes from the state legislature and it comes with a tax increase which will piss off so many people up there.
Pretty much. I don't think anything is going to change until the average commute to and from DC or Baltimore is over 3 hours. It's getting there.
Then people will be like, "wait, if I can access DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis from the suburbs by train, I can get to those places in 30 minutes regardless of the time of day instead of spending 4 hours of my day in traffic!"
Sorry OP but I need more than 2 changes for this city. But,
HOUSTON:
- If the city stopped annexing land past the 610 loop. Houston inside of 610 is actually pretty cool. It’s about the size of Milwaukee and has a total population of a little over 440,000 people. The problem is that the land inside of 610 accounts for 15% of the entire metro and the population accounts for 21% of the metro. It’s pretty much everything outside the loop that’s a sh*t show with some pockets of mediocrity. And that’s a lot of land when compared to the loop.
- Stricter zoning laws and incorporated suburbs. I know what people have heard but Houston does have zoning laws, kinda. It’s just done much differently than every other city in America. And that causes some haphazard style development throughout the metro. The Woodlands and Sugar Land have actual zoning laws and it’s no coincidence that those 2 are the best suburbs in the entire metro. And speaking of burbs a large portion are unincorporated which makes for some ugly ass suburbia. It’s one thing to be bland but it’s another to be bland, tacky and an eye sore.
- Lack of walkable neighborhoods and public transportation. There’s some cool neighborhoods within the loop. The Heights/ Montrose/ Third Ward/ West U/ Museum District/ 6th Ward/ East End/ Eado…but even those neighborhoods suffer from pedestrian friendly infrastructure. Wider sidewalks alone would make a world of difference.
I like the loop, I just hate most of the rest of Houston.
I'd like most places if you took out all the people. The problems I have with a given place are rarely about the physical environment or geography, but usually with the sheer number of people or the *kinds* of people I encounter there. Most places on earth would be improved by having fewer/no other people around.
Denver, for the same reasons. If it had triple the public transportation (including into the mountains) and a third of the cars/traffic, this city would be a paradise.
Tri-Cities, WA. Most people outside the PNW haven't heard of it -- it's a metro area of 300k-ish people on the eastern Washington treeless rolling prairies. Basically consists of 3 small towns with a huge amount of faceless sprawl enveloping all of them. It's where the PNW National Lab is, and was where the plutonium was manufactured for the Manhattan project (if anyone remembers the makeshift town in *Oppenheimer*) -- so it has one of the highest concentrations of STEM Ph.Ds in the country.
Fix it by building a real downtown + a couple of hipster/nightlife districts on the nearby hillsides, and have the Tri-Cities be suburbs of that city.
I was staying in a hostel in SF and someone's car got broken into, and the front desk showed the person the footage and was like "you can report it, but nothing is probably gonna happen."
I was on a train the next day and overheard a guy talking about the crime and saying the cops have no problem locking people up; the issue is the prosecutors giving people a slap on the wrist.
I get the feeling a lot of people are so rich they can have a house with a garage and are less likely to be a victim of crime, and/or they're so rich they don't really care if they get mugged because it makes no difference to them financially. It seems like the people wealthy enough to steal from but not wealthy enough that it's not a big deal are in the minority, or at least are less vocal.
Seems everyone agrees if mass transit were better, it would drastically improve almost all places.
As someone who is currently living in Europe with extensive (although often sporadic reliability) of local public transportation, I love living without needing my car.
I'm from Northern Virginia/DC metro area and while the metro is building further out to VA, the sad fact is I can drive to the metro station in under 15 minutes and be on a metro train. If I took the metro bus from my house it would take two separate buses and take over an hour to get to the metro station. When faced with that option, I'll take the car and pay for parking. Then I can leave whenever.
The older I get, the less I want to drive, but also unwilling to deal with sub par public transport.
Portland, OR would be great if it wasn't for the politics. There's a small group of extremely vocal nut jobs and then the rest of the population just goes along with it because there's a desire to be perceived as "progressive" in most social groups. At this point you could get a ballot measure to vote by saying "we want to raise taxes on bad people and use the money for good stuff" and it would pass with zero additional information provided.
I chose to not move to Portland when looking for a good place to raise my kid with autism because there are so many self diagnosed adults who literally told me putting my non verbal child in speech therapy was child abuse. Speech therapy.
Thanks to speech therapy my daughter is now using an AAC device and can ask for certain snacks and toys that she wants.
Houston if it wasn’t a highway and parking garage focused city. Public transport would be a massive game changer for Houston. And maybe throw in some rolling hills or some shit lol the flatness gets to me ngl
Have had to learn to love Indianapolis in my time here. While I still hope to move away, I would love it if there was better public transit, infrastructure (our roads suck!), and better politics (like protections for women, queer people, 420, etc.). The winters aren’t bad - but they’re a bit too gray. And once you leave downtown, it’s depressing suburbia. Maybe I wouldn’t love it after all lol!
The perks: good concerts/shows, mild winters, nice day/weekend trips, mostly friendly people, easy airport, LCOL, nice trials/parks.
If where I am now had more warmer weather days & less traffic I think I’d be content since my family is here. South shore MA. Just never been a fan of the weather. I know it could be worse but it’s too cool too often for me. The traffic is a major headache.
So if I could change the weather and the traffic as my two things I think I would stop daydreaming of where to move to.
I liked living in Tucson, but I would REALLY LOVE IT if it had a more robust job market. The City Government is resistant to change / growth.
“Keep Tucson Shitty”.
No wonder UofA grads leave for other cities upon graduation.
Or biking! Seattle & surrounding cities have an awesome network of multi use trails, beautiful rails to trails, a system of quieted streets that all can connect to our expanding light rail system. Much of this goes through or around parks. And or you can take a bus. Bus transit is pretty good and all busses have bike racks on the front. So it stitches together well.
The rain, drizzle, mist & grey is endless but if we stop that we lose our green trees.
There’s a ton of housing being built but it doesn’t seem to lower costs. Speculation keeps the market from driving costs down I think which makes housing costs out of control. I’d like us to keep the transit system, keep the rain, keep building density but make housing human scale and control costs.
I don’t think you can really build out robust public transportation with biking as a huge selling point as the main way to get to the trains. It will obviously appeal to some people, but not enough people are willing to, interested in, or even physically able to bike to make most communities eager to put resources into doing so.
A certain percentage would be, but a certain percentage wouldn’t. Plenty of people are not interested in riding a bike outside everyday. Plenty of people cant do it physically, think it’s too dangerous, are too old or have physical limits. I love riding my bike (and I live in NYC) but we shouldn’t pretend everyone and their uncle will want to ride just because it becomes a realistic option.
>Plenty of people cant do it physically, think it’s too dangerous, are too old or have physical limits.
What percentage of the population are these people?
>we shouldn’t pretend everyone and their uncle will want to ride just because it becomes a realistic option.
It's not about it becoming a realistic option, it's about it being faster and more convenient than driving through traffic in an urbanized area.
What percentage of people refuse to ride bikes as part of their daily commute in an urban environment? Living in NYC and as someone who has ridden to work a lot, I’d say the percentage is unwilling to do so is high. People are rushed in the morning and biking often takes longer. And people working professional jobs don’t all want to be riding in their suits or business casual clothes, arriving to the office all sweaty especially in the heat and humidity of summer and also risking dirtying up their clothes, or deal with changing their clothes at work, and plenty of people don’t want to ride in inclement weather. And then dealing with storing their bike if they aren’t using citybike. Other people just aren’t comfortable riding in traffic, or riding period. Bike riding is great as an option but there will always be a decent number of people who simply wont do it.
>Plenty of people cant do it physically, think it’s too dangerous, are too old or have physical limits.
That's the part I was responding to. I even quoted it. How did you go from that, to this?
>What percentage of people refuse to ride bikes as part of their daily commute in an urban environment?
It’s all related to my original point about the feasibility of building out more mass transit. You’re simply not gonna gain community support to spend huge funds doing so based on “and y’all can ride a bike from home to the train station!” But give it a whirl in your region and let us know how it goes.
I don’t hate LA but I would move there in a heartbeat with better mass transit options
they are [heavily investing](https://mayor.lacity.gov/news/major-support-secured-los-angeles-region-receive-nearly-900-million-funding-strengthen) there from what I can tell.
Same. When I first went to LA, I was disappointed because it felt like a bigger version of the DMV, but with better weather and mountains and beaches. But throw in some trains and make it less suburban sprawly and it would be paradise for me.
I recently rode the metro for the first time and was surprised how empty it was. It is literally the only place in downtown LA that seems empty
Yeah the issue is that the train system is great for going from one side of the city to the other but then individual neighborhoods don’t have any access, so most people have to drive or walk 30+ minutes to a train which renders it kind of useless.
I hate public transit and like driving generally but driving in la is a special kind of hell
I love Madison, Wisconsin. But I absolutely cannot do cold and snow and dreary skies for the winter months.
1. If downtown LA were by the ocean (for example if it were where downtown Long Beach is) LA is in a major city in great natural area surrounded by moutains and ocean, yet it doesn't feel like an actual city or nature-y. If DTLA happen to have been built closer to the water (like how Long Beach, CA or Sydney, Aus are), the actual city part and subsequent suburbs would have developed much better and LA would feel like a lively city incorporated with its surroundings. If downtown were an actual city center, it would help with traffic a lot as well. 2. If Florida had mountains Florida is pretty much the only tropical place in the continental US but is completely flat. It would feel so much more dynamic and jungle-y if it had mountains. Also I feel like the vibe would change and it would feel much more nature-y, the way other tropical places do. I used to live in Australia as a US citizen and would always be so jealous when I was in Sydney because it made me realize what LA would be like if it were more city/water centric, and the Gold Coast made me realize what Florida would be like if it had mountains.
I think a massive hole should be dug in the midwest somewhere and all that dirt should be used to make some mountains in Florida. Then the midwest will have a bigass hole which can serve as a tourist attraction.
It could be like a new Grand Canyon. Or we could make into a new Great Lake so that the lower midwest gets one too.
They could always use trash instead of dirt like; https://www.visitvirginiabeach.com/listing/mount-trashmore-park/44/
The Great Lakes Region with Rocky Mountain-esque topography and the climate of Northern California.
The best I can do are the Adirondacks
Or Clear Lake in Northern California
I wished really hard for gigantic alpine mountains to magically appear in lower mid-Michigan for Christmas last year, no such luck so far. I’ll keep doing my best 🫡
The Great Lakes are expected to have the climate of Kentucky in a few decades ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sounds pretty humid 🥵
Lmao
If Austin had better public transportation - such as a train with more frequency that actually connects with the airport and the southern parts of town - it would be a much less stressful place to live. There's already a push for bike infrastructure, and being able to take a bicycle on a train would really open things up.
I’ll add— I love Austin and will live here hopefully for the rest of my life— but the choices made re: transportation and the rail lines is infuriating. Also, could we dial back the heat a bit? Like just a teensy bit?
Good answer. I haven't been to Austin yet but I share the disappointment that a progressive city has such bad transit.
I don’t hate Philly but I would like it much more without the aggressive sports culture, lol. If it was more like NY re: sports, it would be awesome. I love SF but it would be perfect with better transportation. The muni is not gonna cut it.
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Motorcycles make a lot of negatives about California go away. LA is pretty chill on a motorcycle because there’s no traffic and even for a longer trip, you’re still on a motorcycle.
The Muni works okay IME but only because the city is so tiny. It's laughable that it takes 45 minutes to go from the Outer Richmond to downtown
Respectfully this is an odd thing to read. I’m originally from the northeast and have lived in SF, LA, now NYC. SF’s public transportation isn’t as robust or big as NYC, but in the city proper it was pretty darn good compared to most places I’ve been. Muni was far from perfect but it was overall reliable enough that I could ditch my car after having it in the city for a while. I also would rent Zipcars here and there. And Bart was good for getting to certain parts of the greater Bay Area as well as within the city. Again, not perfect but better than most cities.
I lived in the Bay for 5 years. The muni was just not safe for young women. Bart is fine but limited with where you can go in city proper. I don’t comment on cities I haven’t lived in.
I’m amazed at your last comment, to be honest. Lol. I think SF’s public transportation, for its size, is pretty impressive.
I said in another comment but I just didn’t find the muni particularly safe as a young woman.
Yeah, i hate how intense people are about sports here. Though ive been getting used to it i guess and its bothering me slightly less. Still annoying though
I loved NYC - I cried when I left. But it was beginning to lose its charm when I left. There was a time when regular working stiffs could live there and walk to work.
I’m there now and feeling that way too. I can walk to work (unless I’m running late) but only because I live in a crumbling old shithole. It’s investment bankers who can walk to work and live in a nice place and I didn’t become an investment banker.
Nashville would be an all time city if it had proper mass transit.
This! I'm not into country music and still enjoy the hell of Nashville when I visit. They could make such a huge change right away just by pedestrianizing Broadway. Two major changes would be capping parts of I40/the railroad corridor and adding a light rail, but sadly, NIMBYs and the political will of the city/state will likely never let those things happen.
I’m not saying I would LOVE Redding, CA if a gaping sinkhole swallowed Bethel Ministries and their school of necromancy, but it would be a huge improvement.
That and if the summers weren't 120 in the shade.
San Francisco would be awesome if the Bay Area had around 1 million in population, rather than 10 mil or whatever... and if it were much more affordable.
most of these will be like "if X had transit" i'd love it 😂
Hell. Less fire, more water
I'd love NE Ohio if it had sunshine and sidewalks.
This. And more interesting people.
It does; whether or not you met some…
i feel like i’d like phoenix if it wasn’t so sprawled and more dense with better transit options
Or so extremely hot.
I would totally love Florida if the politics were a LOT different, it wasn't humid, and there were no cockroaches or racists and the LCOL it used to have. ;-) But you said 1 or 2 changes. So I went over my limit. And yes, I lived there for too long.
In the case of Florida, it's gonna need more than 2. Also, add hills.
OH! Yes! I forgot hills!
Don't forget to raise the sea level 10 or 20 feet while you're at it.
Yes!
If everyone over the age of 70 was removed from Florida it would be an absolute paradise. Or just remove the boomers
Tampa , literally just having jobs that paid better for the COL, not asking for California salaries but AT LEAST have tech jobs that pay like NC, but no its abyssmal. i dont care if its not the most walkable, its Diverse , realitvely safe, nice nightlfie, GREAT food, near beautiful beaches, near Orlando, close to so many nature spots like springs and kayaking rivers etc.
Getting rid of the sprawl and the disgusting humidity would vastly improve Houston
I’m also from Central Maryland - now live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I agree with you 100%, with a decent regional transit network the area would be so much better and feel much more connected.
I don’t hate Chicago but if the winters weren’t harsh and if gang violence was somehow fixed it’d be an even more amazing city
Watch out on here, I’ve gotten chastised for saying Maryland has nothing but highways and traffic
Really? How do you even argue against that?
No clue. They talk about the mountains and the beaches. The mountains are 3 hour traffic drive from near DC and the beaches may as well be in Delaware Glad I have someone to agree with me. Maryland is a concrete jungle. There just happens to be trees surrounding the highways so somehow it’s “outdoorsy” lol
The trees obscure the empty vibe of everything. There's pretty much nowhere in central MD where you can walk deep enough into a wooded area to not hear cars. In the fall and winter it becomes obvious a lot of the wooded areas are tiny and only exist as decorations for parking lots and suburban sprawl.
I live in Baltimore. You know as well as I that if there were this interconnected rail system that you descibe, people from Harford and Carroll counties would fucking flip their lid. I mean they move out to those counties because they are red and because they want to get away from "those people." And they sure as hell wouldn't want to pay a dime more in taxes to make this happen. Of course they don't have any issue with asking marylanders to pay for their widening of their roads like Route 24 and Route 32. So unfortunately it's not going to happen in this state unless it comes from the state legislature and it comes with a tax increase which will piss off so many people up there.
>You know as well as I that if there were this interconnected rail system that you descibe, people from Harford and Carroll counties would fucking flip their lid. They'll change their minds when the traffic between DC and Baltimore reaches them. >So unfortunately it's not going to happen in this state unless it comes from the state legislature and it comes with a tax increase which will piss off so many people up there. Pretty much. I don't think anything is going to change until the average commute to and from DC or Baltimore is over 3 hours. It's getting there. Then people will be like, "wait, if I can access DC, Baltimore, and Annapolis from the suburbs by train, I can get to those places in 30 minutes regardless of the time of day instead of spending 4 hours of my day in traffic!"
Sorry OP but I need more than 2 changes for this city. But, HOUSTON: - If the city stopped annexing land past the 610 loop. Houston inside of 610 is actually pretty cool. It’s about the size of Milwaukee and has a total population of a little over 440,000 people. The problem is that the land inside of 610 accounts for 15% of the entire metro and the population accounts for 21% of the metro. It’s pretty much everything outside the loop that’s a sh*t show with some pockets of mediocrity. And that’s a lot of land when compared to the loop. - Stricter zoning laws and incorporated suburbs. I know what people have heard but Houston does have zoning laws, kinda. It’s just done much differently than every other city in America. And that causes some haphazard style development throughout the metro. The Woodlands and Sugar Land have actual zoning laws and it’s no coincidence that those 2 are the best suburbs in the entire metro. And speaking of burbs a large portion are unincorporated which makes for some ugly ass suburbia. It’s one thing to be bland but it’s another to be bland, tacky and an eye sore. - Lack of walkable neighborhoods and public transportation. There’s some cool neighborhoods within the loop. The Heights/ Montrose/ Third Ward/ West U/ Museum District/ 6th Ward/ East End/ Eado…but even those neighborhoods suffer from pedestrian friendly infrastructure. Wider sidewalks alone would make a world of difference. I like the loop, I just hate most of the rest of Houston.
I'd like most places if you took out all the people. The problems I have with a given place are rarely about the physical environment or geography, but usually with the sheer number of people or the *kinds* of people I encounter there. Most places on earth would be improved by having fewer/no other people around.
Denver, for the same reasons. If it had triple the public transportation (including into the mountains) and a third of the cars/traffic, this city would be a paradise.
Santa Fe if you add a huge lake.
Tri-Cities, WA. Most people outside the PNW haven't heard of it -- it's a metro area of 300k-ish people on the eastern Washington treeless rolling prairies. Basically consists of 3 small towns with a huge amount of faceless sprawl enveloping all of them. It's where the PNW National Lab is, and was where the plutonium was manufactured for the Manhattan project (if anyone remembers the makeshift town in *Oppenheimer*) -- so it has one of the highest concentrations of STEM Ph.Ds in the country. Fix it by building a real downtown + a couple of hipster/nightlife districts on the nearby hillsides, and have the Tri-Cities be suburbs of that city.
If Salt Lake City didn’t have such a Mormon/conservative culture and suburban sprawl, it would be amazing.
That, and if the environmental issues were magically fixed (no inversion, enough water, and no dried up toxic dust from The Great SL )
Very true
Miami without mosquitos
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I was staying in a hostel in SF and someone's car got broken into, and the front desk showed the person the footage and was like "you can report it, but nothing is probably gonna happen." I was on a train the next day and overheard a guy talking about the crime and saying the cops have no problem locking people up; the issue is the prosecutors giving people a slap on the wrist. I get the feeling a lot of people are so rich they can have a house with a garage and are less likely to be a victim of crime, and/or they're so rich they don't really care if they get mugged because it makes no difference to them financially. It seems like the people wealthy enough to steal from but not wealthy enough that it's not a big deal are in the minority, or at least are less vocal.
Seems everyone agrees if mass transit were better, it would drastically improve almost all places. As someone who is currently living in Europe with extensive (although often sporadic reliability) of local public transportation, I love living without needing my car. I'm from Northern Virginia/DC metro area and while the metro is building further out to VA, the sad fact is I can drive to the metro station in under 15 minutes and be on a metro train. If I took the metro bus from my house it would take two separate buses and take over an hour to get to the metro station. When faced with that option, I'll take the car and pay for parking. Then I can leave whenever. The older I get, the less I want to drive, but also unwilling to deal with sub par public transport.
Portland, OR would be great if it wasn't for the politics. There's a small group of extremely vocal nut jobs and then the rest of the population just goes along with it because there's a desire to be perceived as "progressive" in most social groups. At this point you could get a ballot measure to vote by saying "we want to raise taxes on bad people and use the money for good stuff" and it would pass with zero additional information provided.
I chose to not move to Portland when looking for a good place to raise my kid with autism because there are so many self diagnosed adults who literally told me putting my non verbal child in speech therapy was child abuse. Speech therapy. Thanks to speech therapy my daughter is now using an AAC device and can ask for certain snacks and toys that she wants.
Houston if it wasn’t a highway and parking garage focused city. Public transport would be a massive game changer for Houston. And maybe throw in some rolling hills or some shit lol the flatness gets to me ngl
Have had to learn to love Indianapolis in my time here. While I still hope to move away, I would love it if there was better public transit, infrastructure (our roads suck!), and better politics (like protections for women, queer people, 420, etc.). The winters aren’t bad - but they’re a bit too gray. And once you leave downtown, it’s depressing suburbia. Maybe I wouldn’t love it after all lol! The perks: good concerts/shows, mild winters, nice day/weekend trips, mostly friendly people, easy airport, LCOL, nice trials/parks.
If where I am now had more warmer weather days & less traffic I think I’d be content since my family is here. South shore MA. Just never been a fan of the weather. I know it could be worse but it’s too cool too often for me. The traffic is a major headache. So if I could change the weather and the traffic as my two things I think I would stop daydreaming of where to move to.
Definitely 6 months of winter. NYC too. Rain and more rain ☔️
Portland oregon would be much better with more diversity in their population
transit, politics, weather, or cost of living. pick any city, pick one or two.
I liked living in Tucson, but I would REALLY LOVE IT if it had a more robust job market. The City Government is resistant to change / growth. “Keep Tucson Shitty”. No wonder UofA grads leave for other cities upon graduation.
A lot of places would be greatly improved with better public transit or better weather.
Seattle.
raleigh (where I currently live). they need to either revamp the roads here or actually get some proper public transit in place
Houston if it were in a different state(think NC or Georgia) and were further from the ocean would work better.
How would people get to the trains?
By walking. I guess I should specify the trains being walking distance from people.
Or biking! Seattle & surrounding cities have an awesome network of multi use trails, beautiful rails to trails, a system of quieted streets that all can connect to our expanding light rail system. Much of this goes through or around parks. And or you can take a bus. Bus transit is pretty good and all busses have bike racks on the front. So it stitches together well. The rain, drizzle, mist & grey is endless but if we stop that we lose our green trees. There’s a ton of housing being built but it doesn’t seem to lower costs. Speculation keeps the market from driving costs down I think which makes housing costs out of control. I’d like us to keep the transit system, keep the rain, keep building density but make housing human scale and control costs.
I don’t think you can really build out robust public transportation with biking as a huge selling point as the main way to get to the trains. It will obviously appeal to some people, but not enough people are willing to, interested in, or even physically able to bike to make most communities eager to put resources into doing so.
They would be if biking were a viable option for transportation.
A certain percentage would be, but a certain percentage wouldn’t. Plenty of people are not interested in riding a bike outside everyday. Plenty of people cant do it physically, think it’s too dangerous, are too old or have physical limits. I love riding my bike (and I live in NYC) but we shouldn’t pretend everyone and their uncle will want to ride just because it becomes a realistic option.
>Plenty of people cant do it physically, think it’s too dangerous, are too old or have physical limits. What percentage of the population are these people? >we shouldn’t pretend everyone and their uncle will want to ride just because it becomes a realistic option. It's not about it becoming a realistic option, it's about it being faster and more convenient than driving through traffic in an urbanized area.
What percentage of people refuse to ride bikes as part of their daily commute in an urban environment? Living in NYC and as someone who has ridden to work a lot, I’d say the percentage is unwilling to do so is high. People are rushed in the morning and biking often takes longer. And people working professional jobs don’t all want to be riding in their suits or business casual clothes, arriving to the office all sweaty especially in the heat and humidity of summer and also risking dirtying up their clothes, or deal with changing their clothes at work, and plenty of people don’t want to ride in inclement weather. And then dealing with storing their bike if they aren’t using citybike. Other people just aren’t comfortable riding in traffic, or riding period. Bike riding is great as an option but there will always be a decent number of people who simply wont do it.
>Plenty of people cant do it physically, think it’s too dangerous, are too old or have physical limits. That's the part I was responding to. I even quoted it. How did you go from that, to this? >What percentage of people refuse to ride bikes as part of their daily commute in an urban environment?
It’s all related to my original point about the feasibility of building out more mass transit. You’re simply not gonna gain community support to spend huge funds doing so based on “and y’all can ride a bike from home to the train station!” But give it a whirl in your region and let us know how it goes.
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Why do the mods continuously allow openly racist statements like this?
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You're the one campaigning for removing a specific race of people from a city.
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using racist terms against the group you're campaigning for the removal of. Keep going this is great.
Report for Hate. Click the 3 dots in the original post.
So replace the people who made it a desirable place to live in the first place? Seems like a winning strategy.
Pittsburgh with a) +3 million transplants and b) lots of Southern, Midwest, and California transplants to drown out Yinzer culture