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The Chicago Suburb That's Trying To Kill the Car (politico.com)
HughPickens.com writes: T. R. Goldman writes at Politico that downtown Evanston, Illinois—a sturdy, tree-lined Victorian city wedged neatly between Lake Michigan and Chicago's northern border, is missing one thing — cars. Or, more accurately, it's missing a lot of cars. Thanks to concerted planning, new developments are rising within a 10-minute walk of two rail lines and half-a-dozen bus routes and the local automobile ownership rate is nearly half that of the surrounding area. According to Goldman, the whole point of the suburbs, reinforced by decades of local zoning laws and developers' plans for a car-centric lifestyle, was that you weren't supposed to live on top of your neighbor, that there was supposed to be plenty of parking everywhere you went and that you weren't supposed to walk anywhere.
"But Evanston had a different idea: What if a suburban downtown became a place where pedestrians ruled and cars were actively discouraged?" writes Goldman. "Beginning in 1986, a new plan for Evanston embraced the idea of a '24/7' downtown, pouring resources into increasing the density of its downtown—a density that also meant decreasing residents' reliance on automobiles. As a compact city, Evanston couldn't compete with the vast sprawling parking spots of the Old Orchard Mall. It had to build a different sort of appeal."
Evanston has gained recognition and reputation for efforts related to sustainability, including those by government, citizens, and institutions and one thing that Evanston does to reduce the number of cars is let individual car owners rent their idle cars to other drivers through an online service. The service is being provided by a San Francisco-based startup called Getaround, and it's facilitated by a two-year, $475,000 federal research grant to the Center for Neighborhood Technology that's being implemented by the Shared-Use Mobility Center. Getaround claims that a car owner can make as much as $10,000 a year by renting out a vehicle and that renters can get a car to use when they need one for as little as $5 an hour.
Sharon Feigon says the new program is designed to test different models for car sharing in communities with different economic characteristics — ranging from low to moderate income communities in the city to more suburban areas like Evanston. "We'll also be surveying people about their use to better understand how it works and whether it actually leads to some people selling their cars, whether it reduces carbon dioxide emissions and vehicle miles traveled," says Feigon. "Car owners can make a little money and feel good that their car is in service to others. We expect 10,000 people will use the service over the two-year test period.''
"But Evanston had a different idea: What if a suburban downtown became a place where pedestrians ruled and cars were actively discouraged?" writes Goldman. "Beginning in 1986, a new plan for Evanston embraced the idea of a '24/7' downtown, pouring resources into increasing the density of its downtown—a density that also meant decreasing residents' reliance on automobiles. As a compact city, Evanston couldn't compete with the vast sprawling parking spots of the Old Orchard Mall. It had to build a different sort of appeal."
Evanston has gained recognition and reputation for efforts related to sustainability, including those by government, citizens, and institutions and one thing that Evanston does to reduce the number of cars is let individual car owners rent their idle cars to other drivers through an online service. The service is being provided by a San Francisco-based startup called Getaround, and it's facilitated by a two-year, $475,000 federal research grant to the Center for Neighborhood Technology that's being implemented by the Shared-Use Mobility Center. Getaround claims that a car owner can make as much as $10,000 a year by renting out a vehicle and that renters can get a car to use when they need one for as little as $5 an hour.
Sharon Feigon says the new program is designed to test different models for car sharing in communities with different economic characteristics — ranging from low to moderate income communities in the city to more suburban areas like Evanston. "We'll also be surveying people about their use to better understand how it works and whether it actually leads to some people selling their cars, whether it reduces carbon dioxide emissions and vehicle miles traveled," says Feigon. "Car owners can make a little money and feel good that their car is in service to others. We expect 10,000 people will use the service over the two-year test period.''
Where you can actually walk in the cities :)
Not first, cos I had to walk, and the other guy drove.
Is it correct to call it suburban? Will someone enlighten us on the definition?
we cannot see the forest for the smog or the truth buried in fake history & heritage of deception & worse... truth+mercy=justice ..stay in your lane? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20
If it was good, it wouldn't need forced central planning. Ask Soviets how well central planning is.
How is this different than any other major metropolitan area where car ownership isn't necessary within the city limits? It's all great when you have two major rail lines and half a dozen bus lines within a 10 minute walk. If you're a fast runner 20 minutes will get you almost anywhere within the Evanston, IL city limits. But it just isn't possible in 99.9% of the rest of the country that doesn't have major rail lines and multiple bus lines. I live in a Metropolitan area of 300k people and it's a 3 mile walk just to the nearest bus stop.
So, you can rent a car for as little as $5/hour (and presumably, rent your own car for a similar amount), and you can earn $10k/year renting your car?
Which suggests you are renting your car out for 2000 hours a year (~6 hours a day)...
Somehow, I don't think so.
Also, there is the question of insurance (remember, the same problem people who hate Uber insist is a deal-killer?).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I see it more as political misalignment.
Usually you can maintain these life style changes with the support of a small local government. But the supporters of these small local governments are also the ones who do not approve of such life styles. The groups who does approve of such lifestyle seem to support a larger government control where it is nearly impossible to implement.
Communism and Socialism work better with a small community where the community at a size where they can make a consensus. Being that they often share a similar culture, and demographics. Once you get larger population the differences begin to cause more conflict causing to less actionable government, and moving towards to a dictatorial type of government.
Chicago is a large city, so a community in the city can implement such changes but trying to make it city wide, will only cause problems.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This is an advertisement for Agenda 21. Pack people into cities, and restrict travel by means of coercion.
Zoning and developers followed the desires of our parents and grandparents. You may not like cars but they were seen as the embodiment of freedom for your ancestors - go anywhere you want, quickly, and on your own schedule.
The parts of cities that didn't support that attitude languished (inner cities) and areas that did flourished (suburbs).
TLDR: Infrastructure conformed to the culture.
Sodosopa was satire, not a how-to manual.
And I utterly despise it. Here's how it works out.
1) They tear down lanes, increasing traffic, and turn them into ugly, overly broad sidewalks and bike lanes that nobody uses,
2) Installing deliberate "baffles" to slow down traffic flow. For example, here on Snorrabraut they have the center lane as an alternating turn lane into every little side street, and the outerlane in each direction also repeatedly turn into turn lanes, so that drivers have to keep alternating between the left and right lanes... with stoplights at each little intersection, of course.
3) "Increasing density" by ripping out all of the parking. This has the lovely side effect of, during busy times, cars that normally would have just parked instead have to circle around for long periods looking for spaces. Great for the environment, that! They usually rip out the parking first and then worry about whether they actually have anything to build there later.
4) "Increasing density" by ripping out public spaces. The hardest one to see go was Hjartatorg, as it had been basically built up and decorated by the city's teenagers, murals covering every square meter of the sides.
5) "Increasing density" by pushing out lower density businesses that people actually enjoy, like entertainment, for high density residential (these days, often hotels or apartments for tourists) and higher profit commercial.
6) "Increasing density" by building "up". The city is covered in tower cranes, each competing to build taller buildings than the last, and all doing their damnedest to block views of the ocean and famous city landmarks.
7) Going hyperaggressive on parking fines. There's even parking meters at the hospital parking lot, and meter readers go around ticketing patients' cars - even emergency room patients. On Menningarnótt they shut down car access to the entire city - which would be fine (it's a big festival), except that they don't provide nearly enough parking even for people at bus stops wanting to catch the buses into the city that they're supposed to take, and then go around ticketing all the cars on the outlots.
8) Building new buildings with insufficient parking, or - latest trend - no parking at all.
And on and on. It's so ridiculous in general, but even more ridiculous here on one of the windiest places on the planet, where winter lasts half a year, where there's almost no sun in the winter, etc.
And for what? So that we can't go places when we're sick or injured? So people can't commute? So that we have to exercise in their proscribed manner rather than our own? (my way to exercise is planting trees and improving my land... screw you, environment!) So that we have to live in little apartments in a city with ever-shrinking public spaces and ever-decreasing view? So that we can use a means of transportation that's 20+ times more likely to get you seriously injured per kilometer than driving, and almost as likely to seriously injure pedestrians? So that we can burn ~40 calories per kilometer biking (significantly more walking) which, at a local average embodied CO2 per food calorie of something of probably around 6g/kcal works out to 240g/km, three times worse than driving alone in a Prius** (even if you lower your baseline metabolism that only saves you about 14kcal/day/kg body mass reduction, far less than you burn to achieve that weight loss**)? Just ignoring the potentially even bigger issues from producing all of that extra food, such as methane emissions, destruction of habitat, algal blooms, pesticide pollution, damm
"Oh, goodness. Look at my wrist, I have to go." "But what about your clothes?" "I don't love these."
They built a compact microcity next to the VRE train line in Manassas Park VA. City Center in Manassas Park. Businesses on the ground floor, condo and apartments on top, complete with sidewalks in a nice compact dense setup. Drive by and 75% of the businesses are vacant and the streets are lined with cars.
It isn't Communism or Socialism due to any particular service.
Just like having roads isn't communism or socialism.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The Chicago Suburb That's Trying To Kill the Car
Just let out the clutch real fast without giving it enough gas.
Better known as 318230.
"What if a suburban downtown became a place where pedestrians ruled and cars were actively discouraged?" "
Well, that's what Chicago is supposed to be, but the terrible murder problem in Chicago and bad schools forces families with children to move.
This only works, BTW, because this suburb is so close to Chicago that a light rail line is feasible.
The suburbs are for cars. The problem is that too many people live in the suburbs. More people should live in cities. Many people don't want to live in cities because they are awful to live in. That is a problem which can be solved. Cities are more efficient than suburbs. Instead of making cities nicer and going towards efficiency, we went towards suburban sprawl. People are now commonly commuting for more than two hours a day. That uses a lot of energy, creates a lot of pollution, and wastes a lot of time that people will never get back. Suburban sprawl is killing us by the thousands.
Let's improve our cities, and improve public transportation within them, so that we can have less cars overall.
As for what to do about cars, here's my suggestion; people who do live in the suburbs should be organized into bioregional communities with planned centers. Everyone parks at the edge of the community, in one place. That one place can have proper drainage with an oil trap to prevent or at least reduce toxic runoff, some area to work on autos, etc etc. The foot path should be wide enough to get vehicles in to bring in building supplies and so on, but people should bring their groceries to their door in a cart, golf or otherwise. We'd have less roads to maintain, people wouldn't have to huff exhaust in their homes, etc. Of course, you do give up some comfort that way, but covered walkways can be built, etc. And you can site some homes close to parking for those who like that.
What cities should do is institute PRT, starting in the city center, and first reduce cars (congestion charges, etc) and then remove them altogether as the system spreads. That would be far more efficient than this private auto thing we have going now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
and it's Communism & Socialism to have healthcare for all. Yet in the usa some people us the jail / prison system to be there doctor for the stuff that ER does not cover at a ever higher cost then the cost of the ER.
Did you learn that logic at the same government run school that taught you grammar and spelling?
I lived in a city that thought they were being smart by discouraging car traffic. They made large stores like Walmart undersize their parking lots on purpose to make it frustrating to find parking. They turned all tertiary roads into cul de sacs. They even timed the signals to create maximum traffic. All they accomplished was making traffic really bad. Nobody stopped driving. There are some basic facts that these nuts don't seems to understand:
1. Most people do not want to live with common walls. It's an incredibly stressful way of life.
2. Most people do not want to live in high density urban centers. People want some space of their own.
3. You can't do things like shop by taking the bus or train. Who's going to carry your groceries, the bus driver?
4. People with children want space for them to play outside without having to be constantly vigilant. That means a private yard.
I'm happy for these people to make their places unlivable. They are driving up my property values.
Taipei has made remarkable progress with public transit, but it was always a very walkable city. The main reason is zoning (or lack thereof), which allows businesses and residences to co-mingle. In most Taiwanese cities, you're literally never more than a few hundred meters away from a 7-11 or Family Mart, and there's an ample scattering of supermarkets, eateries, and other shops in between.
The same thing could be accomplished in most American suburbs by simply allowing more variances for people who want to, say, convert their living room into a small shop. That way, if you just need a carton of milk (for example), you wouldn't have to drive to the supermarket, you could just walk a couple of blocks to Mrs. Smith's house.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Renting other people's cars? Sounds dangerous, what with the raping and all! Just too dangerous to allow. You'll have to have at least 10 cars, and a building, and a parking lot, and a bunch of special insurance and counter reps and detailers and think about all the jobs that creates! And what about the poor cab companies? They paid millions for those medallions!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
But they're wielding the Department of Transportation and urban zoning as blunt weapons to do it, and being serious assholes about the whole thing.
They're also failing to realize that by running off people who want or need to drive into the city, they're going to end up choking off commerce. But the limp-wristed hipsters running the place now either don't care or would see it as some kind of redistributive, disruptive accomplishment, so I kind of just want to watch the entire shebang come crashing down in flames to see the expression on their faces.
It seems to be an article of faith among urban planners that the way to deal with cars is just to get rid of them, as if you can wave your hands and simply undo 60-odd years of growth and sprawl enabled by cars.
For sure cars have drawbacks, but so many of the planning decisions which seem to be anti-car seem to be somewhat ideologically driven rather than recognizing that arbitrarily making cars more difficult (less parking, narrower roads built with "traffic calming" features, etc) really is a kind of net negative when the larger geography and established infrastructure can't possibly be adapted on a timescale to accommodate it.
We had hundreds of miles of streetcar in 1950, but rebuilding it with light rail has taken over a decade and there's only two lines built. It's cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.7 billion dollars to build those two lines. I think the projected cost of the Southwest line is something on the order of 1.5 billion dollars and has a crazy route that will maul some of the city's parks and somehow manages not to serve the Hennepin Avenue corridor, despite it being one the most ideal places to build rail service to support existing high density residence.
The bus system is a joke, only practical for suburban commuters -- any kind of urban trip you could make in 20 minutes in a car is an hour odyssey not including time spent waiting for the bus.
But that wouldn't allow you to get the best DEALs. I tend to look at all the ads for the sales at the various grocery stores in my somewhat immediate area.
I pick out what's on sale at the various stores and on my shopping day (usually one day a week mainly)...I hit anywhere from 2-5 different stores to get what is on sale and I make up what I'm gonna cook largely based on that.
I usually only hit the grocery store once a week, but I buy a ton of stuff...most to use that week (I don't buy processed foods really, just fresh ingredients to cook from scratch)...some to freeze (large cuts of meat on sale, like pork shoulder for $0.99/lb).
And that doesn't even come close to what I grab when I make a trip to Sam's or Costco warehouse stores.
I dunno how people that really cook can manage in cities without a car. I just have to guess your choices are severely limited on what you have available and what prices you can get.....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
considering Chicago's murder rate this year.
The cost of owning a car (let alone fueling it) will FAR exceed any savings you obtain by getting "deals" on your weekly groceries.
My wife and I were up in the area earlier this summer. it was so nice to walk around, rent a bike, ride the train, and just enjoy the city without the hassle of a car. I felt like I was in Europe! There were open air coffee shops and cafes all over. Very welcoming. If homes didn't cost an arm and a leg it might be great to move there too!
I really do like Evanston... been working here for almost 14 years and I've gotten a chance to see the building boom in downtown during that time. It really is more of a city than a suburb. There's plenty of suburban sprawl too... many tree-lined side streets with a garage for every house, and lots of cars parked along said streets. It's just downtown that is building up so dramatically. The only limit to outward spread is the fact that there's a great big lake along the entire eastern edge of town, a great big city to the south, and already-sprawled suburbs to the north and west.
For many of us that commute to Evanston for work or for entertainment, a car is still a necessity. The surrounding suburbs, and even parts of the city, lack a convenient public transportation method to get there efficiently - multiple slow buses or interchanges between bus and rail. And the big parking lot along the lakefront, also known as Northwestern University, pulls in many cars like mine that have to travel along congested streets. Streets that are poorly plowed at best in winter. I'm fairly certain Evanston has just one snowplow that they loan out to Chicago at the first sign of snow.
The most car-unfriendly development in recent years has been the new system of bike lanes. I'm all for making it safe, convenient, and desirable to use a bicycle to commute and would love to see a bike lane on just about every street. But they decided in some downtown areas to put the bicycle lane next to the curb, between the sidewalk and parked cars. While this is great for helping bicyclists avoid being "doored" by oblivious motorists exiting vehicles, it means that when I make a right turn across a bike lane I have to somehow have kept track of potential bicyclists over the last block and be able to see through the SUV that is inevitably parked at the corner in order to make sure I'm not cutting off or running over a rider.
It really doesn't help that too many cyclists in Evanston are just plain batshit crazy (far more so than those I've seen in Chicago). Speeding along side streets or main streets with no regard for stop signs and little regard for stoplights. Often clad in spandex, hunched over the handlebars as if they're racing to the end of the next stage.
But that's communistic!
My example was intended for those times when you run out of something, like... "Honey, we don't have enough milk for breakfast, so you'll have to go get some." In that case, you're not going to drive halfway across town to save twenty cents on whatever it is you need. More to the point, when most of what you need is within walking distance, such elaborate planning (as you describe) is not as necessary.
My nearest supermarket is a five-minute walk. Three minutes in the opposite direction is a traditional "wet" market. Another ten minutes beyond that is another supermarket (though I usually take a bus for that one). Some things are farther away, but this city has excellent public transit, so nothing is more than about 35~40 minutes away. I spend maybe 20 or 30 bucks a month on transportation, perhaps a bit more if I take the taxi a few extra times for some reason.
But Taipei is not a good comparison to Evanston, it's far more densely populated. (There are probably two or three hundred thousand people within a 1 km radius from me right now.) The real problem in America is suburban sprawl, where millions of people are trapped in business-free zones, often miles away from even the nearest gas station. Simply allowing more flexibility in zoning would spur the growth of a more decentralized and convenient array of options, many of which could be accessible on foot.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
they are called slums.
Eventually the density of the city will be so high that it'll look a bit like this.
Actually state roads are socialism, they're just a good kind because they increase collective freedom have low bureaucratic overhead. Yes, I'm a Libertarian but I also believe in Social Goods. Sometimes government is the least bad answer, anyone who can't handle that concept is an anarchist.
All forms of government work better with small communities - singling out socialism and communism is just bizarre in this context.
This is not about Chicago, but Evanston. I remember when trolls used to try.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Taipei has made remarkable progress with public transit, but it was always a very walkable city. The main reason is zoning (or lack thereof), which allows businesses and residences to co-mingle. In most Taiwanese cities, you're literally never more than a few hundred meters away from a 7-11 or Family Mart, and there's an ample scattering of supermarkets, eateries, and other shops in between.
What you say is true. However, in addition to public transit, taxi service is convenient and cheap. Meanwhile, driving a car is not that convenient, with relatively slow speeds, frequent congestion, constant dodging of scooters (thinking of lane splitting where the scooters get to dynamically determine where the lanes are), and a scarcity of parking spaces.
All of which supports my basic argument that Taipei has more or less transcended the need for privately owned cars. (Hell, I don't even have a scooter anymore.) Maybe if I lived in Linkou or Wugu, it would make sense to own such a vehicle, but here in the heart of the city, it's a complete waste of time and money. I do have a driver's license, so I can rent a car whenever I need one, but thus far that has never happened.
But I think you'd agree that Taiwan's "mixed zoning" habits are much more conducive to walkable communities, no?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
State roads are EVIL SOCIALISM because they encourage people to drive SUVs and DESTROY THE PLANET!
" There's a reason that Tour de France competitors burn 7000 calories a day."
Yes, there is. They're the world's most competitive cyclists, racing at speeds about 3 times higher than your average transportation cyclist, and remember that air resistance is a function of velocity squared. The power they're capable of generating, for hours on end, is nearly an order of magnitude greater than a person who does not cycle regularly.
"Bikes take very little energy to be propelled forward, but they get that energy in a horribly inefficient manner using an energy source with massive environmental impacts."
Aside from the fact that many people over-eat and thus need not consume any extra calories - food distribution is incredibly efficient, the cost of fuel for distribution is built-in to the cost of food, and the number of additional calories needed by someone riding a few miles a day amounts to a very small percentage of their daily food budget. Simply adding a slightly larger portion of carbs - one of the cheapest food sources there is - is sufficient.
There's something like 1600 calories in a box of spaghetti that costs ~$1-2. So an extra 200 calories a day costs about twenty five cents.
How much do you spend on gas per day?
Please help metamoderate.
Evanston actually predates chicago by a bit. It's not a suburb. Chicago grew until it pressed against Evanston's southern border.
evanston has some advantages over Chicago. It's got a good solid core of Northwestern University. So it has a lot of young college kids roaming around the city. It's a much smaller city than chicago and the density is easier to maintain. The old joke is that there are more dead people than living (there's a big cemetery near the southern border with chicago).
It also has a lot of infrastructure from being close to chicago. The Purple line is an extension of the CTA, and runs locally on weekends. There are CTA busses that come through, not just suburban busses. There are a couple Metra lines the go through because of proximity to chicago
There are rough neighborhoods to the west (evanston borders the lake on the east so the rich folks are east, the poor folks west.) I haven't read the articles yet, but I'd love to see how the Western part fits in the grand plan
But how DO you shop when you need more than a carton of milk?
How do you haul around15-20 bags of groceries, 12 pack of beer, etc....from the stores to bus(es) to home?
I'm a single guy right now, and I couldn't carry all the stuff I buy weekly on public transport, hell, some times I have trouble fitting it all in my car..especially on a Costco run.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Well, there is also the cost/benefits of being able to come and go from door-to-door on my own schedule..there is a LOT of value on that, especially on days with tight schedules and inclement weather.
Hell, I'm trying to figure how to do simple things without a car...like days I want to load up the big Pelican ice chest with beer and ice for game days on saturdays....how would I get my two large bags of ice from the store to home, much less beer to fill it....without a car? I can't imagine trying to do that with a bus even if the stops were within blocks of my house and destination, on a nice weather day...much less a stormy day.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
taxi
uber
Car2Go
HourCar
ZipCar
delivery service
There are lots of options if you need to transport something more than you can carry or put into panniers on a bike. BTW, I have a family of 4 and I don't think we've ever had 15-20 bags worth of groceries.
Simply allowing more flexibility in zoning would spur the growth of a more decentralized and convenient array of options, many of which could be accessible on foot.
Sometimes the locals don't even want it. The city I lived in had some nice upscale areas. One of those areas had this large block of land that had not been developed. That land was actually owned by a grocery chain. They had owned the land since before the neighborhood had been build up around it. Now this area is technically a food desert, the locals actually tried to stop the development of the land even though the grocery store owned the land before the neighborhood moved in, and the land was already zoned for it. They fought tooth and nail against it because "they didn't want the traffic"
The city I live in now currently has more such problems. They have decided to limit the number of stores and restaurants in the town. They also severely limit the size of the stores. This makes the small stores we do have insanely crowded. Heck in some parts of town they even refuse to allow a 24 hour Walgreen, all because the neighborhood didn't want late night traffic. Shoot even trying to find a gas station can be painful, they wont allow them to set up on the main roads, and wont allow them to set up near neighborhoods. The only place to find them is next to the interstate or in the middle of commercial developments. It is patently ridiculous.
Thats what happens, there is this push for homogeneous zoning and that pushes out all possibility for a business setting up shop near by. The wealthy push those rules into place for themselves but the rules impact zoning for the entire city, which then causes it to be difficult to serve the poor.
But I think you'd agree that Taiwan's "mixed zoning" habits are much more conducive to walkable communities, no?
I totally agree. I like walking around in Taipei. I even like walking around in New York City. The one additional thing I'll throw in is that even in Taiwan, not all cities are like Taipei. In smaller but still large cities like Taoyuan, walking may not be as pleasant, convenient, or safe, with uneven, weird, or sometimes missing sidewalks. Walking around with small kids or elderly folk requires more caution.
But how DO you shop when you need more than a carton of milk?
When the supermarket is a 5-min walk, you just make multiple trips as needed. I hit a supermarket once or twice a week, and hit a convenience store once or twice a day (about 1 min walk). It's really not that different from walking across the barnyard to grab a couple of eggs from the chicken coop. (Trust me, I'm from Iowa.)
Evidently, I'm not as "price conscious" as you are, but luckily for me, Taiwanese people are. (A Jewish pal who used to live here would joke that if his girlfriend got pregnant, their kids would be the stingiest people on the planet...;-) Thus, the local market is very competitive, and you're unlikely to save more than a few percent, no matter how far you travel.
If I put my mind to it, it's not hard to cram a couple of weeks' worth of groceries into two or three bags, easily portable with two hands for the short distance involved. (I'm single too, and do a lot of cooking at home.) But for the most part I don't HAVE to put that much thought into it. My grocery store is five minutes away by foot... If I need something that I can't get at the 7-11 in five minutes, I'll get it from the supermarket in fifteen minutes. They are both open 24/7.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
This is true. And the need for a vehicle becomes more apparent as you get to cities smaller than that... say, Douliu or Pingdong... Still, I think Taiwan is largely on the right track in this regard. (Politics is another kettle of fish...)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Capitalism has the same problems. Locally owned businesses have a harder time screwing people over consistently due to the fact that the owners are known and live in the community. Reputation matters. Local businesses also tend to not send jobs to India and China too. The economy serves the people and not the other way around.
Absent that, at large scale, you need more regulation to make it work. Owners are absent and people in charge are hard to find. Businesses try to make it that way in purpose. It avoids natural accountability, to their benefit. People serve the economy and this causes issues.
You think capitalism scales because you're used to all the problems and probably think them normal.
You can't imagine it because you've never lived in a dense, livable city. In San Francisco there's a corner market within 2 blocks of just about everyone. Getting ice is a nice excuse to take a stroll with the kid. Maybe we'll hit the park and grab some ice on the way back.
We own a car. Lease, actually. It sits in our garage almost everyday. We own it because we can afford it. But it would be one of the first things to go if we were pressed for cash.
I grew up in the sticks. But even as child I could imagine how life worked without a car. I'm not an idiot.
Sounds like a royal pain in the ass to me.
But things like what I like to do on the weekends..for instance. I decide on Friday afternoon that I wanna have some friends over to watch football.
I need to go buy a couple cases of beer...and two large bags of ice for my pelican ice chest (keeps it cold for days).
I also want to fire up my smoker, so I need to grab a bag of logs at Academy Sports, which is about 40-50lbs. I also need to get a brisket (12-14lbs) and maybe some ribs....
NOw...how am I supposed to do all that without a car? I don't see how to do that in a couple hours on a bike or on some form of public transportation.
Sure you *can* do things...but why would you want to make life harder on yourself than you need it to be? Hell, I can't imagine having to depend on public transport of a bicycle next time I wanted to have friends over for a crawfish boil or something....
I don't just eat ham sandwiches....or processed foods or take out. And I'd rather spend most of my time at home cooking and having fun, or using my time to go hang with friends. Time is my most valuable commodity. Not having my own private transportation that can get me around and haul things would eat up too much of the little time I have for myself and the enjoyment of my life.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Get a backpack (or as the Brits seem to call it, a 'day pack' to differentiate it from much larger hiking gear)
Most of the laptop ones seem to be in the 20-25 litre range but I found myself a 30 litre one.
Strap a bag on the front with 'crushable' items such as bread or awkwardly dimensioned ones like toilet paper or cat litter. Beer is a problem but I can fit 2 wine bottles in the front pouch of my backpack.
Get a hand basket rather than a trolley - if you can't carry it home, you're buying too much.
I have 3 supermarkets within a 25 minute radius. Walking 3-4 times a week is the equivalent of 15 bags of groceries.
You'd probably need to own a car either way, unless you live in a location where getting to your job is practical without one, which is not easy for most people.
This has been tried before in nearby Oak Park, another inner ring suburb, as well as State Street in Chicago.
Both failed miserably.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-11-20/news/8802170858_1_shopping-mall-westminster-mall-pedestrian-mall
That said, I prefer to be somewhere with MIXED mode transportation. Downtown Oak Park now has vehicle traffic, but the sidewalks are wide enough, and there are frequent pedestrian crossing. While you CAN drive through, you can't barrel through at 30 mph. Frankly, I think this is a good balance.
But how DO you shop when you need more than a carton of milk?
How do you haul around15-20 bags of groceries, 12 pack of beer, etc....from the stores to bus(es) to home?
I'm a single guy right now, and I couldn't carry all the stuff I buy weekly on public transport, hell, some times I have trouble fitting it all in my car..especially on a Costco run.
Don't supermarkets deliver where you live?
I have a car, but I'd rather pay someone else to do my shopping. I know you're missing out on the fun of selecting the freshest looking fruit and veg, but who really cares?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
My girlfriend and I go shopping once a week. One of our local supermarkets is about ~10 minutes away by foot. We simply take a backpack and use that for our shopping. It can fit our weekly shopping (including beer, wine, and every other week 6x1.5L of bottled water). Extra beer is purchased as required from the gas station down the road (a 2 minute walk), or from the other supermarket (also 2 minutes).
It's ridiculously easy, and doesn't require a car.
I work from home and I have a truck, two Harley's and a ford focus. We have 3 drivers, me, my wife and my daughter. My daughter goes to college and she commutes. A couple of days a week she gets a ride or takes the bus, the other days she takes the focus when my wife doesn't need it. I guess if we lived in that town we could get rid of the ford focus because there is public transportation available, but of course I have been encouraging my daughter to use the bus more and more. The problem with the bus is it's a commuter line. Last bus out in the morning is 07:15 and the last bus out of the city is 05:30. So that curtails her college involvement if she takes the bus. I have a truck because I used it to haul wood and my Harley's when they get broken and need of fixing beyond my abilities to fix them. If the focus is taken then my wife will use the truck. I think in the end I would never live in such a place because I would never want to get rid of my truck or my Harley's.
Paul E. Bahre
You're a single guy and you need 15-20 bags of groceries? WTF??? I am married and we shop once a week and it would be very rare to require more then 4 bags. i suspect you are doing it wrong.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
To each his own. Other people are more interested in living than "saving" or getting the "best deals". I don't allow stores to control what I want to buy, nor do I enjoy reading daily spam mail for coupons and advertisements to figure out what I'm going to eat. I don't like supermarkets, I like to be in and out buying what I need at that moment. So for me, having more smaller dedicated stores would be better.