The Dumbest Excuse for Bad Cities

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"American cities were not built for the car. They were bulldozed for the car." A quote for the ages.

I don't get how people think you can't have rails across the entire U.S., but you can have highways across the whole country.

The argument "The U.S is too big for trains" is immediately disproven by how Russia's cities are connected by rail and the country is twice the size of the continental U.S

Hilariously, saying the country is too big to have walkable cities is just an admission that because we have the space we plan our cities poorly.

The most annoying thing is that politicians talk about electric cars instead of this.

Its crazy how America only got so big that we needed cars until the 1930ish. It must have suddenly grown in size after then.

"The Dutch make great cities, while North Americans make excuses" Murder he wrote

It was said many decades ago that we in the US don’t drive because stuff is far away, stuff is far away because we drive.

"And that is a CHOICE." 1000% this. All of this. Brilliant video, thank you for setting the record straight.

Canadians: Our land is scarce which explains our sky rocketing housing prices. Also Canadian: That gravel surface parking lot with a size of two football fields at downtown core absolutely is needed and makes perfect sense.

Thank you for addressing Australia in the same light as US and Canada. Very much needed.

The fact that we as Californians can't build a high-speed rail across our state displays the political gridlock that exists in this country.

For anyone wanting to see just how much policies shapes a country, you only have to take a peek at Google Maps and compare the Netherlands and Belgium. The Belgian postwar growth pattern was quite laissez-faire and they let people buy plots and build houses just in random places along roads (aka sprawl). This resulted in lots of... not quite streets not quite roads. Stores are often located on these roads rather than in a town too. Though not as wide as US stroads, getting places and reaching houses (utilities, mail, basically anything) is much much more inefficient than in the Netherlands. Flanders actually has a rule that every 500-750m there must be a bus stop or so served by the Flanders government-funded buses. The idea is noble, but the execution with all the sprawl is outright insanity. And those roads are hard to upgrade as well, because there's buildings on both sides. And as a result, when driving through Belgium, particularly Flanders, 8 times out of 10 you are on a road with buildings next to it. Whereas the Netherlands has a very strict seperation between built-up area and 'countryside'. When seen on paper we're a very densely populated country, but when you go inbetween towns you'll have views of open fields so that makes it much less noticable and problematic.

In recent days, I've come to realize my suburb is even worse than I thought. Forget bike lanes. Not a single place of commerce in this hole, not even the national chains, has a single bike rack, or any sort of flimsy alternative. This town doesn't just prioritize cars, it's actively hostile toward anything else. And they wonder why "downtown" (a single street) can't keep any businesses open.

We also need to acknowledge the influence of car manufacturers in lobbying for the perpetuation of a car dependent society.

Saying America is too big for trains, buses, or bikes is like saying it's too big to have sidewalks.

I am so shocked that some American cities actually looked good in the past. It’s awful to see what they have become.

Haha, thanks for linking to the first video I ever made (with even more laughable production quality than my usual). I stand by the analysis, though! Coincidentally, more high speed rail content coming on Wednesday.

Mongolia has the lowest population density in the world, yet the country manages to build railways connecting small towns along their routes.