[QatzelOk]

reality

Is that what suburbia is... reality?

So the natural environment is fake?

Driving all over the place and spraying millions of acres with lawn chemicals is "real?"

Watching TV in a lonely bungalow in the middle of nowhere is "real?"

Perhaps your reality is so fake that you don't remember what "real" means anymore.

Addiction often involves a flight from reality in order to protect your comfortable fakeness.

[Godstud]

Right and you sit in your little box of an apartment in your neighbourhood covered in concrete while watching TV or sitting in front of your computer all alone in your cubicle and you can talk? You're the biggest hypocrite of them all!

I don't know people who spray their lawns full of chemicals. People tend to use modern fertilizers that are safe for the environment or just do standard watering. You must be thinking of the 70's.

We all know the natural environment. Reality is that cities are not a reflection of the natural environment. Pretending you are closer to the environment while staying as far away from it as possible in your concrete jungle is the very definition of fake. If you were Mr. Conservation you wouldn't live in the city or you'd live in a suburb and grow turn your lawn into a garden and make your own food instead of thinking that riding a bike does anything whatsoever to protect the environment while all your food and everything else you use, is shipped to you in the inner city via diesel trucks.

[QatzelOk]

you sit in your little box of an apartment

Small apartments are the best way to preserve the maximum amount of natural land.

This is true no matter what your culture is.

Suburban housing uses up to .5 acres per person.

My apartment houses at a density approaching 100 people per acre.

Suburbanites also need a lot more paved, fake land for parking and malls.

So by living in a high density apartment rather than a low density suburb, I am preserving a lot of natural land.

But as you said, you have barbecues, and that's a pretty sweet reason to go extinct, you car addict.

[Godstud]

You're the delusional one if you think packing people into buildings like sardines is called living.

You're the addict who doesn't understand that your very lifestyle does just as much to contribute to overall pollution than any suburbanite's. You're not preserving natural land. Most cities now are actually not expanding outwards anyhow.

You seem to have chosen a particular lifestyle and now put down anyone else who lives differently. You're bitter towards anyone who might want to do things differently than yourself. Cars are the devil, according to you, even though all cars are not alike and some people actually NEED them to travel/work, etc.

Is everyone addicted to cars? I haven't seen any 12 step programs for car owners. In fact all your arguments towards that end are only because as a bicycle rider you see cars as competition on your roads. Not everyone can, nor wants to ride a bicycle. Why can't you just accept that some people live differently from yourself and move on? Some people are very conscious of the environment and purchase their cars accordingly.

If you want to change suburbia why don't you start making some suggestions on ways to make it more efficient and change it for the better instead of just hating it and anything else you can't come to terms with. Here's a place to start.
http://www.environmentmagazine.org/Arch ... s-n07.html
Mind you, these are some things some of us have already mentioned are the problems to overcome. Do you have any solutions to the problems or are you just going to stand on your soapbox and preach all day? By solutions, I mean realistic ones that address real issues and not being unrealistic and banning ALL motor vehicles and such idiotic tripe. Even YOUR elegant wondrous lifestyle would end abruptly were that to happen, whether you'd like to admit it or not.

[QatzelOk]

some people actually NEED them

Some people NEED heroin.

Or so they think.

[yiwahikanak]

I made the deliberate choice to leave a city that is designed for car owners, and nearly impossible to get around without a vehicle (Edmonton) when you are a single mother and need to cart your kids to and from school/grocery stores etc. I was alienated by the lack of non-mall public spaces, the suburban sprawl, and outright hostility towards alternative forms of transportation. Car dependency is very much a culture.

I am now living in Montreal, Quebec, in a fairly dense area, in a tiny 2 room basement apartment. I can walk, even in the dead of winter, to get my groceries, to get my kids to school, and to work if I need to. My alley is closed to all but emergency vehicles, and has become a lovingly tended garden. The amazing use people in this city put their small plots of land to absolutely amazes me. Whether flowers or crops, they pack an amazing amount of growth in, making this one of the greenest cities I've had the pleasure to live in.

When I'm feeling rushed or lazy, I can take public transport, though eventually I do want to work myself up to biking in the winter, as many Montrealais do. It does indeed make me feel better to have less of an environmental footprint, and to be more connected viscerally to my community. I deeply resent automobilists and their insular habits, and every time Projet Montreal manages to close down another street and make it only accessible to pedestrians, I rejoice. I do believe that one day, I will see at least the downtown core of this city closed to commuter vehicles.

Anyone who claims they cannot live without a car is lying to themselves. If you have reached such a level of dependency, it is because you made lifestyle choices based around having a vehicle, and it is never too late to make better decisions.

[Cartertonian]

So, am I right in thinking that you and Qatz advocate the wholesale abandonment of the rural environment and the concentration of humanity into dense-pack, ultra urban boxes?

Doesn't sound terribly appealing to me.



I think I'll stay where I am, thanks.

[yiwahikanak]

Nope. I come from a rural upbringing and I'm quite aware of the particular needs of people living in isolated areas. There is not anything near the concentration of emissions in the country as there are in the city, however. The specific problems associated with such a concentration of commuter vehicles in the city is a particular urban issue.

However, if you choose to live in a rural setting, there are any number of things you learn to do without. Living in the country should never be license to own a pollution factory...I would still impose strict environmental controls on vehicles owned by those living outside urban centres.

[Godstud]

Wierd, yiwahikanak. I lived in Edmonton for 30 years and the public transport there is decades ahead of Vancouver's in efficiency, reliability and availability.

yiwahikanak, you're correct. The worst polluters I've ever encountered were farmers and rural-folk. Living in a city doesn't make you a polluter.

QatzelOk... need as in unable to get along without. Hush about your addicted nonsense, because that's exactly what it is.
What would I do in your world of bicycles QatzelOk? I am incapable of riding a bike(back problems). My work is 30+km from me and there is no public transportation there. In fact, there is no housing within @15km from my work. I already car pool, but not out of necessity since my car already gets better than Prius mileage. The work I do is not something that is done in the inner city.

In fact, the people in the inner city tend to bitch and moan about things so much that they make people have to commute even farther just to make them happy. Thus many jobs and industry that could be better located has to be pushed to the edges of the city because of the NIMBY people. They don't want noise, smells, etc. that could inconvenience them. You're one of those people who wants more bike routes to help the environment but you'd be loath to spend money on a new bridge so that 50,000 cars a day wouldn't have to sit idling in clogged commuter traffic for hours caused by having to go around the inner city. Imagine the pollution prevented by merely making the roads more efficient, instead of, in the name of clean air , exacerbating the problem?

There is a car culture in North America, but the people driving fuel efficient small cars are not the people who've bought into that culture, which heralds SUVs as the end-all-be-all. You claim to know all about commercialism and yet you, apparently, don't even understand where it starts and where it ends.

[yiwahikanak]

Godstud, the quality of public transport deteriorated rapidly with the last oil boom. LRT extensions were 15 years behind need, and bus service was slashed. I lived on the very west end of the city, where bus service was only available twice a day, and only on week days. When I first lived in Edmonton back in 96, the system was much better...by the time I left I had completely given up on it.

Also, the staggering amount of construction, mostly surburban in nature, over the last 6 years in Edmonton has really changed the makeup of the city. The Henday used to be a bordered by deserted stretches of land...now you can see megacomplexes on either side, and vast surburban developments...some abandoned mid-construction when the bubble burst.

And you can't deny that the lack of public space really marks the city. The downtown core has been dead for over a decade. People don't even bother riding up and down Jasper Ave in their fancy cars anymore, like they did when I was a teenager visiting. And Whyte Ave is a sad stretch of increasingly big box consumerism, filled with soccer moms instead of freaks. It is a city of suburbs, huge $150,000 Dodge pick-up trucks and malls. I have come to loathe it.

[Godstud]

I must admit that I moved from Edmonton to Vancouver around 97 so I can't comment on recent services as such. I did notice the Anthony Henday was sure different. I guess Edmonton is a city, unlike Vancouver, where they haven't run out of room to expand to. That housing boom was bound to slow down. They had the cheapest housing in Canada for a while there and that only made suburban housing even more attractive. In Vancouver, old development is being torn down for Condos, which makes sense when you have no room for expansion.

What do you mean by lack of public space? One thing Edmonton always had was lots of public space(parks, river valley, etc.).

[yiwahikanak]

When I talk about public space, I suppose I'm talking about space with people actually in it.

Yes, there are parks...but rarely are there any people in them. It was incredibly depressing.

And yet the malls are always packed. I can't stand the mall lifestyle there.

When you walk downtown, whether it's in the middle of the day on a week day or the weekend, it's deserted. Also depressing.

I love the river of flesh that is Montreal. People actually live in communities here. You get to know your neighbours immediately. It is more human.

And yes, Edmonton has a lot of space to expand into, but it's crazy now...you use to only have to drive five minutes outside of Edmonton to see large, empty quarter sections. Now when you drive in any direction, it's densely packed acreages until you hit the next small town. The growth was phenomenal, poorly planned, poorly carried out, and absolutely requires people to own vehicles.

[noemon]

This is true no matter what your culture is.

This is true in the mathematical sense unrelated to your own being which is being actually in nature, stepping upon soil barefoot.

How long has it been since you felt that, nighttime under a sky clear full of stars inside a forest by the sea?
Hearing only waves, birds and looking at natural light only?

[QatzelOk]

So, am I right in thinking that you and Qatz advocate the wholesale abandonment of the rural environment and the concentration of humanity into dense-pack, ultra urban boxes?

Most of this thread has been about car addiction as it affects suburban areas. Suburbia is where 80% of North Americans live. The truly rural areas have been in population decline for years, while suburbs have boomed (because of planning laws and highway construction, and because the car makes the city extremely unpleasant).

I don't want to see rural areas abandoned at all. I'd like to see the farm population multiplied by 3 or 4 in order to rid it of chemical and mechanical contamination, and return to more sustainable organic agriculture.

Likewise, I'd like to see suburbia dismantled and returned to both natural wilderness and close-to-city farming.

How long has it been since you felt that, nighttime under a sky clear full of stars inside a forest by the sea?
Hearing only waves, birds and looking at natural light only?

Because of Montreal's suburban crud belt, it takes about an hour and a half to get to something resembling this. It's much faster to get to the countryside from central Paris (45 minutes), and Paris has three times as many people. It's about containing urban areas in order to preserve nature.

[Suska]

I tenetively agree with that, however I'm not sure how increasing rural populations is supposed to improve it.

[noemon]

Because of Montreal's suburban crud belt, it takes about an hour and a half to get to something resembling this. It's much faster to get to the countryside from central Paris (45 minutes), and Paris has three times as many people. It's about containing urban areas in order to preserve nature.

If you run an urban-friendly program like the one you suggest you will end up with the country-side being eventually filled up with condo-cities and you will also propel capitalism and growth.

If you run a low-maintenance system, you end up with the country side having low rise cottages and their growth relaxed, therefore containing it from becoming yet another urban city inside nature.

The goal of a naturalist should not be isolated from nature in an urban environment so that he reduces minute time to make it outside the fence, but instead live so sparsely that it is nature inside the town.

I agree that to combat the problems of various cities, one will need to do something along the lines you suggest, I'm thinking about longer-term directions.

[QatzelOk]

The goal of a naturalist should not be isolated from nature in an urban environment

His goal is to isolate the urban environment from the natural one by liberating as much wilderness as possible.

To do this, a new non-euro jurisprudence and morality has to be created and introduced.

Currently, nomadism and ownership cultures can't co-exist in North America. The legal system favors land-owners the same way that highways favor cars over bicycles. The slower and more sustainable vehicle gets killed dead (oops).

In the same way that bikes need to be protected from the remaining killer cars, nomadic culture(s) needs to be given its own amenities with their own positives to compensate the (temporary?) loss of convenience of switching from ownership culture(s).

[yiwahikanak]

And hey, air pollution doesn't just cause lung diseases, it's also a factor in breast cancer.

So go on everyone, hop in your car, drive to Starbucks and get yourself a pink latte to support breast cancer reseach...or drive to a mall to pick up a pink shirt. Just don't ever actually cut your fucking emissions.

[Godstud]

Fucking hypocrites.
Shut down your computer(made from oil products and toxic chemicals) that uses 800W of power before you start criticizing anyone. Anyone can sit there and find faults in others but unless you are really that much better, which varies by person to person and can be debatable, then your preaching and sarcasm is just that.

[QatzelOk]

Shut down your computer(made from oil products and toxic chemicals) that uses 800W of power before you start criticizing anyone.

This is an excellent point.

It's also an excellent way of avoiding listening to people on the Internet telling you that they don't admire your large car, and that they find you an amoral anachronism for tearing around boring suburban corners in your vehicle.

I realize the g-forces provide you with one of the few joys of suburbia, and that you have no way of expressing yourself at work other than with your possessions. But for goodness sake, don't pretend that your current lifestyle is some kind of idylic existence that anyone should admire.

During slavery, there were many plantation owners who needed to maintain their slave-economy in order to remain wealthy, or to maintain a certain standard of living. A civil war was fought to oust them, and now, many generations of people have asked themselves how so many adults could have done such an amoral thing for so long. Look at the horrible results of slavery in the USA where racism and ghettoing of African-Americans has scarred American society to the present day. How much damage will the continuation of car-sewage cost the next hundred generations of human beings?

Please, don't pretend your commuter-addiction is some kind of acceptable way to live. You're simply addicted to something that is killing the entire earth, and that kills a million innocent people per year just from machine-on-human physical violence. The chemical/biological damage from the pollution and inactivity adds an unknown number to the motoring death toll.

Defending this carnage and armageddon with "I love barbecuse and lawns" just underscores the bland, suburban indifference to personal responsibilty.

The only reason your car hasn't been seized by the authorities, and your suburb rezoned to be dismantled is because parasitic industries like cars and oil pump billions into the media and the electoral process.