SmallFront

Thanks for proving my point.


Again.

I-Like-To-Bike

As usual you use your imagination to divine other posters' intent, i.e. "not wanting to see the world go more in the direction of being carfree", in order to fit/dismiss posters into nice neat categories of your own fantasies. Try again.

Ekdog

True, none of us commented on those photos, and they are truly amazing. I was impressed by the way the modern ones were superimposed over the new.

Roody

This is your opinion. I totally agree with it. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays.

SmallFront

You too, Roody!

Roody

The photos you posted are amazing!

As shown in the second photo set, he buildings and landmarks were fairly constant in Budapest over the years, but the political and social circumstances changed so much. This is somewhat the opposite of the US cities as shown in the first set of photos. Our political landscape has stayed constant, but the urban environment has changed a great deal.

dynodonn 

Yes indeed, the detail is amazing, and I got a laugh at one photo that I enlarged, it showed one man's look of disdain as he was walking by a row of parked horse carriages, with what looked like a large puddles of horse urine along the curb on a hot day

tandempower

What strikes me about both the pictures and the videos posted by others is the amount of traffic seems small compared to the amount of indoor space suggested by the buildings. Either there was a high ratio of indoor area to population or traffic was less with the same population density. Maybe more commuting causes more traffic today. Also, with more people working outside the home, there are more houses and apartments empty during the day while the residents are out working in other buildings.

Machka 

You might be able to ask the mods to clean up this thread so that it is about the photos rather than about unrelated political stuff.

Ekdog

How about focusing on the topic yourself instead of calling for censorship?

What do you think of the photos posted by our friend, Lesscan?

Ekdog

Yes, urine and manure are two unfortunate by-products of equine transport. There have been proposals here that would require our carriage drivers to place a device under their horses' ani that would catch the falling excrement before any of the odoriferous waste product landed on the street below.

dynodonn 

We have a local horse and carriage company that gives rides to tourists and locals wanting old fashion rides. All the horses use diapers, which is great for catching all the urine and manure, but not always the odor.

Ekdog

They might consider changing them more frequently.

In all seriousness, I'd rather put up with foul-smelling horses than have to breathe in the toxic fumes belched out by thousands of internal combustion engine-propelled vehicles.

phoebeisis

The guy is BLIND.
Notice with no powered vehicles
pitiful horses have to haul EVERYTHING-
crapping everywhere-dying and being abused
Yeah great.
The scenes are actually instructive for bike transportation in cities folks
THERE ARE CLOSE TO ZERO BIKES- maybe 1 per hundred people.
And no crosswalks-because They didn't need them"
DUH people were COMMONLY injured killed by horse drawn wagons-Pierre Curie was killed just that way-1908 or so-
and the Trolleys killed LOTS of people.
So No bikes-horse crap and dying abused horses everywhere- filthy coal driven public transportation-
Wow lets go back to that!!
Bikes were OBVIOUSLY NOT the answer then-they aren't now either-unless we become as poor as China once was.
They are only a small part of the answer in high density cities-with EXTREMELY attentive cops-
Bike theft is a HUGE problem in the sort of neighborhoods that are good for bike riding-(behind-downriver of the French Quarter in NOLA)-gentrified areas of cities where young hipsters have pushed out the PO FOLKS.
Yeah those photos ARE INSTRUCTIVE- NO bikes! Pitiful livestock-filthy coal driven trolleys(think China air quality)

phoebeisis

Close to ZERO bikes-maybe 1 bike per 50 pedestrians-maybe fewer. 40x more wagons that bikes too
So BIKES won't dominate any "future" streets-not unless we become very poor- or manage to stop bike theft-
Some Western Europeans have stricter laws-less theft-no presumed innocent in france- plus fewer "chronically poor" people in W Europe-

phoebeisis

I wouldn't count on that.
Pierre Curie was killed by a horse drawn wagon-suspect that was common
And those trolleys-no crosswalks-safe bet they killed PLENTY of people

See what numbers you can come up with
Guessing there were PLENTY of pedestrian injuries deaths in the early 1900's

phoebeisis

REIN OF TERROR: THE HORSE AND ACCIDENTS
Horses killed in other, more direct ways as well. As difficult as it may be to believe given their low speeds, horse-drawn vehicles were far deadlier than their modern counterparts. In New York in 1900, 200 persons were killed by horses and horse-drawn vehicles. This contrasts with 344 auto-related fatalities in New York in 2003; given the modern city’s greater population, this means the fatality rate per capita in the horse era was roughly 75 percent higher than today. Data from Chicago show that in 1916 there were 16.9 horse-related fatalities for each 10,000 horse-drawn vehicles; this is nearly seven times the city’s fatality rate per auto in 1997.


So-anyone who thinks those streets were safer because no cars-is full of horse manure
And as I said-no bikes to speak of on those streets- we might walk more in these "livable" european type neighborhoods-but we won't be riding bikes
And those "livable" neighborhoods-will be EXTREMELY expensive-like manhattan-so most of you folks won't be living in them
The "no cars great for walking neighborhoods"strictly a affluent folks scam-the rest of us will have to commute into them to serve them.
Don't be taken in by the "suburbs are evil" BS- folks wanted suburbs because inner city neighborhoods they could afford-SUCKED!
"Good city neighborhoods" are expensive.Always were always will be.

Roody

If all the people walking were in cars, I think it would look quite crowded indeed.

tandempower

Bikes also weren't mass-producable and cheap the way they are today. Really, the bicycle and the motor-car both emerged as 'automotive' technologies, meaning they made more autonomous mobility possible. Now, after a century of motor-traffic growth, however, it has become obvious that sprawl-growth reaches limits in the form of long commutes, traffic congestion, and distances that are prohibitive to walking or cycling. Some expensive 'european type neighborhoods' might emerge but far more areas will simply be denser versions of existing cities as some motor-traffic shifts to cycling and transit without eliminating the rest of motor-traffic. Road-narrowing and densification of certain blocks will facilitate a shift to more local business-residential areas where people can shop and work closer to home, if they don't work mostly from home. Many people will continue to drive because of habit, inability to bike, and for the sake of car-sharing and helping their friends. Overall, though, total motor-traffic will either remain constant or gradually decrease to allow for economic growth without overdevelopment of land and sprawl explosion.

That will probably occur increasingly by bicycle and transit.

The reason they "SUCKED!" was because of growing motor-traffic. Ultimately the suburbs began to suck as well, also due to motor-traffic. When you're not brainwashed into unquestioningly accepting the driving-dependency for everything you do, you begin to see through the very superficial aesthetic that sells suburban houses. They look lovely until you've been stuck in them for a while and realize it's a prison cell unless you can get out and walk around, jog, cycle, and engage in other activities outside your own property. This is why suburbs with MUPs are more appealing. I'm not sure how many developers have yet figured out that they can use the MUPs to connect residences with businesses for work and commerce but why would you think that that isn't coming on the agenda?

This is an economically abusive and exploitative philosophy. Affordable living can also be good. The main problem in poor areas is moral laxity, often due to people losing their minds from economic stress. When a person can get an affordable house and have a source of income that doesn't torture them, they can live prosperously without driving or too much consumption. People want time to spend with their families, raise their children personally instead of having them in childcare day and night to work multiple jobs. These things are achievable if the 'American dream' is revised to more self-sustaining work with less overhead so people can have more free time to devote to family and personal property and life-development. That's the original 'American Dream' anyway, not drowning in debt to try to win a status competition out of fear that if you don't you'll be relegated to a drug and crime infested ghetto.

Roody

Brooklyn’s Median Household Income Is Less Than $45,000
So how can anyone afford to live there?

https://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/01/new_york_city_census_data_manhattan_and_brooklyn_are_much_poorer_than_you.html

phoebeisis

PUBLIC SUBSIDY- RENT CONTROL(another public subsidy)-and Public Housing(projects) is what the article says.

NYNY manages to keep crime down with EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE policing=STOP AND FRISK- and what amounts to an unconstitutional ban on "right to bear arms"
NYNY can get away with it because it is rich-center of the financial universe-so it can pay to have aggressive cops.
Most cities are soooo poor that can't add police-and the STOP AND FRISK policy-in theory- is unconstitutional-but of course they -NYNY- will attempt to keep it in place.
Yeah NYNY are very heavy handed with young minorities-they profile them-and of course it is effective-but unconstitutional.
NYNY most certainly WASN'T livable in the 1960's-1970's-1980's- it wasn't until they got an aggressive mayor-and went to unconstitutional methods of policing(profiling -stop and frisk)-that NYNY became livable again.

Cars didn't make neighborhoods unlivable-they allowed folks to leave crummy-(meaning crime)-neighborhoods.

Supply and demand- folks want to live in nice neighborhoods-who wouldn't. Once a neighborhoods starts improving-meaning affluent outsiders start gentrifying it-poorer locals are priced out.
It happens EVERYWHERE! Po folks are pushed out to crummier neighborhoods. In NYNY- they attempt to subsidize the less affluent-and they use aggressive-illegal police tactics-which the affluent and middle class and most of the lower class-LOVE- since it means they can walk their own streets.
Young black males-most of whom aren't criminals- HATE IT- since they are the ones being "stopped and frisked"

But most cities can't afford that many cops-so not an option in NOLA- besides no one would want MORE of OUR cops!
Geez-the ones we have are bad enough!


Tandempower's "bikes weren't cheap in 1900" is a good point.Now a bike can be bought for ones day's take home pay-minimum wage-say $50 -used maybe even new.
I wonder how much a "safety bike" was in 1910? Horses were expensive-probably at least as much as a cheap used car-even with mandatory insurance-a car could be as little as $1000/yr-usually 3x that-10% or more of takehome pay

Roody

So...did you check out the amazing photos of cities before there were cars?

phoebeisis

Of course-they were crowded with abused horses-horse manure-dead horses- electric trolleys which means coal pollution( china)-and as I posted earlier MORE pedestrian death-from wagon horse trolley collisions-
Yeah-goods have to get into cities-then get distributed-which means motor transport.
Eventually perhaps-we can make cleaner electric power-Nukes wind etc-but for now electric power isn't clean(NG- fracking-cleanest fossil fuel-but CO2 is CO2-and livable cities "folks" generally oppose fracking-and fossil fuels -but they sure as hell use them-and they are quick to steal water from other places-all CA and most of the SW).
Those cities-weren't "great"
NYNY is livable- because of unconstitutional POLICING- it was a SH in the 60's-70's-80's-despite being rich. Only aggressive policing-and generous social support-make it livable-and expensive rents that limit and push out PO FOLKS-Seattle Portland-two other "livable cities" also are crowding out Po Folks-
Yeah-urban renewal by another name(gentrification) -put in zoning regs-restrict development(so no lower wage jobs in neighborhoods) and Po Folks are pushed out.
Po Folks commit more crimes-a LOT more-so neighborhoods become "better"
Course these livable cities-mean po folks pushed to BURBS-and they become less livable
USA- we are a violent well armed bunch-always a consideration for bike riders!

cooker

I wonder if there is any actual evidence that stop and frisk has any effect on crime rates? Not according to this article. Crime is down in New York like it is almost everywhere else likely due to demographics.

phoebeisis

Who knows-it is easy to spin numbers.
Toronto?? Is your mayor the boozing doper supporter of sex industry employees who insisted his wife would "service him suitably" so he had no need of the sex industry workers he was linked with??
He is a great guy-really adds something to the south of the border view of canada.
We normally view you guys as dull-not him
Now he isn't quite Marion Barry - immortal quote "Bit%$ set me up" but it is a start!!