The Dumbest Excuse for Bad Cities

I have no interest in making “debunking” videos, but there’s one lame excuse that is so common, so prevalent, so ubiquitous, that I was literally forced to make this video. It's true: I had no other choice. My hands were drawn to the keyboard to write this script like they were possessed by the ghosts of people killed by cars.

NJB Live (my live-streaming channel): @njblive

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References & Further Reading

Downtown Houston, 1912

Country size comparisons

Number of Vehicle Trips by Trip Distance
US Department of Transportation

NHTS BRIEF November 2006
National Household Travel Survey - Commuting for Life

Urban sprawl erodes rural lands

Ontario loses 175 acres of farmland to urban development a day, says farmers group

[Netherlands] Agricultural export in 2021 in excess of 100 billion euros for the first time

Ray Hill’s Tunnel photograph (2019) by Michael Manoni

Why did Minneapolis tear down its biggest train station?

This video contains content licensed from Getty Images.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:57 People don't know this stuff
1:42 The excuses begin
2:30 Most travel is local
3:41 Life is more than commuting
4:35 America was built for trains
5:40 Even intercity travel is regional
6:41 Conducteurs sans frontieres
7:45 Walkability can exist anywhere
8:34 It's all land use
10:43 Wrapping up
11:31 Try Nebula, it's great!
12:42 Patreon shout-out

[NotJustBikes]

If you are upset by my "tone" in this video, then I have some _great_ news for you!

There are over 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute! So *go watch something else.*

[mooingAlong]

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

A quote for the ages.

[jjthetrainman]

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.

[SaadKhan-usvt]

"The Dutch make great cities, while North Americans make excuses"

Murder he wrote

[TheEclecticDyslexic]

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.

[sebastiandiaz]

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

[yueminwang]

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.

[GhostOnTheHalfShell]

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.

[ichijofestival]

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.

[MrAronymous]

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.

[notnow]

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

[dbird]

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

[KannikCat]

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

[WhatAboutZoidberg]

I forget the exact phrasing but "America will always do the right thing, after exhausting all other options." As an American, this is painfully true.

[ryanelliott]

I tried explaining to my parents how Canada has a land waste use issue, and their response was “Canada is big so there is plenty of space.” Idk how to respond to such a response

[madfx]

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.

[gabrielsantiago]

Legitimately had a conversation about this with someone just yesterday. And they could not understand the problem at all. It is so damn frustrating how so many Americans cannot grasp just how badly land use in this country is.

[sirhorseiv]

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

[SadisticSenpai]

When the train came through and missed Baxter, Iowa by 10 miles, they decided to literally move the town. They took apart and rebuilt every building near the train tracks because it was that important to be located on a rail line. The only building they didn't move was the one room schoolhouse which was later turned into a very small home. And the only reason I know any of this is because that house is the first house my grandparents rented after they got married. And the house is still there, although it has been added onto over the years.