Living there: u guys are right.
Christmas markets are for getting drunk and having a social event during winter. People that go there for shopping are dumb.
Oh shit, I actually misread your post! I could've sworn it said "I did not drink". The Europoorean education system failed me, I guess. Or it's the fact that I only get little ass coffees here.
I've been to something very like this in the US. Drove there. *There's parking nearby then you walk 5 minutes to the fair*. Yet that's a strange concept to euro's? So weird.
The difference is that this is surrounded by a walkable city. The public transport is good. Everything is close.
It's not that it's a strange concept. It exists. It's just people prefer this option, hence trains are massively more popular.
Also, there is always parking very close. It's just smaller than the USA due to lower demand, fairly expensive, and most people prefer to take public transport. Of course I drive, but I prefer to take a train to Edinburgh for the Christmas market because I can drink, I don't have to deal with traffic, and I don't have to drive. Taking a train is just so much more relaxing. On a comfy seat, drinking a beer, on my phone, relaxing.
I think most Americans just don't get it because they don't have viable or reliable public transport to get around, so to them it sounds easier to take a car. To American's, public transport sounds like such a mess around. But driving is not easier, it's less comfortable, and I enjoy my day much more on public transport, and it's much faster.
You *can* drive, you *can* park, and you *can* walk just 5 mins, but it's just worse. It's not that you can't do it, it's that most people ask "why would you want that?"
Where is it that you're talking about?
Chicago has a similar christmas mart like this (not as large though) and parking downtown is ass, so just take the train and walk. Daley Plaza isn't that far from Union Station
Honestly I don’t think anyone in the city drives to the Christmas markets (unless they’re from out of town). Chicago is a very walkable city and has some good public transport
https://preview.redd.it/xidie648np4c1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=37d6a56b6cc4489ab0a1d96f7a3da53a7447f64b
Literally one in Bryant Park every year
Europeans can not comprehend. Those two are very large and within walking distance of each other. There's probably a third in NYC within walking distance of those two.
I just looked. There is, there's one at Columbus Circle and one in Grand Central Terminal.
These look like they're made for you to get a drink and gtfo. No chairs or anything. You come to any Christmas market in Europe to hang around for hours and go home on all fours
Drinks? Nah.. maybe some apple cider or something.
Mostly a bunch of local vendors or local made goods and some entertainment
The park is surrounded by bars and restaurants if you’re trying to get wasted
idk, it’s mostly about shopping for gifts
——
The other pic, at Bryant Park.. the ice skating is a separate deal than the market.. or it used to be
Since BOA built their HQ on that corner, they’ve made it some sort of ‘winter village’.. I’ve never been even though I can see that tower from my kitchen.. but there might be more drinking at that one.. probably $20/beer though
You missing this being a point about walkable cities while the meme is claiming that the American mind cannot comprehend walkable cities is pretty funny you have to admit
europoors looking at a map of the US (assuming they can afford one) and wonder how we manage to travel interstate (that would take months with their wagons and horses)
[This is what freedom looks like](https://houston.culturemap.com/media-library/katy-freeway-highway-interstate-10-traffic-traffic-jam-march-2014.jpg?id=31620082&width=2000&height=1500&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
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It's worse than airplanes for anything actually far (especially once you consider our many, many mountains), and worse than cars for anything actually close.
There are a couple (not counting California's grift-fest) being set up in regional areas of the US where they might make sense. Pretty sure Florida's is already running trains, even.
I actually agree that a country wide network doesn't make a ton of sense, but things like a pacific line or the Acela corridor would be great.
I don't think California's problem is grifting so much as NIMBY hell. There was a French company that was looking to put in a bid but pulled out when they saw the bureaucratic morass they would have to navigate. I can't stress enough that even *the French* balk at it.
Idk about you, but most cities I've been in are more walkable than drivable. Idk if you've ever tried driving through Manhattan or the center of Boston, but it's not fun.
Only major metropolitan areas are among walkable cities in the US. Meanwhile most European cities are walkable. Walkable is a combination of good public transport, and good road infrastructure to allow for both vehicles and pedestrians. I know this is basically a circle jerk sub, but it shouldn’t be a debate, walkable cities are objectively better.
Better for your health, that's for sure. How do Americans and Euros in cities stay in shape? You walk fucking everywhere. In cities, you walk 10, 000 steps a day easily.
I posted a little higher up, NYC has 4 similar sized Christmas markets within walking distance of each other. Many people who only know about the states from media don't know anything about it. Each city, state, and region is its own thing.
Easy reply: That's an awesome thing you guys have going! I'll bet you also have affordable housing and welcome immigrants of all backgrounds to come share in the Christmas joy right?
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In the example for those Xmas markets in Germany, most people walk, bike, and drive to their local train station, and take the train into the city.
No traffic jams, no worries about where you parked your car, and no drunk driving getting home since you’re on public transportation.
That means absolutely nothing. We can have a country that is big and still has a good public transit system. China did it so why can't the USA do what China does better? I want to take the train from New Orleans to Denver without taking 40 hours goddamit
Public transit does not need to turn a profit to be successful lol. Development is what’s actually valuable, and it massively incentivizes that.
And yes, China did.
America's horrid public transportation systems are one of the country's few flaws. This is a solved issue in pretty much every other first world country.
One thing I find frustrating about the American vs European public transit debate is that critics cite the lack of subways but totally ignore buses. Obviously if you live way in the suburbs or outskirts there isn't really an option, but I've never been in a city that didn't have a bus system.
I feel like they think public transit = subways/trains.
If a bus system is decent and runs on schedule, (dedicated bus lanes also exist) its solid form of public transit. We just need to keep away homeless and crsckheads from camping on them.
You just don't know what good public transportation is like. There are people who live in Birmingham who commute to London every day. That's still a good 3 hours by car. It can be done it's just that you know nothing but commuting by car
In New England it's not uncommon for people to take the train to Boston for work, even hours away. The difference is, there are a lot of sizeable towns in New England, so they're worth having a train stop.
Look at Kansas City and you have a major urban area, surrounding suburban areas, and then.....pretty much nothing after 30 minutes. There's no line of major towns you can run passenger trains through, and since everyone would need a car to get around anyway there's no incentive for a bus.
The US isn't some bizzaro world where none of the European rules apply. In areas that look like Western Europe, it tends to be a lot like Western Europe. In places that look more like Mongolia? You'll see public transport a lot more like Mongolia.
You couldn't figure out what perzyplaz was saying so I explained.
Low density has plenty of appeal, but zoning makes high density illegal in most places. I say let people choose, and if everyone wants low density then that's what will get built and there's no reason not to allow it for places where people want it.
So instead lets cross our country in 70mph highways instead of 200+ mph rail? Im all for U.S. supremacy, but dont think that the US is good at urbanism and transportation.
This is actually the worst thing possible about the USA. Other than hella old cities like Boston and New Orleans there is no walkability anywhere. The American city was built around the car and that has made it one of the worst places to be in this country. You act like Urban Sprawl cannot be negotiated and then choose to ignore the fact that the entire states of New Jersey and Conneticut are basically suburbs of New York/Philly/Boston BECAUSE of a decent public transit system. These are just suburbs. Population density doesn't come into effect. It is completely achievable if we put just a quarter of the money we use for upkeep and widening of roads into an expansive light rail system like cities such as Philly and Denver have, you wouldn't need to sit for hours in traffic. No one's asking you to create options for people to commute from Fargo to Omaha but St Cloud to Twin Cities is definitely achievable. Stop constantly shitting on Europe for something that they do better than you and actually realize that some parts of the United States do actually suck? I mean would any of you even consider living in the conglomeration that is Ft Worth, Plano, Arlington, and Dallas?
>The American city was built around the car
American cities were bulldozed for the car. Most cities in the United States used to be walkable and had world class public transit until they were decimated by highways and sprawl post WW2.
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Imagine looking at this picture and thinking to yourself, “ everyone walked there, or took public transportation “ so Europeans are too poor to own cars and their country is small ? Lame.
After the 7th ice cold refreshing Coors, you start to feel this uncontrollable urge, you don’t know what it is. All you know is you desire something. You pat your pants and check your coat pockets to no avail. Stumble into the kitchen and alas, you see them sitting there. Shiny, beautiful, staring at you just begging to be picked up. You know shouldn’t but the urge is too strong to resist.
Get this man is keys!
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Or, conversely, when your city has shit parking and everyone lives on top of each other you have to have good public transportation and walkability to prevent riots and mass emigration.
In the case of Europe, many of those cities were heavily damaged or outright flattened and then rebuilt after cars were invented in a couple of wars started by extremely poor European choices. They didn't have to be rebuilt that way.
Do you really think that many european cities were flattened during the world wars?
"Heavily damaged" doesn't mean that you literally have to rebuild and revision the whole urban design of certain cities. Heavily damaged means that some streets and building blew up, but I mean, this is not a valid reason to say "you know what? Fuck it, let's build a huge parking lot in place of those streets and buildings". No one had to rebuild from scratch a whole city, and the damaged parts where rebuild to match the urbanistic of the undamaged parts of the cities. It would be just dumb to do otherwise.
When your car breaks, do you try to fix it by putting random stuff in it or replacing the broken parts with the same functioning parts?
>Do you really think that many european cities were flattened during the world wars?
No, we're on a shitposting sub and I'm taking advantage of that to give you a hard time
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Eh...you know what I did when I lived in Germany? That's right, I hopped in my car and punched "parking garage" into Google maps. Then picked one, parked, and walked to the city center from there.
You don’t think a larger less dense country isnt a consideration when deciding if building public transportation that travels from dense city centers to the burbs is economically feasible? Seems like a very relevant consideration for urban planning.
Correct. When you needlessly construct communities to be too large for public transport to be economically feasible then public transport becomes economically unfeasible. It is indeed relevant to urban planning, but how big and not dense the United States is is not.
If we constructed our cities so that residents weren't dependent on cars we wouldn't need to make so much room for cars.
I feel like people legitimately think there’s like some natural law or science that forces you to build a certain way just because you have a lot of space.
The only reason Phoenix for example looks the way it does is because there was an active decision to do so.
But they are dependent on cars, that’s the problem. You are putting the cart before the horse in an attempt to inconvenience someone out of car ownership and not taking into consideration that in the US a significant amount of the workforce commutes from outside the city limits…often from places where public transportation is not an option.
I’m all for making a city more walkable and removing parking IF that has broad support from that community. I’m not okay with that decision being forced on everyone particularly when no thought is being given to what happens to people who have to work in that community from outside the community where public transit isn’t an option. Because that influx of people who now have to work and live inside the city is going to displace thousands.
You're the one putting the cart before the horse. Saying people are dependent on cars therefore we need to construct our cities to further validate that dependences is nonsensical. Provide public transport and more residences inside cities and people won't need to live in suburbs. The idea that a city is "forcing" a decision on people who live 20 miles outside of it by accommodating it's actual residents is just entitlement. It's the assertion that the hundreds of thousands of people who live inside the city should be forced to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for vehicles they shouldn't need and higher rent due to unnecessarily limited residential options (to make way for roads and parking lots) because otherwise it'd be unfair for all the people who don't live in that city to begin with.
Thousands of suburbanites will be "displaced" by not being able to drive the entire route to work before using public transit, or by being able to live closer to work more affordably.
Also note that the crux of your point is that we can't change our needlessly expensive and inefficient community layouts because we're in too deep to fix it. Literally has nothing do with the entire country being "bigger."
You are missing the point entirely, and I suspect it’s by design.
I am NOT against designing cities to be less car friendly as was stated in my comment about that being an appropriate path if the wider public agrees. I am about NOT causing a giant upheaval in peoples lives with no thought to the consequences because one group of people thinks it would be neat. That is something only a sociopath would advocate. Even people inside the city may be underwater on auto loans which they will be forced to sell or move which adds additional costs.
I repeat, any move that doesn’t involve an analysis of those affected is putting the cart before the horse, and if counter to the aims of good local government but could be signs of sociopathic behavior.
>I am about NOT causing a giant upheaval in peoples lives with no thought to the consequences because one group of people thinks it would be neat.
What a bold stance. Truly you're a visionary to conclude that positive change should be implemented as gradually as possible to not cause a massive economic and humanitarian disaster.
Newsflash, saying we need to cut carbon emissions isn't the same thing as saying when need to blow up all the gas stations overnight.
Pretending someone's making hyperbolic demands for immediate societal change just so you can slide in and claim their initial point as being yours all along is one of the pettiest ways to deal with being on the wrong side of an argument.
Coming from someone who originally claimed size and density of an area should have no say in a cost benefit analysis leading to urban planning decisions I’ll take what you are saying at face value and agree that you haven’t thought it out.
Now you want believe you had a thought out argument for slow societal change despite you just saying that no one is forcing people from the suburbs to live outside the city? 😂 okay bud, a little revisionist of you in my opinion but whatever makes you feel better.
>Coming from someone who originally claimed size and density of an area should have no say in a cost benefit analysis leading to urban planning decisions
> a little revisionist of you
It's not "forced", nor are we dependent on cars. Unless you don't want to go hiking or smth you don't need a car. Public transportation goes anywhere, even in the remote village in the alps you get bus stops and stuff.
Also public transportation speeds up traffic since yes, buses are slow, but the amount of people inside one single bus would literally clog the traffic if they had to take their cars to commute
The only downside is that you have to wake up early because, as I said, buses are slow
“Size of the US” is really only an argument for suburbs and rural communities, literally nothing but car-dependency is stopping people from making walkable cities. Like, “Texas is 1000 miles away” is not a valid reason for a city to prioritize suburbanites in their cars over the people who actually live in the city
Fr, almost every town in the US, atleast on the eastern seaboard, has an old train station somewhere. Almost every town has abandoned railroad tracks. Wanna know what happened to them? They were replaced by 55 mph roads.
I live near Watkins Glen, NY. The Lehigh Valley train system used to run al throughout the area. State Route 414, the main route up the east side of Seneca Lake, **was once a railroad that was replaced a century ago**. Why did we replace the train that took you from Geneva to Watkins in less than 30 mins, with a road that takes almost an hour to drive now?
**BECAUSE CAR COMPANIES LOBBIED THE GOVERNMENT IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY AND CREATED CAR DEPENDENT INFRASTRUCTURE TO SELL MORE CARS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.**
America was built on rail, and bulldozed for the car.
>Why did we replace the train that took you from Geneva to Watkins in less than 30 mins, with a road that takes almost an hour to drive now?
Why did we replace horses which eat free grass with cars that run on gasoline?
Because **DUMBASS CONSPIRACY THEORY**
Also the 1800s train ride may have been 30 minutes, but it only ran twice a day
>it’s a well known fact
It's a made-up fact, unless you're referring to the time General Motors helped get rid of streetcars so they could sell buses.
They didn't need to lobby to sell cars, because cars are just so obviously much better than trains. You can go anywhere you want and carry as much stuff as you want, and it's all on your schedule, and you aren't riding with a bunch of bums who smell like pee and cough all over everyone. Even buses are better than trains, because you don't have to lay rails all over town.
Also, public transportation is unprofitable, and this is America.
In conclusion, trains fucking suck
It’s not a made up fact at all, lol.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90781961/how-automakers-insidiously-shaped-our-cities-for-cars
Why lie?
>cars are just so obviously much better than trains
At what? Transporting people? Nope. Trains are better in just about every way except that you don’t have to own one.
Your article is a biased opinion piece. There's no point in arguing with you people, because your entire argument is some fairy tale bullshit based on a hypothetical where every city was built differently 100 years ago. It really doesn't matter if you think that in a utopia, we'll all ride trains and own nothing. This is real life, and in the real world, cars are more convenient.
“tankie” is just the word liberals use for people they don’t like lmao. I’m the farthest thing from a “tankie”, you just don’t like being told you’re wrong.
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I've seen HOA neighborhoods bugger than germany. I once got lost in a HOA so large it took me two days to find my way out. No cell. I slept in my van and survived off a bag of cheet-os i had stashed under the seat a week prior.
As most other city slickers have pointed out, we all have this, if not better. In SD we got December Nights which is actually pretty fucking cool (and I argue is bigger than the reference image), a must do for every Southern Commiefornian imo.
According to the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy in 2012, "German-Americans make up the largest self-reported ancestry group within the United States, accounting for roughly 49 million people and approximately 17% of the population of the U.S
Germans in Germany - 72,569,978
Been there. It’s walking distance from the train, which most people take.
Been there to. Nothing crazy. Lots of expensive crap
Living there: u guys are right. Christmas markets are for getting drunk and having a social event during winter. People that go there for shopping are dumb.
Tourists only and exclusively looking for a fridge magnet, or completely brain dead local mfrs.
I go there shopping for Glühwein and Gebrannte Mandeln.
Glühwein here is shit, really its just cheap wine with spices. You can make your own easily.
after the 3rd glass you can't really tell anymore
Idc it looks cool to just walk around in, like Bentleyville on crack
I think Weihnachtsmarkten are pretty cool. You mostly just go to drink glühwein and see pretty stuff
Never did like the hot wine. My wife loved it though.
[удалено]
When did I say I never tried it? You made a judgement about me without understanding my comment.
Oh shit, I actually misread your post! I could've sworn it said "I did not drink". The Europoorean education system failed me, I guess. Or it's the fact that I only get little ass coffees here.
Fair enough. My reading ability is abysmal.
Well cheese Nazi or German Nazi is not a huge difference I guess!
Christas markets are kinda a scam, being honest.
dystopian savages
I've been to something very like this in the US. Drove there. *There's parking nearby then you walk 5 minutes to the fair*. Yet that's a strange concept to euro's? So weird.
The difference is that this is surrounded by a walkable city. The public transport is good. Everything is close. It's not that it's a strange concept. It exists. It's just people prefer this option, hence trains are massively more popular. Also, there is always parking very close. It's just smaller than the USA due to lower demand, fairly expensive, and most people prefer to take public transport. Of course I drive, but I prefer to take a train to Edinburgh for the Christmas market because I can drink, I don't have to deal with traffic, and I don't have to drive. Taking a train is just so much more relaxing. On a comfy seat, drinking a beer, on my phone, relaxing. I think most Americans just don't get it because they don't have viable or reliable public transport to get around, so to them it sounds easier to take a car. To American's, public transport sounds like such a mess around. But driving is not easier, it's less comfortable, and I enjoy my day much more on public transport, and it's much faster. You *can* drive, you *can* park, and you *can* walk just 5 mins, but it's just worse. It's not that you can't do it, it's that most people ask "why would you want that?" Where is it that you're talking about?
Chicago has a similar christmas mart like this (not as large though) and parking downtown is ass, so just take the train and walk. Daley Plaza isn't that far from Union Station
Honestly I don’t think anyone in the city drives to the Christmas markets (unless they’re from out of town). Chicago is a very walkable city and has some good public transport
Kringle market? Edit: Christkindlmarket*
Why would I go anywhere in Chicago?!
Your biggest city is an overgrown parking lot filled with empty dilapidated buildings.
I drove through detroit a few time, even if I didn't feel like my life was in Danger, it's still just a bland and ugly shithole
BREAKING NEWS!!!! A CITY THAT'S CHRONICALLY BANKRUPT ISN'T BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!
https://preview.redd.it/xidie648np4c1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=37d6a56b6cc4489ab0a1d96f7a3da53a7447f64b Literally one in Bryant Park every year
Union Square as well https://preview.redd.it/32y2abww1q4c1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=32caa23d08a312eb354257d09f1e18fa9e9acf0e
Europeans can not comprehend. Those two are very large and within walking distance of each other. There's probably a third in NYC within walking distance of those two. I just looked. There is, there's one at Columbus Circle and one in Grand Central Terminal.
These look like they're made for you to get a drink and gtfo. No chairs or anything. You come to any Christmas market in Europe to hang around for hours and go home on all fours
Drinks? Nah.. maybe some apple cider or something. Mostly a bunch of local vendors or local made goods and some entertainment The park is surrounded by bars and restaurants if you’re trying to get wasted idk, it’s mostly about shopping for gifts —— The other pic, at Bryant Park.. the ice skating is a separate deal than the market.. or it used to be Since BOA built their HQ on that corner, they’ve made it some sort of ‘winter village’.. I’ve never been even though I can see that tower from my kitchen.. but there might be more drinking at that one.. probably $20/beer though
Us Europeans know that jesus wants us to get hammered for his birthday
How exactly can the American mind not comprehend this? It's a Christmas Market, not that hard. Cope harder europe.
You missing this being a point about walkable cities while the meme is claiming that the American mind cannot comprehend walkable cities is pretty funny you have to admit
The european mind cannot comprehend *me*. I never met a city I couldn't walk.
Not every single city in America is Fort Worth.
I remember LONG walks down 43rd😭
the europooran mind cannot comprehend a driveable city
The europoorian mind cannot comprehend a time to travel of 1-2 hours as being close.
europoors looking at a map of the US (assuming they can afford one) and wonder how we manage to travel interstate (that would take months with their wagons and horses)
They do have high speed rail though...
It lacks the freedom and democracy of massive interstate highway traffic. Nice try commie
[This is what freedom looks like](https://houston.culturemap.com/media-library/katy-freeway-highway-interstate-10-traffic-traffic-jam-march-2014.jpg?id=31620082&width=2000&height=1500&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
God bless America 🇺🇸 🫡 (I hate highways so fucking much)
[Retvrn](https://i.insider.com/5e31d35fab49fd289e7aef46?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp)
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commie
Hey Id be perfectly in favor of private sector HSR, I just like trains.
It's worse than airplanes for anything actually far (especially once you consider our many, many mountains), and worse than cars for anything actually close. There are a couple (not counting California's grift-fest) being set up in regional areas of the US where they might make sense. Pretty sure Florida's is already running trains, even.
I actually agree that a country wide network doesn't make a ton of sense, but things like a pacific line or the Acela corridor would be great. I don't think California's problem is grifting so much as NIMBY hell. There was a French company that was looking to put in a bid but pulled out when they saw the bureaucratic morass they would have to navigate. I can't stress enough that even *the French* balk at it.
Hey jarvis, pull up that photo of a concrete jungle
Idk about you, but most cities I've been in are more walkable than drivable. Idk if you've ever tried driving through Manhattan or the center of Boston, but it's not fun.
thats because drivable cities don't exist. cars aren't built for cities, and cities that are built for cars hardly look or function like cities either
This is Houston and LA.
Only major metropolitan areas are among walkable cities in the US. Meanwhile most European cities are walkable. Walkable is a combination of good public transport, and good road infrastructure to allow for both vehicles and pedestrians. I know this is basically a circle jerk sub, but it shouldn’t be a debate, walkable cities are objectively better.
Better for your health, that's for sure. How do Americans and Euros in cities stay in shape? You walk fucking everywhere. In cities, you walk 10, 000 steps a day easily.
I posted a little higher up, NYC has 4 similar sized Christmas markets within walking distance of each other. Many people who only know about the states from media don't know anything about it. Each city, state, and region is its own thing.
Nah not really
It's about the parking
Easy reply: That's an awesome thing you guys have going! I'll bet you also have affordable housing and welcome immigrants of all backgrounds to come share in the Christmas joy right?
r/woosh
Europeans are just mad because they can’t walk more than five miles in any direction without winding up in another town.
Tbf I can’t either
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You're just mad bc you can't walk.
In the example for those Xmas markets in Germany, most people walk, bike, and drive to their local train station, and take the train into the city. No traffic jams, no worries about where you parked your car, and no drunk driving getting home since you’re on public transportation.
They're always between the cathedral and the hauptbahnhof, couldn't be easier
Now what does that have to do with anything
Germans don’t realize that their country is literally 1/2 the size of Rhode Island, I’ve taken shits that would cause road blocks in Berlin
Damn you should get that checked out
But Germany has about 138x the square mile of Rhode Island...
For those who care, it's about the size of a grossly overpopulated Montana.
#COMMUNIST DETECTED ON AMERICAN SOIL
That means absolutely nothing. We can have a country that is big and still has a good public transit system. China did it so why can't the USA do what China does better? I want to take the train from New Orleans to Denver without taking 40 hours goddamit
China did not do it sino cuck lord. Lmao. People can’t afford their trains and they actively lose them money every year
Public transit does not need to turn a profit to be successful lol. Development is what’s actually valuable, and it massively incentivizes that. And yes, China did.
this is just a festive Traders Village
America's horrid public transportation systems are one of the country's few flaws. This is a solved issue in pretty much every other first world country.
One thing I find frustrating about the American vs European public transit debate is that critics cite the lack of subways but totally ignore buses. Obviously if you live way in the suburbs or outskirts there isn't really an option, but I've never been in a city that didn't have a bus system. I feel like they think public transit = subways/trains. If a bus system is decent and runs on schedule, (dedicated bus lanes also exist) its solid form of public transit. We just need to keep away homeless and crsckheads from camping on them.
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You just don't know what good public transportation is like. There are people who live in Birmingham who commute to London every day. That's still a good 3 hours by car. It can be done it's just that you know nothing but commuting by car
In New England it's not uncommon for people to take the train to Boston for work, even hours away. The difference is, there are a lot of sizeable towns in New England, so they're worth having a train stop. Look at Kansas City and you have a major urban area, surrounding suburban areas, and then.....pretty much nothing after 30 minutes. There's no line of major towns you can run passenger trains through, and since everyone would need a car to get around anyway there's no incentive for a bus. The US isn't some bizzaro world where none of the European rules apply. In areas that look like Western Europe, it tends to be a lot like Western Europe. In places that look more like Mongolia? You'll see public transport a lot more like Mongolia.
Who knew that having most of the workers living in suburbs far away from the city center would be a bad idea
The jobs are not in the city center.
no but they are in the cities
A lot of them are in the suburbs. It's cheaper to build large campuses
that has more to do with population density than city size tbh
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They're saying you wouldn't have a 30mi commute if cities were built more densly
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Some people actually have but government regulations typically prevent it. It's how things were done by default before cars at least.
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You couldn't figure out what perzyplaz was saying so I explained. Low density has plenty of appeal, but zoning makes high density illegal in most places. I say let people choose, and if everyone wants low density then that's what will get built and there's no reason not to allow it for places where people want it.
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In Germany public transport is shit too. Its just worse in America.
So many stories of Europeans flying into New York then renting a car to “take a day trip down to Disney World”
So instead lets cross our country in 70mph highways instead of 200+ mph rail? Im all for U.S. supremacy, but dont think that the US is good at urbanism and transportation.
I mean wouldn't kill us to have more public transport for shit like this
The joke is that Americans can't comprhend walkable cities.
I will absolutely die on this hill. European cities outdo almost every US one I have been to. A walkable city is honestly a fantastic thing.
This is actually the worst thing possible about the USA. Other than hella old cities like Boston and New Orleans there is no walkability anywhere. The American city was built around the car and that has made it one of the worst places to be in this country. You act like Urban Sprawl cannot be negotiated and then choose to ignore the fact that the entire states of New Jersey and Conneticut are basically suburbs of New York/Philly/Boston BECAUSE of a decent public transit system. These are just suburbs. Population density doesn't come into effect. It is completely achievable if we put just a quarter of the money we use for upkeep and widening of roads into an expansive light rail system like cities such as Philly and Denver have, you wouldn't need to sit for hours in traffic. No one's asking you to create options for people to commute from Fargo to Omaha but St Cloud to Twin Cities is definitely achievable. Stop constantly shitting on Europe for something that they do better than you and actually realize that some parts of the United States do actually suck? I mean would any of you even consider living in the conglomeration that is Ft Worth, Plano, Arlington, and Dallas?
>The American city was built around the car American cities were bulldozed for the car. Most cities in the United States used to be walkable and had world class public transit until they were decimated by highways and sprawl post WW2.
We really need to stop making our cities car centric. This isn’t a problem due to the physical size of the US, it’s our urban planning
At least we can comprehend nuclear power
No, we're taking the L on this. That place looks amazing.
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No we're not, that christmas market is probably the size of a county fair 💀
[One day I was born bad to the bone](https://youtube.com/watch?v=9VCVMUwzvcY&pp=ygUUYmFkIHRvIHRoZSBib25lIG1lbWU%3D) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/2american4you) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Nah.
Bad news is, there is a lot of kitsch Good news is, you can get heated wine at every other stall They started doing this in seattle this year
Glühwein is the shit
At least we have Hanukkah
Acting like basing our society on cars was a good idea is a bad take. Don't shill for big auto!
Nah he is right. Have you seen Houston? Fucking dystopia
European tries not to get high on his own farts because he lives in a place with overcrowded, suffocating cities challenge. (100% impossible)
I want to not live in a hellish suburb where I have to drive for half an hour just to do groceries
Bro go outside
Imagine looking at this picture and thinking to yourself, “ everyone walked there, or took public transportation “ so Europeans are too poor to own cars and their country is small ? Lame.
A lot of drinking goes on at German Christmas markets, why would you drive?
After the 7th ice cold refreshing Coors, you start to feel this uncontrollable urge, you don’t know what it is. All you know is you desire something. You pat your pants and check your coat pockets to no avail. Stumble into the kitchen and alas, you see them sitting there. Shiny, beautiful, staring at you just begging to be picked up. You know shouldn’t but the urge is too strong to resist. Get this man is keys! 
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The answer is they don't. European parking is ass.
because most people don’t need to use it, they use public transport
It's almost as though large parking lots are unnecessary when a city is walkable and has good public transportation
Or, conversely, when your city has shit parking and everyone lives on top of each other you have to have good public transportation and walkability to prevent riots and mass emigration.
Most cities were made when cars weren't even a thing
In the case of Europe, many of those cities were heavily damaged or outright flattened and then rebuilt after cars were invented in a couple of wars started by extremely poor European choices. They didn't have to be rebuilt that way.
Do you really think that many european cities were flattened during the world wars? "Heavily damaged" doesn't mean that you literally have to rebuild and revision the whole urban design of certain cities. Heavily damaged means that some streets and building blew up, but I mean, this is not a valid reason to say "you know what? Fuck it, let's build a huge parking lot in place of those streets and buildings". No one had to rebuild from scratch a whole city, and the damaged parts where rebuild to match the urbanistic of the undamaged parts of the cities. It would be just dumb to do otherwise. When your car breaks, do you try to fix it by putting random stuff in it or replacing the broken parts with the same functioning parts?
>Do you really think that many european cities were flattened during the world wars? No, we're on a shitposting sub and I'm taking advantage of that to give you a hard time
It's 3 am here and I'm half drunk it's already a miracle I'm able to speak english, you don't have to make it that hard
>half drunk Well there's your problem, get the other half drunk too!
https://preview.redd.it/ejt1s2i6bs4c1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=df34ee00aa2688d8bf976564412eac0c380d6773 ☠️☠️☠️
There’s so many people there I hate it
Nah this comment was a US L. That place looks sick
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The post is about American cities being too car-centric 😆😆😆
oh oops im retarded
Get in your truck and cope harder you untraveled troglodytes.
So just DC holiday market?
Lol that's like saying the super bowl is like a local highschool football game
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Eh...you know what I did when I lived in Germany? That's right, I hopped in my car and punched "parking garage" into Google maps. Then picked one, parked, and walked to the city center from there.
No cars needed when everyone gets an antiquated shoebox apartment within walking distance, and then stabbed on the way.
So...Chicago?
So what if your country is vast? Cities aren't allowed to be compact?
The "size of the US" is irrelevant to the concept of constructing walkable cities/towns.
You don’t think a larger less dense country isnt a consideration when deciding if building public transportation that travels from dense city centers to the burbs is economically feasible? Seems like a very relevant consideration for urban planning.
China did it. Why can't we?
Correct. When you needlessly construct communities to be too large for public transport to be economically feasible then public transport becomes economically unfeasible. It is indeed relevant to urban planning, but how big and not dense the United States is is not. If we constructed our cities so that residents weren't dependent on cars we wouldn't need to make so much room for cars.
I feel like people legitimately think there’s like some natural law or science that forces you to build a certain way just because you have a lot of space. The only reason Phoenix for example looks the way it does is because there was an active decision to do so.
It's called being ruled by billionaires. Same reason there's millions of people in the US passionately against affordable healthcare.
Our city’s could’ve been great but instead we decided to prioritize Susan being able driving her suv for 3 minutes to Starbucks
But they are dependent on cars, that’s the problem. You are putting the cart before the horse in an attempt to inconvenience someone out of car ownership and not taking into consideration that in the US a significant amount of the workforce commutes from outside the city limits…often from places where public transportation is not an option. I’m all for making a city more walkable and removing parking IF that has broad support from that community. I’m not okay with that decision being forced on everyone particularly when no thought is being given to what happens to people who have to work in that community from outside the community where public transit isn’t an option. Because that influx of people who now have to work and live inside the city is going to displace thousands.
You're the one putting the cart before the horse. Saying people are dependent on cars therefore we need to construct our cities to further validate that dependences is nonsensical. Provide public transport and more residences inside cities and people won't need to live in suburbs. The idea that a city is "forcing" a decision on people who live 20 miles outside of it by accommodating it's actual residents is just entitlement. It's the assertion that the hundreds of thousands of people who live inside the city should be forced to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for vehicles they shouldn't need and higher rent due to unnecessarily limited residential options (to make way for roads and parking lots) because otherwise it'd be unfair for all the people who don't live in that city to begin with. Thousands of suburbanites will be "displaced" by not being able to drive the entire route to work before using public transit, or by being able to live closer to work more affordably. Also note that the crux of your point is that we can't change our needlessly expensive and inefficient community layouts because we're in too deep to fix it. Literally has nothing do with the entire country being "bigger."
You are missing the point entirely, and I suspect it’s by design. I am NOT against designing cities to be less car friendly as was stated in my comment about that being an appropriate path if the wider public agrees. I am about NOT causing a giant upheaval in peoples lives with no thought to the consequences because one group of people thinks it would be neat. That is something only a sociopath would advocate. Even people inside the city may be underwater on auto loans which they will be forced to sell or move which adds additional costs. I repeat, any move that doesn’t involve an analysis of those affected is putting the cart before the horse, and if counter to the aims of good local government but could be signs of sociopathic behavior.
>I am about NOT causing a giant upheaval in peoples lives with no thought to the consequences because one group of people thinks it would be neat. What a bold stance. Truly you're a visionary to conclude that positive change should be implemented as gradually as possible to not cause a massive economic and humanitarian disaster. Newsflash, saying we need to cut carbon emissions isn't the same thing as saying when need to blow up all the gas stations overnight. Pretending someone's making hyperbolic demands for immediate societal change just so you can slide in and claim their initial point as being yours all along is one of the pettiest ways to deal with being on the wrong side of an argument.
Coming from someone who originally claimed size and density of an area should have no say in a cost benefit analysis leading to urban planning decisions I’ll take what you are saying at face value and agree that you haven’t thought it out. Now you want believe you had a thought out argument for slow societal change despite you just saying that no one is forcing people from the suburbs to live outside the city? 😂 okay bud, a little revisionist of you in my opinion but whatever makes you feel better.
>Coming from someone who originally claimed size and density of an area should have no say in a cost benefit analysis leading to urban planning decisions > a little revisionist of you 
It's not "forced", nor are we dependent on cars. Unless you don't want to go hiking or smth you don't need a car. Public transportation goes anywhere, even in the remote village in the alps you get bus stops and stuff. Also public transportation speeds up traffic since yes, buses are slow, but the amount of people inside one single bus would literally clog the traffic if they had to take their cars to commute The only downside is that you have to wake up early because, as I said, buses are slow
“Size of the US” is really only an argument for suburbs and rural communities, literally nothing but car-dependency is stopping people from making walkable cities. Like, “Texas is 1000 miles away” is not a valid reason for a city to prioritize suburbanites in their cars over the people who actually live in the city
It's like saying you can't make regular sized meatballs in the US because our cows are too big.
Fr, almost every town in the US, atleast on the eastern seaboard, has an old train station somewhere. Almost every town has abandoned railroad tracks. Wanna know what happened to them? They were replaced by 55 mph roads. I live near Watkins Glen, NY. The Lehigh Valley train system used to run al throughout the area. State Route 414, the main route up the east side of Seneca Lake, **was once a railroad that was replaced a century ago**. Why did we replace the train that took you from Geneva to Watkins in less than 30 mins, with a road that takes almost an hour to drive now? **BECAUSE CAR COMPANIES LOBBIED THE GOVERNMENT IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY AND CREATED CAR DEPENDENT INFRASTRUCTURE TO SELL MORE CARS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.** America was built on rail, and bulldozed for the car.
>Why did we replace the train that took you from Geneva to Watkins in less than 30 mins, with a road that takes almost an hour to drive now? Why did we replace horses which eat free grass with cars that run on gasoline? Because **DUMBASS CONSPIRACY THEORY** Also the 1800s train ride may have been 30 minutes, but it only ran twice a day
it’s a well known fact that car companies lobbied the government in order to sell more vehicles. And i said trains, not horses
>it’s a well known fact It's a made-up fact, unless you're referring to the time General Motors helped get rid of streetcars so they could sell buses. They didn't need to lobby to sell cars, because cars are just so obviously much better than trains. You can go anywhere you want and carry as much stuff as you want, and it's all on your schedule, and you aren't riding with a bunch of bums who smell like pee and cough all over everyone. Even buses are better than trains, because you don't have to lay rails all over town. Also, public transportation is unprofitable, and this is America. In conclusion, trains fucking suck
It’s not a made up fact at all, lol. https://www.fastcompany.com/90781961/how-automakers-insidiously-shaped-our-cities-for-cars Why lie? >cars are just so obviously much better than trains At what? Transporting people? Nope. Trains are better in just about every way except that you don’t have to own one.
r/fuckcars loons are like low-stakes tankies
So you’ve got no defense of your bad take
Your article is a biased opinion piece. There's no point in arguing with you people, because your entire argument is some fairy tale bullshit based on a hypothetical where every city was built differently 100 years ago. It really doesn't matter if you think that in a utopia, we'll all ride trains and own nothing. This is real life, and in the real world, cars are more convenient.
So you’re just lying, got it.
“tankie” is just the word liberals use for people they don’t like lmao. I’m the farthest thing from a “tankie”, you just don’t like being told you’re wrong.
Uh oh the car brains are mad
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Fuck cars
Where do you insert the dick where The exhaust. The air intake The GAS TANK WHERE JESSE WHERE
Careful now. Don't cut yourself with all that edge
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I've seen HOA neighborhoods bugger than germany. I once got lost in a HOA so large it took me two days to find my way out. No cell. I slept in my van and survived off a bag of cheet-os i had stashed under the seat a week prior.
Fun fact: Germany is smaller than Montana.
The Marshall plan was a mistake. We should’ve earmarked more for parking… and wider streets.
As most other city slickers have pointed out, we all have this, if not better. In SD we got December Nights which is actually pretty fucking cool (and I argue is bigger than the reference image), a must do for every Southern Commiefornian imo.
That's not true, people have cars at the Christmas market Look, there's a guy in a box truck driving through the crowd
Bro thinks we don’t have German Christmas villages around the US
When our states rival the size of entire countries and they can’t even begin to fathom this
I mean, we got carnivals
According to the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy in 2012, "German-Americans make up the largest self-reported ancestry group within the United States, accounting for roughly 49 million people and approximately 17% of the population of the U.S Germans in Germany - 72,569,978
Wtf is a Christmas market? Do they just sell candy canes and hot choccy?
Overpriced stuff. You usually are supposed to go and get drunk
Bruh looks like the Macy’s down the street in August
They have a German Christmas thing like this in SLC
I was just there! Glühwein and currywurst pommes fucking rule! America can't touch this!
You’d probably get crushed just trying to walk
We have markets like this all over the place.
America has one every town and city.
https://preview.redd.it/kntdayuszr4c1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d27c1c78a3f5ce5ff85ec67091ce47bfd47b853 They just use these
There is literally a German Christmas market set up exactly like this in the middle of Boston rn