A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/07/20/opinion-broadway-upzoning-parking-chicago/
"If the city becomes more dense, where will people put their car?!!" he asks.
Cite a source for this claim, because otherwise I'm inclined to remove your comment as misinformation. I have never heard of a single instance ever in which a multifamily housing development went vacant for lack of parking.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Don't have a source, just first hand experience. I work adjacent to multi-family construction and parking is one of the common items of discussion. It's treated as an ante item that they would love to dispense with, as developers would love for every square foot of their footprint to be spent on units or other spaces which can be directly realized as revenue.
But that wasn't the argument I was making, and, whether intentional or not, that's not what the person in OP's screenshot was saying. We were saying that there needs to be an examination of the local infrastructure to see whether it was able to support additional density before approving additional density. I'm not using this as an argument to say density bad, I'm saying that if the fucking water mains on the street don't support another hundred units of draw during peak hours then building a hundred units on that plot is a recipe for disaster unless the water main is upgraded first, and the same goes for the transit infrastructure.
Based on the downthread comments, it sounds like this area would be great for adding additional density so there's no problem there, but there should be a check to see if something is going to break if you add 300 car-dependent commuters to a city block someone was able to grab on the cheap because it had no meaningful access to the transit infrastructure of the area.
The key thing to understand is that just because NIMBYs bitch about something, doesn't mean it's true. By repeating their nonsense as if it were fact, all you're doing is spreading misinformation.
This argument doesn't follow because transit infrastructure is not like water: it's an optional enhancement, not a necessity. Specifically, people can still walk or bike if they don't have it.
People can't own cars if they have nowhere to put them. If you make no provision for parking you won't get "300 car-dependent commuters;" out of necessity, you'll get 300 non-car-dependent ones instead.
The bottom line is that transit never gets built unless the density justifies it first. That's just how it works, in terms of winning Federal funding and such. If you refuse to build density on the grounds that there isn't already transit, you will never get density or transit. NIMBYs understand this, and that's exactly why they make that bad-faith argument.
Uh transit is not optional unless you want to revert to company towns. And you're just moving people from private transit dependence to public transit dependence. Think about that for a second. Your asking people to give up their private and personal nearly unrestricted transit access and become wholly dependant on public infrastructure and governing bodies. How many people here trust and support their local governments right now. Especially enough to become trapped to "how far can you walk in 100+ weather"
What are you even talking about? If you don't have public transit in a densely-built area, you can just fucking walk! Or bike, for that matter. Well-designed cities are compact enough that you can get anywhere you need to go even without transit. Transit is just an extra layer on top, so that you can more easily choose to be picky about going to store B across town instead of walking to store A in your neighborhood, but you don't need to choose store B over store A. (And even then, in a well-designed city even store B is reasonable to get to at least by bike, if not on foot.)
I have absolutely no idea what point you think you're making about "company towns" and "private transit."
Streets are public infrastructure. You're already dependent on it, even if you're driving a car.
The answer to that question is "plenty far enough, in a well-designed city." And the "in 100+ weather" part is just strawmanning, BTW -- even with global warming, it's the exception, not the rule.
Can we not mod on vibes like the other place? Like I agree with you on this issue but that doesn't mean I want you to mod away the opinions I disagree with that are not malicious.
Asking for a citation is exactly the opposite of modding on vibes.
Also, there's a difference between an opinion and a false statement of fact.
Can you read me the second word of their post? It seems to me you are the only one here misconstruing opinion as fact.
"My opinion is that 2+2=5"
See? It's not a false statement of fact as long as I call it an "opinion!" /s
Yeah, no, that's not how it works.
We don't need reddit mods on this platform
Can you cite which "rule 1: misinformation" you used to justify removal? As far as I can see, Rule 1 states that you should remain civil when faced with ideas you don't agree with.
Spreading misinformation is inherently uncvil -- in fact, it is much more uncivil than using a harsh tone, in terms of its capacity to degrade the quality of discussion. This community is not a 'safe space' for sealions, concern trolls, or other bad-faith commenters, no matter how polite.
Speaking of moderation policies, rule 1 prohibits being insulting to other people in this community, not (for example) insulting big truck drivers in the abstract, which is why the four reports you just made will not be acted upon.
I bow before you, king of all bad-faith arguers
You stretched the definition of civility several magnitudes further than I did to remove the original comment.
The comments I reported, insulting vehicle owners' genitalia, are much more likely to fall under most people's understanding of "be civil".
You are only interested in enforcing rules to reinforce your personal views. You have no business being a moderator.
Not only is this your second reply to the same comment, you also created a whole separate thread to complain about my moderation decisions. You have had plenty of opportunity to say your piece; now it almost seems like you're trying to goad me into removing your comment so you can crow some more about how "abusive" I am. Well, it's about to start working: any further harassment, personal attacks, or off-topic complaints about moderation will be removed, and I will be entirely justified in doing so.
Also, I've already explained what "civility" means in this context
both in this community and in Lemmy.world as a whole
to you multiple times. If you want to have a safe space for misinformation, go somewhere else.
It's honestly like you're an AI trained to mimic reddit mods
I don't want you to remove my comments. I want you to remove your own
Maybe not a single dwelling, but imagine NYC, which IS highly walkable. Now imagine how dense it is, but without walkability. Without public transportation. Without bike lanes. NYC works because it has those things.
Since when is the uptown Chicago neighborhood unwalkable and lacking transit!?
Moderator: by all means please delete disinformation.
First of all, it has those things because it has density. They become viable because of the density, not the other way around. Insisting that it has to be done backwards is a common NIMBY trope.
Second, what you wrote isn't a citation.
Its a pretty obvious conclusion.
My my forgotten city its hard to go downtown due to lack of parking and it kinda keeps it in disrepair. University students want to save money on parking, so they clog a near by park.
Its kinda harsh to just remove a comment that makes sense and is not even against the premise of the community.
The complaint that people will park in places other people don't like is just an argument that parking isn't restricted enough. If you don't want street parking to be used, remove it! If you don't want students parking in parks, stop them!
First of all, well-designed places that look in disrepair are often still more productive than the "pretty" car-centric development they get replaced with.
Second, perhaps the real problem with people living downtown isn't its lack of parking, but rather the people living too far away. Increase the density of the housing near downtown such that more people live in walking/biking distance, and you solve the problem.
The claim that a housing development will remain vacant because it doesn't parking is a false statement of fact, despite the commenter's characterization of it as an "opinion." I gave him the opportunity to show proof, but he chose not to. The argument he made is also repeating a common NIMBY bad-faith argument. Whether he himself intended to write in bad faith or not, that adds up to misinformation, and misinformation is uncivil (violates rule 1).
By the way, just as an example of the sorts of judgement calls I'm making as a moderator: this comment was expressing a similar misconception, but was not removed because it didn't make quite that level of specific actionable claim.
Exactly, so no solution. And does not help our movement to end car dependence.
Still doesn't change my critic to your modding in that instance. Abusing public parking else where is a problem, and doesn't spur calls for public transit. Not sure why we need a citation on an obvious conclusion.
From other comments its clear you are the one misunderstanding what was said and your hubris is blinding you. Bad look for our movement. Makes us look childish.
"Not providing parking causes the housing development to remain vacant" is a lie, not an "obvious conclusion." If you think I'm wrong, prove it by citing an example of a housing development that couldn't find tenants or buyers because of lack of parking.
The part about causing parking problems elsewhere is not why the comment was removed.
Look, I think you are going off topic a bit. I understood the comment to have said that if we don’t expand transit infrastructure we should not expand housing. They then made an a priori case that doing so is just straining already over used infrastructure. Which makes sense and don’t see why the citation is needed.
Said infrastructure includes parking lots and connection to public transit. If you don’t hook up the new construction to public options, then people will drive. And when there isn’t extra parking they will just park where ever. That means other business they are not visiting. Parks they are not visiting. Blocking parking for neighborhoods they don’t live in. That is how I understood that comment. It seems I am not alone in this reading the rest of the comments either. It is a conclusion that does not need a study. Worst of all it does not mean people will ask for more public options it just re-enforces the trend that we will want more parking.
Quite frankly you should get over your hubris and having someone else read the comment to see if you walked away with a mis-read. I think you are good natures, but you are doubling down on an L take that no one was making.
The comment was not even a pro-car talking point the way you are making it out to be. Just saying we need to be prudent with our city planing. Ironically what strong towns is about. Please don’t miss the forest because of the trees.
E: Commented this on the wrong side of the thread lol
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
H.L. Mencken
The notion that you have to have transit beforehand (or at least simultaneously) in order to justify density is that kind of answer. It's intuitive, but it's wrong. Short of master-planning an entire new community from the top-down, like they do in China maybe, density always
always
comes before transit. This is because if you don't already have density-induced traffic problems demonstrating the need for transit, The Powers That Be use it as an excuse to never build it! That's just how city planning and transit planning in America work, and it's not going to change no matter how ass-backwards any of us might think it is.
In reality, there are three options when planning new development:
Only one of those three options (edit: option #3, if it isn't blindingly obvious from context) is good urbanism; the other two perpetuate car-dependency (either because of sprawl or because you've created urban canyons of car sewers lined by parking decks, respectively).
"Option #4, build mass transit along with the development" is not and never will be on that list. Insisting on it is equivalent to picking option #1. Mass Transit only becomes a possibility after the area has a well-established pattern of picking #3, and even then it takes years or decades after that.
If you've been around as long as I have, having spent decades not just online but especially IRL in planning meetings, listening to people arguing for mythical option #4 even though you know (because they've also been at the meetings for years) they understand the above perfectly well and are absolutely NIMBY concern trolls whose actual preference is #1, you'd become more skeptical of the argument.
But even then, it wasn't just that general misconception / 'comment difficult to distinguish from trolling' that caused me to remove the comment. It was the addition of the much more concrete, specific, and easily provable (if it had been true) claim that development without parking causes vacancy -- not traffic/parking problems for the surrounding area, vacancy for the development itself, specifically -- and then refusal to prove it after I gave him the opportunity, that pushed it over the edge.
Pretty much what the removed comment said (really just don't build if its going to exacerbate problems). Do you love to talk past people that are agreeing with the premise and making the movement look bad or what are you on about?
And really if you are in car centrist place (like i am) and parking sucks you won't buy a house or condo there either.
But again. I and others are telling you that we interpreted the removed comment to having made its case rather well and you are talking some fat Ls on discourse here. Please go back and read what the original comment was, what people have said about it, and that you are now de-railing it being too immature when called out.
Again, I am disputing that premise of "just don't build if its going to exacerbate problems" and saying that everyone repeating it is wrong. The problems of car-dependency need to be exacerbated in order to force a break from the car-dependent status quo.
It's not a great analogy, but creating good urbanism is kinda like exercise: similarly to how you have to work the muscle hard enough to break it down in order for it to build back stronger, you have to deliberately build things anticipating walkability etc., even knowing that it will make traffic worse, in order to get the infrastructure supporting other modes of transportation to actually happen. No pain, no gain.
Edit: it suddenly occurs to me that when I wrote "only one of those options is good," you might have misread it as "only option #1 is good." That is not what I meant; option #3 is the only good one.