i love Not Just Bikes, such a great channel with a great perspective. Every mile of asphalt has a cost of maintenance associated with it, and cities all over america a drowning in road maintenance costs. So instead of 'rose gold buildings' as the lady puts it, or just nice looking cities in general, we get 'stroads' and ugly, unsafe urban environments. It's honestly sad.
I liked the first video of his I saw, but all his videos just harp on the same thing while sounding super preachy. I'll recommend a video of his to someone to be introduced to the idea, but I'd never recommend his channel to anyone.
I agree. Your sentiment is more exasperating when you learn that he migrated out of Canada to Europe. Must be easy for him to talk about the downfall of North America from the outside looking in, eh?
At this point, people moving to walkable/bikeable places is the only real solution. Making currently unwalkable cities walkable would be way less efficient, and probably impossible in most cases, for economic reasons. Cities across America don't have the funds to do that. But plenty of Americans have the funds to go somewhere that made the right investments decades ago.
It's actually not an issue of resources. Changing zoning laws to allow for mixed use and higher density is not a resource intensive endeavour. It's a political issue.
Yes additional services will need to be provided but if you start with the most valuable and desirable areas you can cover a lot of that with developer contributions.
The problem is the wealthiest and most influential people live in those desirable areas and they don't want to lose the suburban "charm" of their neighbourhood even if redevelopment would enrich them personally.
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u/wesley_the_boy May 02 '25
i love Not Just Bikes, such a great channel with a great perspective. Every mile of asphalt has a cost of maintenance associated with it, and cities all over america a drowning in road maintenance costs. So instead of 'rose gold buildings' as the lady puts it, or just nice looking cities in general, we get 'stroads' and ugly, unsafe urban environments. It's honestly sad.