I had my partner play the idea of us moving to Toronto a couple years ago and based on our experiences of going there it was always my feeling too unless you’re downtown. In which case I prefer London anyway.
Strip plazas are so boring and lack the character of our European architecture imo.
Yeah exactly - everywhere I’ve lived I’ve always been able to just “mooch around town”, go for a walk and pop into some random shops etc. which you can’t really do in America in the same way in most places.
I don’t think I could tolerate living somewhere thats as unwalkable as the kind of places in the US that you refer to, I’d find it really horrible and frankly depressing not being able to walk to the shops, a restaurant, pub, doctors, dentist, the park, and so on.
Fuck having to get in a car every time you need literally anything lol
Yeah it’s a bit shit.
My gf’s parents live in a town in Florida called Del Rey whose tagline is “the village by the sea” (pop. 110,000 lol) and it’s the most walkable town I’ve stayed in in America and has a nice main strip/boulevard that is pretty cute but the only shops there are clothing shops and tourist shops.
If you need something useful like a chemist or a gym or whatever, it’s anything from a 5-20 minute drive. Madness.
Del Rey is very bikeable though, but most people use golf carts to get around lol
Same in another town with a population of 2,000 I visited in Indiana - it’s got so much sprawl everyone has golf carts to get around lol
The issue is that the USA was built for cars. Outside of a few cities with very good mass transit, the way we live was all dictated by commuters and the highway system which itself destroyed neighborhoods and ushered in the sort of Boomer wet dream of wholly enclosed subdivisions cut off from anything except the highway.
There is a big push in places for mixed use development which would help create more hubs where people live and shop but it takes time and more often than not those apartments are being let out at insane rents. Like we’re talking four figures for a studio apartment in the suburbs. That’s pricing people out big time.
I wouldn’t ever have a long term future there but I could easily spend a year or two there. I’m not particularly fussed about the driving element of things cause I’ve spent so much time in Dubai and you need a car to do everything there too haha.
But definitely not somewhere I’d live long term unless I had a very well paying job or a lot of money in the bank.
But for a year, light work lol
NZ is basically the same and we have pretty poor public transport as well. Most of our cities you really need a car to do anything substantial.
Throw in an extreme high cost of living and high house prices, its basically impossible to buy without family money or withdrawing your retirement savings scheme (which we can do here to use as a deposit for a house).
We also have a pretty average job market and the weather isn’t even that great outside of summer (which is amazing to be fair, NZ in summer is one of the best places on earth).
A big thing we used to have was low crime, particularly violent crime, a murder would usually be on the 6pm news but all that seems to be changing too.
The people here are very nice though and the lifestyle is a lot less fast-paced than other major world centres but I think Europeans who are used to more connected spaces might find it a bit horrible.
The friendliest general population I’ve come across.
I didn’t find it that bad at all, some of the cities are quite big in terms of walking but nothing like the yanks.
Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and Queenstown you can really mosey round all of them on foot. It’s going out of the cities to the bays and mountains you’d need a car.
Pain in the ass in New Zealand is just getting between cities, cos public transport is practically limited to the intercity buses twice a day, as you mentioned…not the best.
Yeah some of our major centres aren’t bad for a bit of a stroll around but in terms of like being able to do a mix of every day tasks like your grocery shopping, doctors, dentist etc it can be a bit tough to do all that stuff easily without a car.
You’re spot on with travel outside of or between cities. It’s really fucking difficult to travel between cities here without a car. Between Auckland and my city (Hamilton) its only about an hour drive and yet we dont really have any regular public transport between the two.
You can sometimes catch a bus but its like a private company bus not a public mode that is regular or at set times, you literally have to book a seat on a bus to go to Auckland from here lol
We really like cars here and it sucks when you go overseas and see how easy it can be to get around without a car.
When 15 minute cities are proposed, I’m baffled by the reactions of certain people.
“It’s government control, literal communism, they’re going to stop you leaving your little designated zone without a permit, it’s literally 1984!!!”
No, you brain decayed freak, the idea is simply that people will have access to life’s essentials like shops, dentists and GP surgeries within their own communities, within a walkable distance, meaning people don’t have to travel further afield
I couldn’t believe what I was reading when I fell down the anti 15 minute city twitter wormhole. One guy who lived in West Cork was posting about it 24/7. You have to trek 10 miles on a donkey to buy a stamp mate, I think you’re safe from it.
It’s so funny.
My parents have some friends who are proper conspiracy theorists and they are convinced that the governments everywhere are run by the bilderberg group and that they’re working towards making us all live in these communities to stop us from travelling.
As if the multi multi multi-billion dollar car and airline industries are going to fucking stand for that lol???
The same shareholders and owners that are also in said bilderberg group? 
Edit: not to mention the SoMe lobby as they wouldn’t have any travel content lol
Staying at an AB&B in Notting Hill before moving on to Upper Dicker for the second week of vacation.
Of course, the experience wouldn’t be complete without a visit to The Armory where I was happy to part with a large sum of cash (non-Fly Emirates swag only).
Lol yeah I find it so funny because a lot of right wingers are always talking about how dumb lefties are and yet when it comes to stuff like this, its all part of a complex plan to strip people of their rights etc
Which is ironic given that’s what the right wants to do lol
I can be the nerd here and say that 15 minute cities is not a new concept, but a recycled idea (a good one) which is based on sound principles that in order to build successful and sustainable communities you need to ensure services, facilities and employment are available to the people who live there by sustainable transport modes. As with all these concepts the tricky thing is how you deliver them as these type of hubs require a critical mass and need to be viable to survive long term. Also need to consider the hierarchy of centres and how each neighbourhood and centre functions alongside each other.
Is there any notable failures you can think of out of interest?
I couldn’t point you to an example of a failed ‘15 minute city’, there may be some examples out there, however a historical precedent for this concept are the new towns. Plenty of these failed, when the hub/centre of these towns declined. Some of the reasons for this were changes to employment (decline of some sectors/growth of others), changing nature of the high street and retail/shops services. Essentially, along with locational sustainability, you need centres to be adaptable and versatile so they can adapt over time to changing circumstances. Plus you need a critical mass of population to support essential facilities and services.
Absolutely. In fact, it is welcomed.
