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Like if it's even an option for you at all, make the move. It's such a better quality of life it's crazy, cannot be exaggerated.

Obviously not easy, but if it's even at all potentially feasible do what you can to make it happen.

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[-] HexbearGPT@hexbear.net 28 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

the only part of the US that is walkable is the part built before cars, so mostly just the northeast, like NYC and north. any other cities suck for walking compared to anywhere else on earth.

the west coast is the most inhuman landscape ever created on planet earth. its is so ugly and awful.

[-] MemesAreTheory@hexbear.net 24 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Portland and Seattle are lovely and have many walkable neighborhoods. SF is expensive, and so is the entire bay really, but Oakland, Berkeley, and Emeryville are very walkable and ever so slightly more affordable compared to being on the Peninsula itself. Many of the Central Valley cities are unwalkable car based hell holes, and so is much of SoCal for that matter, but I have friends who live in Sacramento and they won't shut up about how happy they are to go car free and how the city is dramatically expanding bike infrastructure. It's very neighborhood dependent still, but I don't see why they'd be lying to me about it and they did indeed sell their cars in favor of ebikes, so the proof is in the pudding there.

[-] somename@hexbear.net 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Davis, and the areas near it, is famously bike friendly. There are bike lanes pretty much everywhere, and the car drivers are acclimated to bike transit enough that they aren’t crazy dangerous.

Sacramento is a bigger city, so it’s probably a bit harder to really bike transform it fully, but hopefully the process continues.

[-] SpiderFarmer@hexbear.net 8 points 4 months ago

Parts of the midwest are old enough as well. There's lanes where it was clearly designed before cars were everywhere.

[-] Diuretic_Materialism@hexbear.net 26 points 4 months ago

(Besides NYC) what walkable cities?

[-] Grandpa_garbagio@hexbear.net 22 points 4 months ago

Chicago and Philly are dramatically cheaper and plenty walkable

[-] Diuretic_Materialism@hexbear.net 15 points 4 months ago

Chicago kinda, Philly barely

[-] Grandpa_garbagio@hexbear.net 18 points 4 months ago

depends on where you are in philly, but it's significantly better than stroads on stroads for ever and no sidewalks lol

parts of philly are very walkable though, like all of south

[-] crime@hexbear.net 19 points 4 months ago

Boston is extremely walkable, it's a relatively small big city and most of it was built before cars. I've got a picture of my old apartment building with dirt streets and a horse carriage out front. I used to regularly walk from one end of the city to the other for leisure. The T is surprisingly good public transit for america too. They've even been doing free fares on some of the bus routes for the last few years, and just extended that experiment because it was pretty successful.

People drag it for not being a grid sometimes (the "paved-over cowpaths" myth) but that's because the streets go around hills since they needed to be traversed by people and horses.

[-] Diuretic_Materialism@hexbear.net 15 points 4 months ago

In terms of affordability Boston is worse than NYC

[-] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 21 points 4 months ago

Oh my God my partner and I recently looked at a bunch of cities to decide where to apply for jobs, and we were fucking floored when we saw how expensive Boston was.

Why the fuck is rent more than NYC and SF??? It was literally over $1000 more per month than the other cities on our list including DC, Seattle, and Chicago.

[-] crime@hexbear.net 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

So the thing with the Boston rental market is it depends on what time of year you're looking. Like 75% of Boston leases open on Sept. 1 and end on August 31. Most apartments come on the market for the current year in the first 3 months of the year (Jan/Feb/March) so if you're looking outside of that time window there's much less available and the prices are higher.

Edit: There's also no rent control which helps nothing

[-] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 10 points 4 months ago

Why the fuck does the Boston rental market work the same way as my shitty little college town

[-] enkifish@hexbear.net 15 points 4 months ago

Because Boston is the biggest, shittiest, college town in the country.

[-] crime@hexbear.net 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Because Boston is actually like 20 colleges in a trench coat

On the plus side, Allston Christmas rules

[-] TheDeed@hexbear.net 1 points 3 months ago

You literally cannot even get through traffic hardly around the week that college students are moving in in Boston

[-] TheDeed@hexbear.net 1 points 3 months ago

Boston is so expensive

[-] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 11 points 4 months ago

DC is very walkable. The metro is slightly less extensive than NYC but is way more reliable imo and also not nasty.

[-] egg1918@hexbear.net 13 points 4 months ago

But the NYC subway is free the-more-you-know

[-] Owl@hexbear.net 9 points 4 months ago

Seattle's downtown, Fremont, and Ballard neighborhoods. But be careful because each of those extend past the walkable area (like Fremont and Ballard extend past their walkable area and include straight up suburbs).

[-] hypercracker@hexbear.net 20 points 4 months ago

There are also pockets of most major cities that are walkable. Unfortunately it isn't easy to know where they are unless you live there. The only clue is to look at places that are within 1 block of grocery stores, which is probably the top constraint.

[-] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 11 points 4 months ago

There's https://www.walkscore.com/ but it can be both too critical and too lax when rating some places.

[-] Kestrel@hexbear.net 12 points 4 months ago

Developers have been using walkscore as a marketing tool for years. The correlation between the score and places that have gentrified or are gentrifying is pretty significant.

[-] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 11 points 4 months ago

I am not surprised. ooooooooooooooh

[-] spectre@hexbear.net 3 points 4 months ago

That's also the nature of urban development in the United States. Highly walkable areas are gonna correlate with those that are getting all the "revitalization funds" that build new infrastructure. We already know that American cities don't want to invest in the areara as they exist.

[-] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 2 points 4 months ago

Tbf the correlation between places that are walkable and places that have gentrified is pretty significant

[-] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 17 points 4 months ago

If I had to be stuck in the great satan forever, I would bust a fat nut if I could live in San Francisco or Honolulu.

how do i acclimate to yurt culture instead

[-] john_browns_beard@hexbear.net 15 points 4 months ago

I'm hurtin for a yurtin

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 4 months ago

That's past yurting 101 isn't it?

[-] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 4 months ago

I suppose so. I'm sure they offer beginner's courses, but it's probably not worth it unless you want to get into yurting as a career.

[-] axont@hexbear.net 13 points 4 months ago

I've been trying for over a year now but getting a job anywhere but here seems impossible. I've been trying to save up some cash as a buffer, but I have an ok job already where I am. I'd want to move to Philly, but have no friends or contacts there at all. No clue what the job market is like either since I can't get any responses to my applications.

Maybe someday I'll make it work, but it's a struggle right now.

[-] pixelghost@hexbear.net 11 points 4 months ago

I'm genuinely a much happier, healthier, and overall more satisfied person now that I live in a walkable city and can bike as both a hobby and a mode of transport. I wish more cities in the US were this dense. I wish this was more accessible to people.

Maybe someday. Things seem to be moving in a generally positive direction, even if slowly. I've recently realized just how effective local activism and showing up to community meetings is (spoiler: VERY.)

[-] Grandpa_garbagio@hexbear.net 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Same that's why I'm posting about it. Without even meaning to im walking like 4 miles a day and I feel great.

Lived in shitty small towns in the south my whole life, just incomparable

[-] AernaLingus@hexbear.net 10 points 4 months ago

I had to go to the exurbs recently for something and Jesus Christ, I can't believe people willingly subject themselves to that shit just so they can have a big house

this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
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