It is also surprisingly easy for Americans to relocate here if they are in a tech career (keyword: highly-skilled migrant) or remote-working/entrepreneurial (keyword: Dutch-American Friendship Treaty). It's even possible to keep paying an income tax rate similar to that of the USA for the first 5 years. Might even be a lower total income tax rate if you're coming from a high-tax state like CA/OR/NY (keyword: 30% ruling).
Some advantages: safety (both in terms of infrastructure and crime); affordable high-quality universal healthcare; efficient government bureaucracy; fast and easy travel throughout the entire country and to France, Germany and the rest of Europe; relaxed attitudes toward dogs compared to the US (generally off-leash friendly and dogs can go into most shops & cafes)
Some disadvantages: higher cost-of-living and lower salaries compared to the US; narrower variety of consumer products (food, clothing, etc.) available than in the US/UK; many say it's difficult to make Dutch friends, especially if you don't speak Dutch (though on the flip side, this effect makes it exceedingly easy to make expat friends); terrain is mostly flat; weather sucks compared to California; many find the Dutch language difficult to learn in spite of (or because of?) its similarities to English
No idea what that measure is; I have strong doubts, because as much as the Dutch do indeed have a very strong command of English as a second language, we're really not native speakers, and can be very confidently wrong about idiom or pronunciation, even if we may be better at grammar than many native speakers (your/you're; their/they're/there; could of; etc).
That said, we've got a rather extreme housing shortage at the moment, and just this week I read about foreign students who are homeless or living in tents because there's literally nothing else, so I don't think we can actually accommodate a large influx of North Americans seeking better infrastructure. Focusing on fixing your own country is probably better for everybody in the long run.
Trust me, you have no monopoly on being confidently wrong, I'm in the US and have spent significant time in the Netherlands, and it's my opinion that the Dutch have better English skills than most in the US, precisely because it is learned formally. Many people in the US absorb little from the study of English as a language during education.
The "efficient government bureaucracy" is only /relatively/ efficient, but yeah, it's actually less of a hassle as an expat than the Canadian system was as a citizen. The best part is that almost everything can be done online through websites that do not suck, but when you interact with a human they are firm but fair and always pleasant (my sunny disposition may contribute to this). There are no parasitic companies like TurboTax (which should not even exist!). Even in the year I bought a house I could complete my taxes by clicking "next" a bunch of times, because all of the numbers were already there.
Speaking of taxes, I feel like I get what I pay for: great (and always improving!) infrastructure, no violence, pervasive poverty, and ever-growing tent cities. The cost of living is higher because the quality of life is higher. When I visited Seattle a couple of years ago I was astounded by the street-level dystopia.
The biggest difficulty in learning the Dutch language is that the Dutch instantly switch to English when they notice you're not a native speaker. :)
NYC is very public transportation-oriented. The Northeast corridor Amtrak line also is a big boon!
The U.S. definitely has a range of insanely-awful to decent-enough with small now-premium-priced pockets of great bits (which are almost always pre-car neighborhoods that somehow were spared destruction).
People like personal transportation and big detached houses with yards. Car-centric cities are the price we pay for these things. Personally I think it's worth the trade-off, I would have spent the same money on my 2000sqft house as a <400sqft apartment, and having kids and a dog would have been entirely impractical.
The problem is that only the car centric city exists. Nice walkable places are in extremely short supply and fetch a premium, and so there exist people who buy into the detached house, car centric lifestyle because it is the only thing available at their price point. It is illegal to build the traditional way in most of the country’s land. And making it simply legal to build does not mean that the people who like this lifestyle will be forced to densify.
I think those are some objectives we can all rally behind.
I feel it's more like people are conditioned ro like those things. The first time I visited America, I went to my friend's place. It was just homes with big backyards and nothing else. Coming from india, I was frankly disappointed. Staying in a city now and frankly it has much more charecter than those places
It is also interesting that you mention kids. Amongst the poorer and the elderly children are kids the main group to really suffer from the car centric design of cities. Essentially, you completely restrict their mobility, preventing them to move around on their own accord and instead making them relent on parents to drive them somewhere. I would not be surprised if this significantly contributes to the problems of children becoming less and less resilient and independent.
Then why are even small houses in walkable neighbourhoods so expensive? Maybe not everyone wants to live like that, but there's clearly demand for that kind of living too. Let's build some for people who want it.
Location
Location
Location
These small houses are pretty much all necessarily in urban areas and the prices reflects what overpaid doctors lawyers and techies are willing to pay for convenience. The not un-walkable suburbs that are roughly the same distance from the city centers suffer pretty much the same price increase for the same reason.
Maybe people don’t even like Personal transport that much, maybe they only use it because of the lack of suitable alternatives? Maybe many people don’t have the „single family home whatever it takes“ attitude and would much prefer a suitable apartment in a somewhat dense walkable neighborhood? It’s no coincidence that the few relatively quiet very walkable neighborhoods often are the most desired places in a city, even here in German cities where the issue is nowhere near as extreme as it is in the US.
Also, car dependency is not just a city planning issue. Car dependency increases the risk of obesity and often results in overall bad health. And what about the kids? Children are totally dependent on their parents for anything transport related until they can drive themselves. Cycling doesn’t seem to be encouraged, let alone walking. Public transport maybe works for school, but rarely for leisure activities. How do you want to raise independent adults if they are totally dependent on you for something as basic as transportation?
People like these houses so much we have to pass laws banning other types of homes on most of our residential land.
Gotta make sure they don't accidentally demand the wrong type of housing!
It sounds like there’s a pressure group distorting the market and preventing people from expressing their preferences.
Fairly convincing actually.
In contrast, some countries like Germany or Japan don't have that type of zoning anywhere in the entire country. Of course, they still have many single family homes, you're just not required to live in one if you want to live on a particular street.
I don't want to get into the justifications for mandatory SFH zoning, but the results are pretty clear: it makes walking, biking and transit worse (and thus makes people less healthy and fatter); it results in economic segregation, as a working class family can't move to an affluent area by moving into a smaller home there, because smaller homes there are illegal; lastly, it means higher housing costs, because you can't put as much housing in a given area to meet demand (this also tends to increase commute times, as people go further out from the job center area to reduce costs).
They put a lot of nice words on a lot of very bad results.
Meanwhile, very-dense-by-US-standards cities like Vienna and Munich often top the charts for quality of life. And I can attest to that myself: Munich felt very nice and comfortable to live in. It had far less crime than the US average, you were less likely to get hit by a car, people were much healthier, you had actual options to get around, etc. It was pleasant to be in the city in a way that is rare in the US.
I would argue that neighborhood character is prioritizing people. It's prioritizing the ones who live there already, who have built their town into a desirable location, and want to protect what they have. It's about prioritizing a connection with others that you would lose with higher density. There's nothing wrong with that, and I would argue those are very good results.
> Meanwhile, very-dense-by-US-standards cities like Vienna and Munich often top the charts for quality of life.
Based on what opinion? Self-reported opinions of European residents? Why are those a useful measure? It may just be they simply don't know their lives could be better elsewhere or that they have a low bar for quality of life or that they simply hold a different set of preferences culturally. I've traveled and lived all over the world, and have spent a lot of time in both Vienna and Munich. They're fine, but to me they're not amazing and they don't strike me as having a great quality of life. I did appreciate high speed rail providing easy access to other cities and countries. But locally, I didn't feel life was happier or better - rather it felt like these were dull, boring cities that lacked the character of American towns that many people appreciate. To me they felt culturally repressed, with less of an entrepreneurial or lively spirit, and life felt a lot like living in a limited sandbox. That's not surprising, since the urbanist push to design lives within 15 minutes necessarily means living with a small set of hyper-local choices.
> you were less likely to get hit by a car, people were much healthier, you had actual options to get around
There is no rational basis for living in fear of getting hit by a car. It is just something that is exceedingly rare in America. Health is also orthogonal and dependent on so many other factors, including personal choice and priorities. Everyone can certainly choose to be healthy while living a car-centric lifestyle, if they wanted. As for options to get around - cars are the ultimate option, because they give you far more freedom to go where you want, when you want.
No. It is prioritizing the loud ones over everyone else. Also, most people don't understand what makes a good city and have hardly seen anywhere else. They just want other people to pay for their unchanging city.
> There is no rational basis for living in fear of getting hit by a car.
This is so completely wrong. In the US, you have lifetime odds of death in a crash of 1 in 106. That is just for death--the odds of getting struck by a driver are MUCH MUCH higher. That could include permanent injury.
It's actually 1 in 107, but nonetheless, that's terrifying.
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-o...
Introduce an apartment building and the aesthetic changes — lots more people around, more cars on the road, more congestion at the grocery store, less privacy in the yard. Or so the theory goes.
Not to mention cheaper housing nearby might lower your property value.
> whole heap ahead of the US
That's a very low bar to clear, come on.
The next step (Amsterdam, Copenhagen) is to ride around in black, with no lights, while drunk.
Was also a bit confused why Britain and Ireland are not considered by the parent. Sure, they do not have as good cycling infrastructure as the Netherlands. But both of them are equally good at being pedestrian friendly - exactly what has been asked - and I'd say are even more pedestrian friendly than most European countries.
Why? Convenience, flexibility, ability to haul a family.
Cars certainly aren’t a requirement if you have good walkability and/transit, but given the choice many people prefer cars.
But I hate using it for day-to-day tasks. For me, it's a machine that lets me take fun trips on the weekend, or go see family in their car-dependent towns and cities. If I want to go to a brewery, or stop by the post office, or shop for a few small items, or just go to a park, I would literally always rather do it on my bike or on foot. Driving around cities is miserable.
Of course cars are convenient for some things. I live in a city where the majority of households has access to a car, but only a quarter of the trips (accounting for 40% of the traveled distance) are made by car. I still consider the city to be built very car-centric, but it's a wholly different world from what I experienced when visiting the US.
This is a massive over-generalization that pretty much only applies to the suburbs that were built out in the 1950s and 1960s mostly in the southern half of the country. As those suburbs have densified over the decades (where allowed by law, so not the southwest) some of them have become pretty darn walk-able.
Only the rich own cars. Or those that live outside the urban core.
Welcome to our future if Strongtowns has a say.
BTW, it's already kind of true that only the rich own cars, car ownership correlates very strongly with household income.
Of course it correlates. Rich households can afford more cars per person and can indulge in specialized vehicles (e.g commuter car).
Rich families have a sedan for each commuting parent and maybe another less specialized car (e.g. minivan or 3-row SUV) that only sees weekend use. Poor families pile into a Saturn.
That the ability of the poor family to own and operate that Saturn confers a far greater standard of living jump than cars 2-N do for the rich family. It also has a much greater impact on the health of the broader economy.
To intentionally place monetary constraints on vehicle ownership would be unwise because you have to price out all the poor before you start making meaningful dents in the (relatively) wealthy professionals who commute across the inner suburbs and into urban environments.
I, too, live in a country with high quality transit and also got a car when i had a family and i could afford a car.
i have about 1400 km per year on it. having a car and driving it are two different things.
And I'd probably still keep to taxis in the city, can't be arsed to drive :D
Nope.
When given the choice between bad bike/walking infrastructure and cars, people prefer cars. But when you give them good infrastructure, many prefer bikes.
People like being able to walk and bike places too, IF the walk and bike options are actually decent (in terms of safety/comfort and distance).
And people certainly don't like getting fat, and yet there's a strong link between car-dominant infrastructure and weight. Surprise surprise, getting exercise as part of your transportation is a lot more reliable than getting exercise as leisure.
People might like their cars for the freedom of movement they provide - like being able to transport cargo without a headache; being able to go on a weekend trip with family; etc. But they certainly don't like their cars for having to spend 2 hours a day just to get to their workplace and back home.
They tolerate it.
That's why manuals are dying, that's why cars now HAVE to have things preventing distracted drivers from dying, that's why autopiloted car manufacturers are swimming in money thrown at them by everyone despite showing no results.
Should you ask why they tolerate it - the reason is very simple. The alternatives - cycling and public transport - have seen close to none of investments in the past decades all over the world. And therefore provide a horrible and humiliating experience to its users.
Also, the focus on cars allowed many cities and even countries to get lazy at planning and providing equal infrastructure to all districts. Having a smaller school in your neighbourhood is better for the kids - they could go there by themselves with friends and not spend much time doing nothing in traffic everyday. But because everyone has cars government will do the cheaper thing and build a bigger school that isn't convenient to anyone.
People shouldn't have to drive everyday.
All neighbourhoods should have adequate commercial and infrastructural exposure on the spot. No driving to school, groceries or GP. And when you have to commute, alternatives to driving should provide a better experience. Then many people would opt not to drive even if commute is needed, and therefore people like me - who like to drive - would have the roads free of traffic jams and distracted drivers, and be able to actually enjoy the experience.
The same way most of South Korea, including low density zones is built using large apartment blocks... because that's just what works for the country and there's no such thing as being a jack of all trades.
I've disliked the apples to oranges and emotional bias present in those videos since the start. But people eat it up. Shame.
If you're outraged after watching his videos, it's not his fault, it's the fault of your city planners.
1. Views. Usually boosted by getting bandwagoned on a place like Reddit. High viewed videos pop up everywhere, irrelevant or not.
2. Feel good factor, which sprouts from feeling like you learnt something new or can change the world now.
3. Emotional mob mentality. People refuse to believe things are the way they are for anything other than "bad design" or "someone did it wrong". Capitalising on this, is factor three.
Some videos fill these 3 boxes and they just show up time and time again, EVERYWHERE. It's the algorithm of the internet, and YouTube loves to lead it.
If your issue is that you play a video then just keep watching whatever YT shows you next and it's sometimes this person, then I'm not sure if this solves that problem since I don't do this personally
As another poster said there is a way to get YouTube to stop recommending the channel to you. Use that instead.
Sidenote: i think it's hilarious that it's consistently the car lovers that think NJB is trash. Loving cars immediately must mean that his high quality, well researched content is "trash". Not something you personally dislike, not something you disagree with, no no, the worst trash in the world.
I guess disliking that channel is a useful shibboleth to spot the guy driving an SUV.
Why is it surprising that people who love cars don't like a channel that basically says you're a bad person if you don't think cars should be abolished?
In fact, they shared a video just three weeks ago about how non-car-centered cities are _better_ to drive in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k
Car-centric designs for cities makes living in cities worse, _even for people who like cars_.
The thesis of Strong Towns isn't that we should ban cars, it's that we should stop _subsidizing_ something that we know is bad for us (in economic terms, health terms, quality-of-life terms, and in ecological terms)
And if you care about well-maintained roads, it helps if your roads are actually maintainable, and for that, it helps if they're efficient and well-designed. I've read a lot about the poor state of infrastructure in the US, and agree with calls to invest more in infrastructure, but it's been Strong Towns, NJB and similar channels that made me realise why US infrastructure is struggling: it's inefficiently designed, making it way too expensive to maintain. The entire past 70 years of US suburban development is apparently build on massive amounts of debt, which has sent several cities into bankruptcy. If you don't want your cities to go bankrupt, you need more efficient infrastructure. And stroads are clearly not that.
He repeatedly bashes city centric planning and is a huge advocate for alternatives modes of transport. But to my knowledge he never even implied such a thing. In fact he even shared some videos around driving in the Netherlands and how he still used cars in some circumstances
>It's an information channel that mostly shows you how things work in the Netherlands and makes the case that it's a better way than the idiotic car-centric north American way.
Yes. Comparing apples to oranges. What an outrage! My apples have less vitamin C! How dare they.
>If you're outraged after watching his videos
I'm not. But the majority who do watch the video are. It's his fault. The same way people are outraged at many things unjustly after watching a video filled with bias.
What i am is pleased to have learned a lot about dutch urban design. If anything outrages me, it's how you keep insisting this channel "compares" anything when all it does is showcases dutch cities, and once in a while complains about specific issues in his hometown of London ON.
I think it's reality that's outrageous, and it's people like NJB and Strong Towns that are pointing out it could be better, they are pointing out how to make it better. People are outraged because they realise how bad their infrastructure is, and how much better it could be. That's a positive, constructive type of outrage. It's not just fomenting anger for its own sake (as indeed happens way too often in other media).
If someone told you that it can't be better, and it was the truth, you'd get pretty outraged at them when another person claimed that it was all just bad design and that they didn't want you to have the better thing.
It's pretty obvious when you have no emotion to channel.
Comparing apples to oranges is an easy way to get anyone upset. After all, who wouldn't want both?