I think it helps to have a nuanced opinion and make sure we don't spiral into an echo chamber. For my example, I've found that lefties are able to identify a lot of the right problems, it's just that they think gay space communism is the solution to it.
For instance, I completely agree that North American cities are really stupidly designed. The car-centric nature of them means you're stranded if your vehicle breaks down. The fact that you have to go into debt to buy this big stupid box to navigate your own city is ridiculous in the first place.
But when it comes to their solutions for this they can't separate their stupid idpol nonsense from it. My local city government keeps talking about "equitable solutions" to traffic and pedestrian fatalities. Typical "world ending, women most affected" type stuff.
Plus they keep droning on about high density housing which absolutely no one wants to live in. in their utopia we'd all live in depressing Soviet-style block apartments.
It has to do with there being zero pedestrian infrastructure.
Wide sidewalks, crosswalks and skywalks aren't enough for you? What do you want, no roads at all?
City Urban Libral Type energy right there.
There are plenty of places tbat qualify as "city" without being the huge urban megacities, that do not consistently have sidewalks, etc.
I'm well aware of that, but does every street need to be 100% pedestrian? Does every alleyway? Why do beltways need sidewalks when you're not really expected to walk from place to place in them?
Is every urbanite a backpacker now?
I can't walk to the nearest grocery store without getting on the shoulder of a road people are driving 60 on in a number of towns I've been to. That's fucking goofy.
Sidewalks and bigger lanes in general would be a road improvement in most urban areas.
If people can feasibly walk to a place I don't want them on the shoulder and playing frogger to do it, instead of staying in marked and controlled crosswalks and sidewalks. Bikes shouldn't be getting in the way of cars, either - but you need more than a foot wide "bike lane" on the shoulder, that is often featuring broken glass and car detritus, to get them out of the way.
This. Or there’s only sidewalk on one side, or the sidewalks don’t connect so you can’t actually get anywhere.
Boulder has it pretty good: mixed pedestrian and bike road alongside the road, very wide, with a hard divider.
My neighborhood has no sidewalks at all.
Neither does mine, and it's because it's in an effectively zero-traffic area. People just walk on the street. Kids ride their bikes in the street. Lots of them, every day. Because it's a nice place to walk because there's no traffic.
If you're claiming that you're in a busy area that also has no sidewalks ... well, I'm just going to not believe you.
So you'll just plug your ears and pretend I'm lying? What a silly thing to pretend there aren't busy roads without sidewalks all over the US.
You can’t rely on pedestrian and public transit infrastructure when your city is overrun with “diversity”. Violence and crime literally follow public transit wherever it goes. That’s the reason why America doesn’t invest in these areas like Europe does.
Even Euroids are giving up on walking, if that Bluesky picture of cars parked on their narrow, walkable roads is any indication.