#urbansprawl — Public Fediverse posts

@crazyeddie @aworkinglibrary
It is probably about car dependency, car-centered areas. Like in the US where in many towns without a car one would struggle to do anything: getting to the grocery store, getting back from the store, reaching the other river bank as many bridges are motor vehicles only.

People can’t live without cars in such places. Even food banks have huge lines of cars, four "lanes". Some homeless people drive cars as well. Imagine the closest grocery store being 1 hour walking distance away, and the weather may be extremely hot/cold.

Many such areas don’t even have sidewalks or anything for walking at all. At the same time so called "jay-walking" is prohibited by law. The term "jaywalking" actually was invented by the cars lobby in the early 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking
Moving around by walking is extremely inconvenient, dangerous, taking ridiculous amounts of time, basically incompatible with everyday activities.

Also the parking lots, roads, intersections take up huge chunks of the city. Consider how much longer it takes to walk somewhere compared to what it could be without all these. Urban areas could look very different if they were human-centered and Points Of Interest were packed tightly.

And the bigger the city, the more space car infrastructure takes up. More lanes, wider intersections, parking lots can have up to many thousands spots, highways, freeways, interchanges of ridiculous sizes and shapes.

The topic is huge, what I mentioned is just the tip. Think of what you see around every day. Also all the noise. And danger it brings to everyone, not just drivers. The number of so called "accidents", another convenient term for the horrible things that happen everyday.

The areas which are pedestrian-friendly, bicycle friendly, have public transportation tend to have happier residents, more attraction points, more small businesses, more street life, way better air quality, less noise among other benefits.
Also social connections and interaction happen there and not on a 4-lane highway.

#Cars #Car #City #Urban #Streets
#Cities #CarFree #Roads #CarDependancy #StreetLife #Safety #Bycicles #Walking #UrbanSprawl #OneMoreLane #InducedTraffic #PublicTransport #PublicTransit #Access #PublicTransportation #Accessibility #Accessible #PublicSpaces #Socialization #Capitalism #Subsidies #Lobbying #WordsMatter #History #CarsAreDangerous #FuckCars

How "federal policies increase debt and home size — and thereby sprawl": https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/how-the-government-built-the-american-dream-house

#housing #taxBreaks #mortgage #wealth #realEstate #assets #ownership #property #realEstate #insurance #loans #debt #taxes #urbanSprawl #policy #homeLoans

Excerpt from "Tragic Details About #ModestMouse" from 2023...

#IsaacBrock suffers from #EcoAnxiety

"Isaac Brock has long been vehemently opposed to #urbanization and the #DestructionOfNature, and these have remained central lyrical themes going back to the band's earliest material (per Paste Magazine). As Healthline notes, such feelings of frustration towards environmentally destructive practices, anger at the seeming inevitability of #ClimateChange, and fear for the Earth's future are called eco-anxiety –- and Brock has been suffering from it for years.

"In Pitchfork's 2012 '#LonesomeCrowdedWest' documentary, he described living in Washington State in the '90s as having a 'front-row seat to watching #forests disappearing and #UrbanSprawl begin,' lamenting the constant clearing of natural places to make way for #StripMalls. In fact, he was still thinking about it in 2021 when he told Uproxx that his childhood home regularly flooded due to forest #clearcutting.

"Many Modest Mouse songs center on shameless human destruction, with the 2015 hit '#LampshadesOnFire' -– in which Brock sings about mankind going to space to find a new planet after destroying Earth -– serving as a notable example. But in recent years, he's making an effort to focus on the positive, as evidenced by hopeful songs like 'The Sun Hasn't Left,' in which he sings, 'You're not wrong, things are a mess but there's still something left.' 'I found optimism where it actually existed because I needed it,' he told NME in 2021, adding, 'Y'know, I got three kids ... I don't think s***'s gonna get easier for everyone.' "

Read More: https://www.grunge.com/1159159/tragic-details-about-modest-mouse/

#Songwriting #HopePunk #ClimateCrisis #ForestsAreLife

A New Tool To Characterise The Socio-Environmental Dimensions Of Urban Rivers: Urban River Socio-Environmental Index
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2025.105388 <-- shared paper
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#GIS #spatial #mapping #EnvironmentalEvaluation #SocioEcosystem #SocialConnectivity #UrbanRiver #Indicators #RiverRestoration #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal #water #hydrology #urban #stream #ecosystem #cities #residents #community #nature #humanimpacts #artifical #engineered #URBS #watershed #drainage #management #restoration #geomorphology #hydrogeomorphology #ecology #urbansprawl #interdisciplinary #biophysical #social #community #France #Paris #MorbrasRiver #macroinvertebrates #riparian #vegetation #reaches #typology #landscape #landuse #landcover #variety #blandscaping

@jd
Also be really careful about extreme immigration levels.

The #ChristianRight and elite groups have been known to abuse immigration as a way to boost church numbers. There are pro-migration groups that go to countries to find Christian's that they can "sponsor", while working for slaveWages in the new country.

They claim they are helping to uplift people but are often abusing them.

#humanTrafficking #urbanSprawl #housingSpeculation #migrationLobbyists