Can North America Have Walkable Cities? | Responding to Linus Tech Tips
Can North America Have Walkable Cities? | Responding to Linus Tech Tips
Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/rmtransit-can-north-america-have-walkable-cities When my favourite YouTuber (Linus of LinusTechTips) had a hot take on cities and transit this week I knew it was time for a reaction video of my own, so check out my latest video on why hop...
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Why does anyone watch Linus Tech Tips? I watched his hot takes videos for context and he comes off as such an idiot. Last time his name made the rounds was when he was surprised deleting his desktop graphics makes the computer start up in text mode. (In that video, he had to dismiss several warnings, including one that made him type out with words exactly what he wanted to happen, and then complained he wasn't warned...) But he has like 5 million subscribers.
I also didn't really think RMTransit's rebuttal was very strong. He barely addressed the main issue of Klanadian cities being too spread out and lacking in services and destination density.
One thing he said is that if you build a bike network, people will start using it, and the quality of the individual bike paths is something that should be addressed afterwards. But I disagree strongly, if the bike path is unsafe or unpleasant, it doesn't matter how theoretically complete the network is, no one will want to use it twice. In Europe, we don't have bike networks. We have safe streets and pleasant streets. People try really hard to avoid biking next to car traffic. Car noise is probably the main reason anyone has to avoid biking.
The main point of it not being too late stands. But again, he argues this by talking about Amsterdam (one globally small city) in the 60s and contrasting it to today. But he characterises that comparison as a 30 year project. It isn't, it's 50 years, and in the 50 years that have elapsed, Vancouver has continued to develop towards cars. Amsterdam in the 60s had fewer giant viaducts, it had denser neighbourhoods, more corner stores, it didn't have any massive urban sprawl. It does get harder if you pivot later. Just because they managed in 30 years doesn't mean the same effort and approaches would fix Vancouver in 30 years. Not to mention Amsterdam is very far from good right now.
I feel a lot of western-left, liberal YouTubers are very afraid of rallying behind new technology and radical redevelopment. It makes sense, because if you live in a capitalist country, a massive redevelopment project will inevitably be usurped by capital interest. But asking for smaller and smaller concessions isn't a solution either.
His employees are pretty good. Alex, Anthony, etc. They have relevant degrees and know what they're talking about when it comes to technology and engineering. Frankly, they should kick Linus to the curb and start their own tech channel.
I agree with your assessment on RMTransit, I've heard a lot of people say he's "too woke" but really he isn't woke enough. We should be doing like China and completely transforming our cities, essentially restarting from scratch and building something with people oriented planning from day one. It'll be even easier for is because we really don't have any historic cultural stuff worth preserving and building around, yeah we have old colonial era buildings and cathedrals but IMO they deserve no protection from the demolition ball, because we sadly have no indigenous buildings or villages still standing, which would have been worth protecting if they still existed. Also, while displacing immigrants and BIPOC is a major concern, I will be losing no sleep over the displacement of the upper middle class white crackers that plague Vancouver.