The first, is it smacks of forced urbanization. As I have stated before there are those of us who do not do well among people, who would rather spend time in a garden and growing our own food, walking among trees, and peeing off the front porch. You cannot do that in an urban environment. Well you could in the last instance but, let's be civilized. The point is we like our privacy and would rather be in a small community than a large one where (according to the news), crime is running rampid.
And while people live in rural areas for whatever reason there's likely never going to be a reliable transit system, because the govt. and other entities who run them will never, ever see a profit of sending buses hourly on an extra 20 mile loop that would be mostly if not all the way empty. But say that happens, what about their shopping? Many transit buses do not have a a trunkload of space for groceries or other supplies a homeowner might need. And I know there must be a regulation against carrying flammable liquids on their busses.
Then we have our houses. And here you might have a point. A lot of us are getting too old to keep up our houses, most of us do not live in generational houses, but here we are. We have houses full of memories, and it's hard to put a price on memories. I know the same can be said for apartment dwellers (who can afford those condos with their HOAs) that feel t he same way. But out here in rural country, we look out our kitchen windows and can remember our children playing, we can marvel at the shade tree we planted in the backyard, or even pick a piece of fruit off our own fruit tree. Can you do that in an urban area? As for me personally, I look out and I see acres of trees, my trees, the ones that clean the air we breathe, the same ones that will be cut in a couple of decades to help build houses or maybe even a tree house. The exact same trees that were planted when they were last cut. And while I'm out surveying the land, I have a year round creek which needs investigating (just ask my great grandson). And it also provides water for the wildlife and near-tamed deer which mysteriously disappear during hunting season and return when the season is over...
Then there is the air quality, sure we have to put up with pollen, but, most urban dwellers have not experienced the after rain smell of a forest. Which brings us to the urban areas are noisy and they stink. Stink worse than the skunks I have wondering the property. The urban areas have large rats, larger than the opossums that visit me.
Aside from the Rodentia, there is another kind of rat, the two-legged kind. The ones that escape from the city, comes to the rural areas for a vacation, and not only complains that we're not like the urban area with their amenities but (and this is worse) have no respect for their surroundings as they leave traces (trash) laying where they have been. Sure country folk can and do the same, but, there are more visitors than residents, and after every summer weekend there needs to be a push to clean the areas that the urbanites visit. I guess you can call that job security. The good news about the urbanites is they do stupid things like want to pet the wildlife (and complain when skunks spray them) take a hike in nothing but tennis shoes, a t-shirt and shorts, and get lost because they do not know the area. I call it Darwinism at work, the official wording is search and rescue, the R&S costs the county money, yet, does the rescued urbanite pay, nope it is their right to be rescued and will possibly scream at their rescuers about not getting their sooner...
Well you get the picture.
The second thing that I find wrong, is you say the Saturn is rusting in the driveway. Saturn's do not rust, Their bodies are a form of plastic. And when driven on a regular basis (any car will suffer in parked in the field for years) is as reliable (maybe even moreso with all the recalls I see) than many newer vehicles. I know I have a 1990 Saturn that I drive on a regular basis, and it still gets 35+mpg on road trips (not so big in today's terms but practically unhear of in those days). And I find whatever repairs I need to make on the Saturn is cheaper than many newer used cars. So bad example. But in case you're worrying about the Saturn, I know people who live rurally that would be glad to get it out of your sight when the time comes.
Guys, 75% of North Americans live in the suburbs. If people want to live in the country or the forest, it is a choice. I am talking about a different lifestyle choice, one that tries to deal with the 7 to 10 years when people live after they have lost their drivers licences.
OK, you say 75% of North Americans live in the 'burbs. Another 19.7% live in "rural" areas, however the government wants to define that. That leaves a whopping 5.3% who live in dense urban centers with the accessibility benefits you tout should be the norm for everyone. And of those 5.3%, "lifestyle choice" will and does change once they reach a certain age and the body wears out, even if riding on a bus (good luck getting up the steps with bad knees and lack of flexibility) or subway (stepping across the gap could be problematic, as would taking the stairs up to ground level.)
As I said above, the world is not designed for old people, never has been and never will. As fewer people marry and have kids, traditional family structures where kids or grandkids could help care for the elderly disappear. It's a slow motion, complex situation that no one is prepared for, which is why robotics and AI are such a hot topic right now. They may be exactly the solution that is needed to keep aging Boomers and (eventually) Gen Xers in their homes, wherever that may be.
"...rather than planning for alternatives which work for everyone."
THIS I want to hear - alternatives that work for EVERYONE ALL THE TIME ANYWHERE. However, in reading your post, Lloyd, the only takeaway was "throw away your keys" without supplying alternatives for EVERYONE.
"Instead, we should be targeting neighbourhood accessibility and reducing auto dependence for all. “Enacting such policies also shifts the conversation from one of reducing possibilities (i.e., giving up onés independence) to expanding community amenities and opportunities with increasingly age-friendly community design.”"
I'll ask you like I did a commenter in another post (but differently) - how would YOU expand community amenities for rural area and make them work, as your subtitle boasted?
It's not even the rural areas, Grok—let's stick with the 'burbs as Lloyd is wont to highlight.
According to Columbia University, suburban areas are defined as those having a population density of 100 to 10,000 per km2 (an unusually broad metric if you ask me.) Other governmental agencies suggest densities from approximately 695 to 772 per sq km (1800 - 2000 per sq mi.) It's difficult to financially sustain any system of transit to serve all those people. Here in Phoenix, the greater metro area covers 14,599 sq mi (37,811 sq km.) Bus service is sporadic and typically travels only certain "major" arteries like Bell Road, Camelback, and others—which means that for many people they need to travel the better part of at least a mile to the nearest bus stop, and then do so on a schedule which can see service highly reduced to near nothing during evening and night hours. How efficient is it for elderly people to (presumably) walk more than a mile to a bus stop, then spend hours traveling to their destination, all while hoping that they can carry on a "normal" social life as they enjoyed during younger years before the bus schedule makes it necessary to call an Uber or Lyft?
I like to eat. Not only that, I like to eat a lot of different ethnic cuisines. Parts of Phoenix "specialize" in certain ethnicities; my local area has more Indian restaurants than most anywhere else in the Valley thanks to the large number of Indian immigrants who moved here for jobs at Honeywell and other engineering companies. If I didn't live where I do and wanted to partake in a nice Indian dinner, I likely would have to devote 4+ hours to travel by bus to get to one of the various Indian restaurants. NO ONE IS GOING TO DO THAT … certainly not when, as a "more mature" individual, you could dial up an Uber and be there in 20 minutes.
So what's the solution? Be more diverse through densification? As you say, the answer is a resounding "no". It took someone to come up with the idea of recruiting people wishing to have a side hustle to create Uber, and now it's not just a taxi service but also food delivery service. No one saw that coming, and it allows for optimizing the ONE thing that everyone (including Lloyd) is ignoring in the discussion: TIME.
Time is what people want; time to spend relaxing at home, time to enjoy a leisurely meal with family or friends, time to get the kids to a game practice, time to take in a movie or theater performance, time to get to the doctor's office, etc. Even those ridiculous "15-minute cities" understand the importance of time to peoples' lives. But UNLIKE those ridiculous "15-minute cities", the 'burbs allow aging people to stay where they are, with what's familiar, and WITHOUT the flattening of suburban residential areas to reconstruct it into Amsterdam 2.0 (none of which would ever be economically feasible in the first place.)
Until and unless the issue of time can be better resolved when considering urban densification and aging, this is all a moot point.
My Dad (75 years old) came over to visit me in Belgium a couple of years ago and borrowed an e-bike to get around our town on the outskirts of Brussels. He loved it. When I suggested he look into getting an e-bike to get around his hometown of Mississauga it was a flat no. Too dangerous. I think he's right but those streets are so wide it would be really easy to build protected bike lanes. It seems like such low-hanging fruit.
There was an English study that showed how the suburbs and cities like Mississauga could be saved by e-bikes; there is room for infrastructure and they eat up the miles. But it is scary on the roads!
It's terrifying on those roads. They look like runways - wide, flat and straight. But my goodness, I just can't help but see the potential staring me in the face if there were just a modicum of ambition or vision at municipal level.
An extremely small part of the population lives in very high density major cities like NYC or London—both of which offer the amenities (dare I say, luxuries?) of tons of public transit and diverse offerings of dining, entertainment, education, and retail. Everyone else? Not so much.
When Lloyd writes, "we should be targeting neighbourhood accessibility and reducing auto dependence for all" that really is a specialized goal which doesn't fit with the vast majority of housing stock in the U.S. or Canada, to say nothing of other locations around the world. The root issue is that the world wasn't designed for old people—we used to die off at far earlier ages before medical advances and innovation changed that. And for more than 100 years now our cities have spread outwards into vast suburbs with low population density relative to urban centers.
We're not going to change that, period. Stop worrying how to turn suburbs into NYC and look to mobility and accessibility solutions instead.
"And for more than 100 years now our cities have spread outwards into vast suburbs with low population density relative to urban centers." I have quoted studies about how e-bikes will save the suburbs. there is room for protected bike lanes, and you can do it long after you had to give up the keys. The world was designed for old people; they thrive in small towns, cities and even Italian hill towns. it is only the last 75 years where the cities were designed for cars. I believe we can fix that.
E-Bikes - c'mon, man (to quote a famous person who can't seem to ride a regular bike for long fore tippling over). You live in Toronto so you have the same cold weather I do. You really expect senior citizens, of the type you write about that also have mobility and coordination issues (like that famous person), to ride an e-bike in winter weather of cold rain, ice storms, or snow storms? At -10 degrees F (or C, take your pick).
You really think that eBikes are the answer? Let me ask this - how long before NYC no longer has the loss of life and property due to eBikes blowing up and causing major fires (for just one more issue)? You don't think that is a possible harm to older people trying to get out of a smoke filled home?
Fortunately we were able to get an apartment for my mom, who can no longer drive where she can walk to the grocery store, to get her haircut, to a restaurant she likes and to a nice trail. She also has neighbors who can drive her to urgent care/her doctors 2 miles away if we are not there. She loves not being dependent on us for everything.
Everyone wants personal mobility. It started with the horse. Individual motorized vehicles are going nowhere.
Two things wrong with this article.
The first, is it smacks of forced urbanization. As I have stated before there are those of us who do not do well among people, who would rather spend time in a garden and growing our own food, walking among trees, and peeing off the front porch. You cannot do that in an urban environment. Well you could in the last instance but, let's be civilized. The point is we like our privacy and would rather be in a small community than a large one where (according to the news), crime is running rampid.
And while people live in rural areas for whatever reason there's likely never going to be a reliable transit system, because the govt. and other entities who run them will never, ever see a profit of sending buses hourly on an extra 20 mile loop that would be mostly if not all the way empty. But say that happens, what about their shopping? Many transit buses do not have a a trunkload of space for groceries or other supplies a homeowner might need. And I know there must be a regulation against carrying flammable liquids on their busses.
Then we have our houses. And here you might have a point. A lot of us are getting too old to keep up our houses, most of us do not live in generational houses, but here we are. We have houses full of memories, and it's hard to put a price on memories. I know the same can be said for apartment dwellers (who can afford those condos with their HOAs) that feel t he same way. But out here in rural country, we look out our kitchen windows and can remember our children playing, we can marvel at the shade tree we planted in the backyard, or even pick a piece of fruit off our own fruit tree. Can you do that in an urban area? As for me personally, I look out and I see acres of trees, my trees, the ones that clean the air we breathe, the same ones that will be cut in a couple of decades to help build houses or maybe even a tree house. The exact same trees that were planted when they were last cut. And while I'm out surveying the land, I have a year round creek which needs investigating (just ask my great grandson). And it also provides water for the wildlife and near-tamed deer which mysteriously disappear during hunting season and return when the season is over...
Then there is the air quality, sure we have to put up with pollen, but, most urban dwellers have not experienced the after rain smell of a forest. Which brings us to the urban areas are noisy and they stink. Stink worse than the skunks I have wondering the property. The urban areas have large rats, larger than the opossums that visit me.
Aside from the Rodentia, there is another kind of rat, the two-legged kind. The ones that escape from the city, comes to the rural areas for a vacation, and not only complains that we're not like the urban area with their amenities but (and this is worse) have no respect for their surroundings as they leave traces (trash) laying where they have been. Sure country folk can and do the same, but, there are more visitors than residents, and after every summer weekend there needs to be a push to clean the areas that the urbanites visit. I guess you can call that job security. The good news about the urbanites is they do stupid things like want to pet the wildlife (and complain when skunks spray them) take a hike in nothing but tennis shoes, a t-shirt and shorts, and get lost because they do not know the area. I call it Darwinism at work, the official wording is search and rescue, the R&S costs the county money, yet, does the rescued urbanite pay, nope it is their right to be rescued and will possibly scream at their rescuers about not getting their sooner...
Well you get the picture.
The second thing that I find wrong, is you say the Saturn is rusting in the driveway. Saturn's do not rust, Their bodies are a form of plastic. And when driven on a regular basis (any car will suffer in parked in the field for years) is as reliable (maybe even moreso with all the recalls I see) than many newer vehicles. I know I have a 1990 Saturn that I drive on a regular basis, and it still gets 35+mpg on road trips (not so big in today's terms but practically unhear of in those days). And I find whatever repairs I need to make on the Saturn is cheaper than many newer used cars. So bad example. But in case you're worrying about the Saturn, I know people who live rurally that would be glad to get it out of your sight when the time comes.
Guys, 75% of North Americans live in the suburbs. If people want to live in the country or the forest, it is a choice. I am talking about a different lifestyle choice, one that tries to deal with the 7 to 10 years when people live after they have lost their drivers licences.
Choice?
OK, you say 75% of North Americans live in the 'burbs. Another 19.7% live in "rural" areas, however the government wants to define that. That leaves a whopping 5.3% who live in dense urban centers with the accessibility benefits you tout should be the norm for everyone. And of those 5.3%, "lifestyle choice" will and does change once they reach a certain age and the body wears out, even if riding on a bus (good luck getting up the steps with bad knees and lack of flexibility) or subway (stepping across the gap could be problematic, as would taking the stairs up to ground level.)
As I said above, the world is not designed for old people, never has been and never will. As fewer people marry and have kids, traditional family structures where kids or grandkids could help care for the elderly disappear. It's a slow motion, complex situation that no one is prepared for, which is why robotics and AI are such a hot topic right now. They may be exactly the solution that is needed to keep aging Boomers and (eventually) Gen Xers in their homes, wherever that may be.
"...rather than planning for alternatives which work for everyone."
THIS I want to hear - alternatives that work for EVERYONE ALL THE TIME ANYWHERE. However, in reading your post, Lloyd, the only takeaway was "throw away your keys" without supplying alternatives for EVERYONE.
"Instead, we should be targeting neighbourhood accessibility and reducing auto dependence for all. “Enacting such policies also shifts the conversation from one of reducing possibilities (i.e., giving up onés independence) to expanding community amenities and opportunities with increasingly age-friendly community design.”"
I'll ask you like I did a commenter in another post (but differently) - how would YOU expand community amenities for rural area and make them work, as your subtitle boasted?
It's not even the rural areas, Grok—let's stick with the 'burbs as Lloyd is wont to highlight.
According to Columbia University, suburban areas are defined as those having a population density of 100 to 10,000 per km2 (an unusually broad metric if you ask me.) Other governmental agencies suggest densities from approximately 695 to 772 per sq km (1800 - 2000 per sq mi.) It's difficult to financially sustain any system of transit to serve all those people. Here in Phoenix, the greater metro area covers 14,599 sq mi (37,811 sq km.) Bus service is sporadic and typically travels only certain "major" arteries like Bell Road, Camelback, and others—which means that for many people they need to travel the better part of at least a mile to the nearest bus stop, and then do so on a schedule which can see service highly reduced to near nothing during evening and night hours. How efficient is it for elderly people to (presumably) walk more than a mile to a bus stop, then spend hours traveling to their destination, all while hoping that they can carry on a "normal" social life as they enjoyed during younger years before the bus schedule makes it necessary to call an Uber or Lyft?
I like to eat. Not only that, I like to eat a lot of different ethnic cuisines. Parts of Phoenix "specialize" in certain ethnicities; my local area has more Indian restaurants than most anywhere else in the Valley thanks to the large number of Indian immigrants who moved here for jobs at Honeywell and other engineering companies. If I didn't live where I do and wanted to partake in a nice Indian dinner, I likely would have to devote 4+ hours to travel by bus to get to one of the various Indian restaurants. NO ONE IS GOING TO DO THAT … certainly not when, as a "more mature" individual, you could dial up an Uber and be there in 20 minutes.
So what's the solution? Be more diverse through densification? As you say, the answer is a resounding "no". It took someone to come up with the idea of recruiting people wishing to have a side hustle to create Uber, and now it's not just a taxi service but also food delivery service. No one saw that coming, and it allows for optimizing the ONE thing that everyone (including Lloyd) is ignoring in the discussion: TIME.
Time is what people want; time to spend relaxing at home, time to enjoy a leisurely meal with family or friends, time to get the kids to a game practice, time to take in a movie or theater performance, time to get to the doctor's office, etc. Even those ridiculous "15-minute cities" understand the importance of time to peoples' lives. But UNLIKE those ridiculous "15-minute cities", the 'burbs allow aging people to stay where they are, with what's familiar, and WITHOUT the flattening of suburban residential areas to reconstruct it into Amsterdam 2.0 (none of which would ever be economically feasible in the first place.)
Until and unless the issue of time can be better resolved when considering urban densification and aging, this is all a moot point.
My Dad (75 years old) came over to visit me in Belgium a couple of years ago and borrowed an e-bike to get around our town on the outskirts of Brussels. He loved it. When I suggested he look into getting an e-bike to get around his hometown of Mississauga it was a flat no. Too dangerous. I think he's right but those streets are so wide it would be really easy to build protected bike lanes. It seems like such low-hanging fruit.
There was an English study that showed how the suburbs and cities like Mississauga could be saved by e-bikes; there is room for infrastructure and they eat up the miles. But it is scary on the roads!
It's terrifying on those roads. They look like runways - wide, flat and straight. But my goodness, I just can't help but see the potential staring me in the face if there were just a modicum of ambition or vision at municipal level.
An extremely small part of the population lives in very high density major cities like NYC or London—both of which offer the amenities (dare I say, luxuries?) of tons of public transit and diverse offerings of dining, entertainment, education, and retail. Everyone else? Not so much.
When Lloyd writes, "we should be targeting neighbourhood accessibility and reducing auto dependence for all" that really is a specialized goal which doesn't fit with the vast majority of housing stock in the U.S. or Canada, to say nothing of other locations around the world. The root issue is that the world wasn't designed for old people—we used to die off at far earlier ages before medical advances and innovation changed that. And for more than 100 years now our cities have spread outwards into vast suburbs with low population density relative to urban centers.
We're not going to change that, period. Stop worrying how to turn suburbs into NYC and look to mobility and accessibility solutions instead.
"And for more than 100 years now our cities have spread outwards into vast suburbs with low population density relative to urban centers." I have quoted studies about how e-bikes will save the suburbs. there is room for protected bike lanes, and you can do it long after you had to give up the keys. The world was designed for old people; they thrive in small towns, cities and even Italian hill towns. it is only the last 75 years where the cities were designed for cars. I believe we can fix that.
E-Bikes - c'mon, man (to quote a famous person who can't seem to ride a regular bike for long fore tippling over). You live in Toronto so you have the same cold weather I do. You really expect senior citizens, of the type you write about that also have mobility and coordination issues (like that famous person), to ride an e-bike in winter weather of cold rain, ice storms, or snow storms? At -10 degrees F (or C, take your pick).
You really think that eBikes are the answer? Let me ask this - how long before NYC no longer has the loss of life and property due to eBikes blowing up and causing major fires (for just one more issue)? You don't think that is a possible harm to older people trying to get out of a smoke filled home?
Fortunately we were able to get an apartment for my mom, who can no longer drive where she can walk to the grocery store, to get her haircut, to a restaurant she likes and to a nice trail. She also has neighbors who can drive her to urgent care/her doctors 2 miles away if we are not there. She loves not being dependent on us for everything.