Not Just Bikes is such a terminal pessimist. I enjoy his videos but I think he really has trouble acknowledging the counterpoints to his doom-and-gloom rhetoric. What he says in that video just barely applies to NYC at all.
Not just that, his approach to the politics of it is incredibly obnoxious. He comes across as everyone who disagrees with him with the same brush, railing against some sort of ideological complex that includes everything his "team" hates and insinuates that it's all somehow interrelated. Of course he doesn't say those things, but it surfaced really prominently for example in his April Fools' video where he played the role of a suburbanite obsessed with his new truck. Satire is one thing, but if you see enough of it (also content from Twitter and other social media) you get the sense that he really does take his perception of other people way too seriously.
Which is to say: his case studies examining the details of specific cities, evaluating transit system design etc. are great. But his analysis of why the bad things are bad (especially when he starts blaming people and ascribing motivations) is utterly insufferable.
> his April Fools' video where he played the role of a suburbanite obsessed with his new truck
Happy to say I missed that one.
But yes, I completely agree with all of that. I'd love more of the analyses of why some systems work and less of the vitriol against everyone who isn't already totally on board.
Mid-40s amateur urban planner YouTube is the worst social media trend to have come out of this decade bar none. They all look, sound, and think the same. Their worldview is fundamentally conspiratorial in that they believe there is a utopian world that only they and their fellow flannel-enjoyers understand, that somehow actual urban planners, economists, and consumers have missed.
Not Just Bikes is like the Joe Rogan of these people in that whenever I see one of his videos recommended on YouTube, I know I’ll be hearing about it from people trying to pass the ideas off as common knowledge within two weeks.
>They all look, sound, and think the same. Their worldview is fundamentally conspiratorial in that they believe there is a utopian world that only they and their fellow flannel-enjoyers understand, that somehow actual urban planners, economists, and consumers have missed.
I think you are mad because they are right, and your only refuge is to recycle hipster memes of the 2010s. Just personally visiting cities and suburbs from (still car loving!) Germans v/s most US cities validates the fuckcars camp. The example my Chilean city should follow is certainly not Dallas, no matter how cringe NJB might be.
> I think you are mad because they are right, and your only refuge is to recycle hipster memes of the 2010s.
They are a particular variety of policy wonk that conflates positive claims with normative beliefs. Normative beliefs are a matter of preference.
Consider urban sprawl; the desire to live in a larger home farther from the city center doesn’t go away with trains, the throughput is just more efficient. The question then becomes whether the denizens of a city would prefer to travel by car or by train. Given that car-centric urban sprawl is still ongoing, Americans appear to prefer the car.
