Not Just Bikes / r/fuckcars / Urbanists / New Urbanism / Car-Free / Anti-Car - People and grifters who hate personal transport, freedom, cars, roads, suburbs, and are obsessed with city planning and urban design

[The Jewel of the Nile]

hipster swill that urbanists drink.

"Oh yeah, something for your troubles- some blonde IPA dark roast dr pepper stout-like APA-adjacent with a minty chocolate twist"

 

[Thrak]

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So much going on in this image that says so much about both Europeans and urban Americans generally.

They chose a short bed F-150 because they can't differentiate between different sizes and configurations of trucks, in doing so choosing a vehicle that's only 7% longer and 8% wider than an XF. Most ironic of all, the only people who would buy this truck (aside from the substantial community of people building drag trucks from these - the Coyote is a great engine), a configuration only available through the manufacturer's "commercial" section of their website and not stocked by dealerships, would be doing so solely for the purpose of having the bed filled to the brim with work equipment at all times or hauling loads for their job, the only reason anyone should buy a truck by their own definition.

Modern E-segment cars like the XF are all within an inch or two of the length, width and wheelbases of their Original Sin early-to-mid 50s American sedans, cars which have far more cargo capacity and legroom than the former due to lacking all the passenger safety features these same people screeched about adding over the past 50 years, which then reduced their visibility and practicality to the point where they now call them useless and dangerous for pedestrians. In fact, the same can be said for modern European luxury sedans and their respective 60s American Compact/Midsize/Fullsize counterparts. The only metric in which the latter are actually larger is in how far their trunks stick out beyond the rear wheels, giving them not only far more trunk space than any sedan you can buy today but actually an amount disproportionately more than their size due to how thin the bodies are. Old cars are mostly air despite their size, making them far more "practical" under their own bad-faith framing.

The person who made this image must necessarily be someone who will never make enough money to be able to get a driver's license - let alone own a car - or would be exceptionally wealthy even by American standards to be able to afford something that both would recognize as a "luxury" vehicle. The artificial wealth gap in every European country (as well as that in cities everywhere, even in America) is so enormous that the OP has likely never seen a vehicle in real life that wasn't either a rinky dink cargo van or a luxury/sports car worth at least 6 figures. Cars being accessible to the poors (whether they're within that demographic or not) is among the most foreign of concepts you could present to them, one they react to with visceral disgust.

Closely related to that, there was a similar r/fuckcars post a while ago from a Finn wondering why Americans would ever buy a pickup or American SUV/crossover over a Range Rover. Upfront cost aside, Europeans' idea of "reliability" is insane. When you point out a car is considered "unreliable" to an American if it can't go half a million kilometers without major powertrain service, they move the goalposts and talk about how Americans are "poor" because they all drive "old" cars. Apparently in every European country, the standard is a car should be scrapped at 100,000 miles. Aside from how financially irresponsible and bad for the environment that is - not counting how much maintenance and how many new parts are required to get a Jaguar or Range Rover to that mileage, let alone any other European car - that habit almost entirely stems from that typically being the point that a clutch starts to slip on a manual car, something Americans never have to deal with because their daily drivers and family haulers are mostly automatics. When this is pointed out to them, they make fun of Americans for supposedly not being able to drive stick, when one of their own car reviewer circles' biggest praises of modern American enthusiast vehicles is them being the only way to still get a manual in a sports car or BMW-like sedan. The differences between spaces where actual European car enthusiasts talk about American cars and those only populated by an unholy combination of their richest and poorest urbanoids are stark. The latter still parrots memes about American cars that haven't been true for over 40 years. I've seen Europeans genuinely wonder how American engines of the same size and configuration supposedly still get a fraction of the fuel economy and power that European engines do and why they haven't "caught up" yet. The people of that continent and America's urban denizens have literally not left their apartments since the middle of the Cold War

 

[TORtlEMUStRaNSUS]

My issue with 15 Minute Cities:
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These activists can allay my concerns by banning everything above for any areas they want to turn into 15 minute cities.

I don't see any natural beauty listed on this bugmans's vision board.

 

[unaboomer]

they move the goalposts and talk about how Americans are "poor" because they all drive "old" cars.

I find this misplaced sense of elitism particularly ironic since it often comes from people who can't afford a car at all, which makes me wonder if this sentiment

Cars being accessible to the poors (whether they're within that demographic or not) is among the most foreign of concepts you could present to them, one they react to with visceral disgust.

is at least partially motivated by sour grapes.

> It's not like I want a car anyway, baka!

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I don't see any natural beauty listed on this bugmans's vision board.

Back when this sort of thing was called "New Urbanism", the poster child for an "ideal" city was Vancouver (in Canada), partly because of the lack of freeways in the city and the city's rail system, but also because it was a "beautiful" city. This was because that zoomed out, there was the North Shore Mountains, the coastline (actually just a large bay), and forests surrounding it. But none of that was actually in the city. If you switched the places of Vancouver and, say, Kansas City, Vancouver wouldn't be considered "beautiful" by anyone.

But let's talk about parks--parks are merely seen by bugmen as means to an end. The "SimCity brain" thinks that a few squares are parkland are basically ways to enhance bughives and reduce crime/increase land value/increase health, in reality they're probably more of a reflection of the areas around them. In better neighborhoods it's a place for mothers to take their children for healthy outdoor activities, but in other places it's basically an open-air drug market and/or squatter camp.

If you look at New York, there's Central Park...and that's pretty much it. One NGO claims only 33% of New Yorkers have a park within a five-minute walk and most of those "parks" are little more than chintzy vacant lots with a playground, trees, and a basketball court.

Central Park in particular is not particularly convenient to anybody except the ultra-rich and there's always going to be people there. The trick is to build enough parks so that you can feel like you can "get away" without going too deep and finding some murderhobo camp...and of course that requires proper policing.

Urbanists don't believe in proper policing (just "eyes on the street") so the only "solution" is crowded parks, and as recent news reports show us you can be lit on fire or raped on public transit and no one will lift a finger because city dwellers are sociopaths, cowards, or simply defenseless. Even if someone does step up in the case of "will somebody else do it", you get something like the Daniel Penny/Jordan Neely situation which should've been an open-and-shut case but he went through hell anyway.

 

[quaawaa]

If you look at New York, there's Central Park...and that's pretty much it. One NGO claims only 33% of New Yorkers have a park within a five-minute walk and most of those "parks" are little more than chintzy vacant lots with a playground, trees, and a basketball court.

Central Park in particular is not particularly convenient to anybody except the ultra-rich and there's always going to be people there. The trick is to build enough parks so that you can feel like you can "get away" without going too deep and finding some murderhobo camp...and of course that requires proper policing.

Also, half of Central Park is unusable. A quarter of it is a reservoir that you can't swim in and the northernmost quarter is full of sketchy ghetto loiterers because it borders Harlem.

 

[Thrak]

I find this misplaced sense of elitism particularly ironic since it often comes from people who can't afford a car at all, which makes me wonder if this sentiment

is at least partially motivated by sour grapes.

> It's not like I want a car anyway, baka!

That's only half of it. Their ignorance is reinforced by the landed gentries of their own countries and of the Global South - government employees, trust fund kids, techfags doing massively overpaid Bullshit Jobs from home for American companies (still undercutting American salaries for those jobs despite them being fake), cryptobros, onlyfans whores, drug dealers, scammers, etc. - who will claim that none of the brand new R8s, S-Classes, and X5 EVs they switch out every 3 months after barely driving them (they can barely move in their cities anyway) have never broken down, or if they do they don't say what the repair bill or downtime was because it would seem absurd to an American. The latter two have no harder of a time fitting in their beloved cities than late 50s chromemobiles or 70s Malaise barges they claim American cars still are but they'd never admit it. They have to have their cake and eat it too regarding America and everything vaguely associated with it. "Cars are evil but European cars are better than American cars". "Cars shouldn't be allowed to go more than 5mph but the autobahn is safer than American freeways". Perfect example of pic related.

These two opposite ends of the wealth gap both hate normal functioning people who just want a good honest life. They love and need each other. They both resonate with Marxism for both opposing and similar reasons even though those poor should hate those rich and those rich should hate themselves. Like all their favorite mouthpieces constantly flaunting their wealth and China calling itself "communist" yet presenting itself to the world as a land of supercars and luxury apartments

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Even if someone does step up in the case of "will somebody else do it", you get something like the Daniel Penny/Jordan Neely situation which should've been an open-and-shut case but he went through hell anyway.

The Bernhard Goetz case forty years ago should show you why you never step up in an urban area. Nothing has changed since then even.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

The Bernhard Goetz case forty years ago should show you why you never step up in an urban area. Nothing has changed since then even.

Goetz straight up shot the criminals, what Neely did was nothing in comparison. Put Neely in 1984 and Goetz in 2023, Neely would be on the front page of the papers accepting a medal from the mayor, for Goetz jury deliberates for two hours and sends him to prison for life.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Goetz straight up shot the criminals, what Neely did was nothing in comparison. Put Neely in 1984 and Goetz in 2023, Neely would be on the front page of the papers accepting a medal from the mayor, for Goetz jury deliberates for two hours and sends him to prison for life.

My point was that standing up for yourself and others in an urban environment is bad for your health. TPTB need to respond and make an example because you've threatened the state's monopoly on violence.

Which, ironically enough, is the same reason why the "eyes on the streets" concept a lot of urbanists believe in will never actually work. It's okay for criminals to break the law and cause a ruckus, they're an outside element. But allowing someone other than the state sanctioned enforcers to deal with them threatens the state's control over the populace.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

My point was that standing up for yourself and others in an urban environment is bad for your health. TPTB need to respond and make an example because you've threatened the state's monopoly on violence.

Which, ironically enough, is the same reason why the "eyes on the streets" concept a lot of urbanists believe in will never actually work. It's okay for criminals to break the law and cause a ruckus, they're an outside element. But allowing someone other than the state sanctioned enforcers to deal with them threatens the state's control over the populace.

Right. But Goetz nearly crossing the line in the 1980s is not the same as what crossing the line is today. Besides more recent, egregious examples of "see something, do nothing" in modern urbanism, everyone's heard of the murder of Kitty Genovese where nearly 40 people heard a woman getting raped and stabbed by a "BIPOC" (or so reported by the New York Times, later retracting it years later, but who knows which story was the truth).

The other thing that has changed since the 1980s and 1990s is no longer a consistent narrative on gun control, the prevailing argument on gun control in the 1990s was relying on a strong police force to quell problems (and while that has issues on the side--for starters, even in the best of circumstances, police taking minutes is pointless when seconds count).

But getting back on topic, contrary to what urbanists think, is there such a thing as a "badly designed" city? Obviously Jason and friends think so. I personally am not a fan of European cities with roadmaps that look like a pane of broken glass, but for me it's the city itself. I hated Houston not because of muh freeways and muh parking lots, that was fine, but that the entire Inner Loop was entirely composed of bugmen, rich assholes, and non-whites (and by non-white, this is meant to read, that are violent, uncouth and/or have no intention of integrating with the rest of the culture, and are far more racist than I could ever hope to be).

Thought experiment--if you dropped a Redditor in what looked like their fantasy version of Amsterdam (everywhere like Amsterdam-Centrum, very few cars, etc.) but was populated by gun-toting Trump voter types, would it still be paradise?

 

[quaawaa]

Thought experiment--if you dropped a Redditor in what looked like their fantasy version of Amsterdam (everywhere like Amsterdam-Centrum, very few cars, etc.) but was populated by gun-toting Trump voter types, would it still be paradise?

We already know the answer to that:


Source (Archive)

 

[Yamamura]

We already know the answer to that:
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Source (Archive)

It's sort of funny that anytime they are led to believe their ideas of urbanism are spreading it'll turn out to be kind of the opposite with pictures like this. People are not aspiring to live in commie blocks and ride cargo bikes instead quite the opposite.

 

[Lovely Kin]

Thought experiment--if you dropped a Redditor in what looked like their fantasy version of Amsterdam (everywhere like Amsterdam-Centrum, very few cars, etc.) but was populated by gun-toting Trump voter types, would it still be paradise?

No, they would bitch and cry about feeling "unsafe." Despite preaching about crime not being a big deal, "it doesn't happen too often." and "No one is getting hurt in a smash and grab." The littlest things that are different to them freak them out when the world doesn't bow to them.

 

[Markass the Worst]

No, they would bitch and cry about feeling "unsafe." Despite preaching about crime not being a big deal, "it doesn't happen too often." and "No one is getting hurt in a smash and grab." The littlest things that are different to them freak them out when the world doesn't bow to them.

This cognitive dissonance about safety is maddening to me. How can somebody get so upset at cars being so unsafe but in the same breath downplay theft, assault, rape and murder? Not only that but they accuse anybody concerned about crime of using "dogwhistles" for racism.

Make it make sense.

 

[Yamamura]

Based Trump:
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Tweet (Archive)

They mad:
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Source (Archive)

I was thinking about this a little more, but what difference would it make even if Trump hypothetically couldn't ride a bike? It's not a slight at him, many people can't ride a bike due to disability or other reasons. There's a certain hypocrisy where these people will adopt all the -isms they usually complain about as long as they're the right targets.

Also speaking of hitting ones head against the curb, remind me again wasn't it fuckcars that was advocating to not wear a helmet? Hopefully the next time they run a red they aren't in the ambulance free zone.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Make it make sense.

You can't. It doesn't make sense to them either. Leftists have no way to create a working system of beliefs, everything they believe is this disconnected thrown together monkey bread of dissonant parts that only work if you think about every part individually. There is no holistic approach to leftism.

 

[quaawaa]

The playground is carbrained:









Source (Archive)

 

[indomitable snowman]

This tells me that he's a broke ass nigga since he doesn't have two Benjamins to rub together.

He's a Europoor so yes, he be broke.

"Oh yeah, something for your troubles- some blonde IPA dark roast dr pepper stout-like APA-adjacent with a minty chocolate twist"

You know I saw in some random X post this last week that SSRIs mess with your taste buds and make bitter flavors taste better. Makes sense that leftist hipsters love IPAs, they're all on prozac or lexapro.

edit: found it

https://x.com/uncledoomer/status/1926080875650863206

https://xcancel.com/uncledoomer/status/1926080875650863206

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Kids aren't "socialized to like cars and trucks". We have a lot of Amish where I live and a lot of them work as contractors, mainly concrete and carpentry. They often bring their kids along because they're Amish and they will work a twelve year old like a dog, and those kids fucking love watching us work with our excavators and skidloaders and other similar equipment. Maybe it's because to them this stuff is new and fascinating but the Amish are specifically socialized to dislike technology and machinery and I still have them come over and talk to me about it because they think it's neat. Even had one or two of them compliment my excavator once because I was being nice and offered to rough out a trench for them on a site so they didn't have to dig the whole thing by hand.

Kids like cars and trucks because cars and trucks are cool.