• bi_tux@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 months ago

    I live in central europe, I could travel across the entire continent in a day for not that much money and could go anywhere in the eastern part of my country for 60€/year, I could go to any western part of my country in 5h for less than 20€

    this dark magic I could use is called a “train system” also reffered to as “good public infrastructure” by many

  • root_beer@midwest.socialEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    This was my adolescence except miles removed from Cowtown, the second largest municipality in Pigshit County, Ohio. People wanna talk about car culture and how the suburbs ruined everything, and I get it, but rural life as a teen was depression on top of the depression I’d already developed in elementary school.

    If I hadn’t been able to drive my busted-ass ‘85 Toyota Van when I was 17 I don’t know if I would have made it to 18, I was hanging on by a frayed thread. Even then, my hometown was utterly worthless, I’d have to go at least half an hour on the highway to go somewhere with a veneer of life.

    I would love for the semi-rural suburb where I currently live to modernize and become walkable and bikeable, but I’ll still take this any day over what I had 25 years ago.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    7 months ago

    Hah, or you can be me. I grew up in New York City with the ability to go pretty much anywhere unsupervised and I never did - I spent all my free time either reading books or playing videogames anyway. I had almost zero interest in the real world (I think it’s pretty boring even now that I’ve been an adult for a while) but I still feel like there was something wasteful about not bothering to experience things that so many other kids would have really enjoyed.

    The worst part was college. I attended a famous party school but went to zero parties, zero dates, etc. At least I managed to graduate in three years with a double major. (By the time I got to college, I did want more social interaction but I thought that I was incapable of it so I didn’t try.)

  • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml
    0·
    7 months ago

    As someone who’s had a teenagehood like this, what should I do? I have friends abroad and I travelled to visit them by myself a few times. It doesn’t make the other 350 days of the year any less boring though

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
    0·
    7 months ago

    I already posted, but this post bothered me so much that I wanted to say my peace. You can tell that OP and everyone resonating with them is from Canada or the US. How? Because our urban environments are uniquely awful, since they’re built for cars, not people. The suburbs are far from anywhere you’d like to go, and even if you had the gumption to walk or bike a mile or more each way, the infrastructure to do so is flat out dangerous or hostile in a lot of cases. The suburbs keep a low population density, and there’s no real cause to meet anybody else ever since they have no third spaces, so unless you hit the neighbor jackpot, the suburbs are a super lonely experience. Big box stores, chain pharmacies, and chain restaurants being the dominant businesses in your area is also a car-centroc urbanism thing, since if you have to get in your car to go shopping, you’re just going to go where you’ll only have to make one stop or where you won’t have to leave the car. It’s even in the meme: parents too busy to teach [them] how to drive, which matters because the city is fucking inaccessible otherwise.

    I live in a city of 90,000 in California and, while California is generally head and shoulders above the rest of the US in bike infrastructure, it’s still goddamn hostile to try and get across town on a bike or on foot, and that’s assuming the weather isn’t miserable. I’ve had five exchange students from different countries (Japan, HK, Russia, Netherlands, etc) and they all found the suburbs / US urban design to be isolating. All of them were used to just being able to bike/tram/bus/train across the city and even between cities completely on their own and it was no big deal at all. It’s easily the hardest thing for them to cope with.

    It’s not this way in the rest of the world, and it hasn’t even been this way forever. It got this way due to decades of deliberate policy choices, and it can be changed. Your local city and county government has a shocking amount of power over this kind of stuff, and those are levels of government that, unless you live in a big metropolis, are actually accessible to laypeople. Start organizing, get your friends together, make some noise, let them know what you want; local politics can actually be pretty responsive to this stuff.

    Edit: in case you want more information, there’s several really good channels about this stuff, but I’d recommend NotJustBikes and AlanFisher on YouTube for a start.

    • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      so unless you hit the neighbor jackpot, the suburbs are a super lonely experience

      Everything else you say is right on, but this is the one that annoys me. I’ve had shitty neighbors. I’ve had neighbors that were constantly committing domestic assault and having the police called on them. Overall though, I knew and spent time with my neighbors because we all made the effort to be a community. I’ve recently moved to take care of a dying family member, but even in the few months I’ve been here there have been improvements in the relationship with the neighbors because we made agreements to have a block party once a month, have the husband/wife lunch every few weeks, and generally socialize. It sucks to start if no one on your block is talking, but most people are pretty happy to start building a relationship with their neighbors. You just have to put in the effort.

    • Ziixe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      0·
      7 months ago

      I live in the middle of nowhere in Europe and all is true except the outside picture and the fact that there isn’t anything to walk to (except if you want to take a 20km hike trough a forest to get to the city, and then do another 20km back)

    • HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      7 months ago

      I am so happy I didn’t grow up in the US… Lots of biking and walking, a bus to go to town, school friends that tag along in the evening

      • lengau@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        7 months ago

        I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. That was hilarious and perfect content for a shitpost community.

        • awwwyissss@lemm.ee
          0·
          7 months ago

          I’m dead serious. You assholes chased me around and downvoted everything I posted for two weeks straight. So I made a new account.

          Nothing but bad things from lemmy.ml, you’re a cancer on the fediverse.

          • lengau@lemmy.ml
            0·
            7 months ago

            I’m sorry to hear there were folks who did that. I just chose this server because I wanted a general purpose one that seemed to have a decent chance of sticking around for the long term. I have no interest in harassing people or getting into server wars.

            • awwwyissss@lemm.ee
              0·
              7 months ago

              It’s not server wars, it’s a server designed to spread authoritarian propaganda behind a veneer of communism. But maybe you’re not part of that… if so good luck.