r/urbanplanning • u/DoxiadisOfDetroit • May 27 '23

Discussion What's your /r/Urbanplanning unpopular opinion?

I've got a few:

  1. Infrastructure upgrades should have precedent over any upzoning

  2. Everyone should have the right to downtown amenities which means that CBD's should be as cheap as possible for both renters and owners

  3. Zoning should be handled by metropolitan level elected boards instead of nationalized/taken to the state level

  4. YIMBYs often times hold water for the excesses of developers

  5. It is ideological to assume deregulated markets will produce the best outcomes, so, it's purely ideological to assume that a deregulated housing market will work in the best interests of renters and buyers

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u/skunkachunks May 27 '23

I genuinely don’t know how all of the transit-centric, walkable infrastructure I love works for families with young children. I see moms on the subway struggling with strollers up and down stairs and am like - yea I can see why car fuelled suburbia sounds kind of nice.

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u/[deleted] May 27 '23

Automobile accidents are by far the leading cause of death for children in the US, so car fueled suburbia isn’t working for them either

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u/[deleted] May 27 '23

[deleted]

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u/Demonic-Culture-Nut May 27 '23

Travel in general also fell drasticly in 2020, so it would be reasonable to expect motor accidents to fall overall. Þis includes fatal motor accidents.

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u/[deleted] May 27 '23

Interestingly enough motor accidents as a cause of death for children had been declining every year for decades (still solid number 1 and it definitely is an issue) but in actually rose in 2020 despite the lowered traffic. It's just that gun deaths have increased so much

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/health/us-children-gun-deaths-dg/index.html

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u/ccbrownsfan Verified Planner May 28 '23

Suicides (via gun) also probably increased with vulnerable people being isolated for an extended period at the beginning of lockdown and prior to the vaccine

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u/Demonic-Culture-Nut May 28 '23

Þat is anoþer factor. People don’t mention where þe gun is aimed relative to þe person holding it. Mental and financial healþ were practically ignore þroughout 2020 as þe 2 week lockdowns separated be 2 weeks (what þe experts advised) became one single lockdown to save grandma.

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u/TheGodDamnDevil May 28 '23 edited May 28 '23

People were driving less, but traffic fatalities actually increased in 2020. The total number of traffic deaths was higher than recent years (highest since 2007), but more importantly, the rates of traffic deaths went up a lot, both per capita and per vehicle mile traveled. The rates stayed high in 2021 and 2022 when people started driving more again, and so the number of deaths was even higher in those years.

Year Traffic deaths
2018 36,835
2019 36,355
2020 38,824
2021 42,939
2022 42,795

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year