"Walking," writes Robert Orr in Public Square, "immerses you in your surroundings in ways driving never can."
At 28 years old, I've never owned a car. While I do have a driver's license, I've never desired a vehicle of my own, opting instead for public transit and my own two legs.
For a fare of $2.90, I can go just about anywhere I need to - in New York City, that is.
Cars, despite being money-guzzlers, are dangerous and unsightly. SUVs are especially offensive.
As I've written before, our cities are designed in a way that is pedestrian-unfriendly. Cars rule the roost.
Orr continues:
Long walks reveal not just charm, but also the harsh truths of how our streets are designed: for cars, not people. I remember some close calls; fortunately, they have been limited to being knocked down by a few cyclists so far. The rise of e-bikes, scooters, and skateboards indicates that encounters may become more serious. Even on sidewalks, pedestrians rank lowest.
The e-bikes, as Orr writes, present a new problem. These cyclists - if you can even call them that - often ignore traffic laws, plowing through four-way stops and riding the wrong way down one-way streets.
Man on delivery e-bike.
I get that having our DoorDash meals delivered to us in a timely manner it like really important, but man, these guys are pedestrian accidents waiting to happen.
In an article for Carscoops, Stephen Rivers writes that there is a "small subset of consumers who buy up or create e-bikes that aren’t legal on city streets and then ride them there anyway. In New York City, that growing gray area has already turned deadly."
Let's see if the city actually bothers to do something about this...
Again, our communities must be livable. It shouldn't be too much to ask that pedestrians not have to fear for their lives when walking to the grocery store.
As a Brooklyn native who was born, raised, and still resides here, I'd like to talk about the 2nd Amendment infringements that we New Yorkers regularly face. Before I start, I would like to thank another Brooklyn native, Frank Filocomo, for giving me the opportunity to write for this blog. Frank and I been good friends for years and are both very invested in the politics of our hometown.
As a citizen of the United States and stalwart believer in the Constitution, it is my opinion that we are allowing local, city, state, and federal governments to become too big to the point that they see the country's founding document as nothing more than a piece of parchment, subject to individual interpretation.
The city of New York makes becoming a law-abiding gun owner nearly impossible. The process of obtaining a license takes anywhere from 6 months to a year. You must provide all residence history, employment history, driving history, and medical history pertaining to mental health. You also need 2-4 references who will vouch for you and state that you have "Good Moral Character."
What, though, is "Good Moral Character," as defined by the State? Should we allow the State to make those decisions on our behalf? Losing the right to own a gun because an old boss fired you due to an argument/disagreement? Getting arrested due to a physical altercation because you were defending yourself? These are just a couple of ways the NYPD cooks up their decision-making on who they "believe" should have the right to own a firearm, even though this is plainly written in our Constitution. Some people have the funds and the connections to fight these denials when they happen. What happens, however, to the less fortunate who are plainly trying to exercise their rights?
Before the 2022 Supreme Court ruling, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, it was practically impossible to get a concealed carry license in New York City unless you were a political figure, business owner, or celebrity. Talk about the importance of "having connections." The constitution was written for the people, not for the upper class to interpret it how they want. Don't forget that the NYPD will ALWAYS exempt themselves from these draconian laws.
Regular citizens cant have an AR? The NYPD can. Regular citizens cant own more than a 5 round magazine? Again, the NYPD can. The list goes on and will continue to go on until reform happens.
All these rules and laws that are written for the common folk like us has no effect on criminals illegally purchasing firearms. The government knows this just as the people do. Big Brother uses crime for their own political purposes, tightening restrictions on firearms, and making life more difficult for law-abiding citizens. This, however, is a topic for another time.
If the states have the ability to make their own laws and interpret the Constitution as they see fit, we are headed down a dangerous road. The Constitution is an instructional rulebook that was written and designed purposely for ALL states to follow, not a Microsoft Word document to be changed and edited when government officials deem fit. If we continue to allow elected officials to deliberately attack the Constitution like this, their insatiable hunger for further restrictions will only grow. Our government will continue to use police force and 3-letter agencies as political pawns to further their agendas to infringe on our rights.
Christopher Turturro, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, is an HVAC mechanic and
Americans have always had a rather uneasy relationship with urban life.
On the one hand, many of us relish the cultural and ethnic diversity of cities, their bustling night life and venues for entertainment, and their seemingly limitless opportunity. On the other hand, we take issue with their atomization, libertinism, filth, and lack of community.
This latter strain of hostility toward city-living has existed since the birth of the nation.
In Governing, Alan Ehrenhalt writes that anti-urban sentiment is ingrained in our country's ethos.
He emphasizes Jefferson's agrarianism and disdain toward the industrializing North.
Southerners - not all, of course - have always seen the North as being privileged and indifferent to the plight of rural America.
When I was writing my master's thesis on the history of U.S. trade policy, I noted the hostility between the agrarian South, which preferred trade liberalization, and the industrializing North, which favored protection from imports vis-à-vis tariffs.
There was always a feeling that Northerners weren't a part of "real America." They were big city cosmopolitans, uprooted from tradition and the land, and concerned only with profit.
The cities, in other words, were soulless places, devoid of community.
All of these resentments were being expressed at a moment when millions of European immigrants were flocking to urban areas throughout the country and young people were leaving the farms to seek a more fulfilling urban life. That only made anti-city views more strident and anti-city politicians more resolute. When the 1920 census showed cities overtaking small towns in population, states refused to reapportion their congressional and legislative constituencies to reflect the change.
Today's populist movements sound very similar, expressing a disdain for the elitism of city folk.
Do you recall when, during one of the many GOP primary debates in 2016, Ted Cruz accused Donald Trump of having "New York values?"
"The values in New York City," Cruz remarked, "are socially liberal, are pro-abortion, are pro-gay marriage, and focus around money and the media."
New York City, in other words, is basically an unmoored urban experiment, separate from the rest of the country.
I was recently in an Uber, and my driver, a very affable Bangladeshi man, told me that New York is not "real America." I knew what he was saying: us New Yorkers are not nearly as communal or family-oriented as in other states.
In his culture, you still have multi-generational households and societal and familial obligation.
I hear these contentions, and I don't dismiss all of them.
Ehrenhalt doesn't dismiss them all, either. He does, however, rightly note that America's cities, despite all of the bad press, are still booming:
Young Americans have not lost their attraction to living in city centers, despite the decline in city population ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic. Downtown populations in many places have been going up in the last couple of years. Meanwhile, developers have been engaged in urbanizing the suburbs, designing Main Streets and re-creating many of the elements of central-city residential and commercial life in communities that began as refuges from that life.
We may not be fond of admitting it, but we are drawn inexorably to cities, even as we like to complain about them. That has been true since Thomas Jefferson’s day, and it is not going to change anytime soon.
Kind of hard to reconcile these two realities, right?
I often complain about New York City, where I was born and raised, but, I can't imagine calling anywhere else home.
Schick wasn't someone who blared loud music at 3:00AM or engaged in verbal altercations with her neighbors, rather, she was reticent and reserved, closed off from the community.
She writes that, on one occasion, her roommates accused her of, among other things, being "anti social."
I found this line to be instructive: "A new family moved in, who are 'good neighbors.' That is, they keep to themselves and don’t play loud music."
So, that's it? "Good neighbors" are typified by their inconspicuousness and low volume?
The short answer: no.
Neighbors are community-members who should feel as though it is their obligation and duty to look out for each other.
Non-participation in one's community is, in effect, a tacit rejection of said community.
Schick gives an example of some truly good neighbors she once had, though she didn't appreciate their kindness and hospitality at the time:
They were friendly in a way I could not understand. They invited me to sit on the porch with them and the other neighbors who lived on our block. They offered to fill the empty beds in front of my apartment with flowers. Without asking, they filled our shared porch with plants in beautiful stone pots. I didn’t know how to respond to any of this, so instead I started to avoid them. I stayed inside if I heard them out front. I kept my head down if I did have to leave my house.
For many years, I too have been a bad neighbor. Like, Schick, it wasn't my raucousness that made me a bad neighbor; it was my inwardness.
There's one older gentleman in my building - a slight, unassuming man - whom I've never exchanged more than a passing "hello" with. Recently, I ran into him at the local pub. With timidity, I started conversation with him. He took well to it, and we drank beer together and chatted for 30-minutes or so. I felt silly about the whole thing. "I should have introduced myself ages ago," I thought. "Why am I so closed off?"
While, you certainly don't have to become acquainted with every single one of your neighbors, it's good to make more of an effort. Even casual small talk in the elevator - say, about the weather - isn't a bad first step.
Being quiet and keeping to yourself does not necessarily make you a "good neighbor."
"It is important to remember that when we demand minimal congestion and fast travel," writes Adam Bonosky in Public Square, "we are asking for ourselves, our kids, our grandkids, and our neighbors to be designed out."
As community members, we have to ask ourselves: what is more important, fast travel or the preservation and well being of our localities? Any sensible person would say the latter.
Many of America's cities, however, are designed in a way that leaves pedestrians out of the equation.
Writing for Axios in 2023, Thomas Wheatley reported on the need for pedestrian safety in Buford Highway, a community in Atlanta, GA: "Though designed for cars, Buford Highway is used by a surprising number of pedestrians going to work, school, shopping, or medical appointments."
The area, though, isn't exactly known for being safe for passersby:
For decades, traffic planners have prioritized the speed of automobiles over the safety of pedestrians on Buford Highway. Doraville has seen more than 30 crashes involving pedestrians over the past five years.
Bonosky says the answer is slower traffic. It makes sense: if cars are whizzing by, pedestrians have a higher likelihood of being struck and killed. If, on the other hand, roads are narrower, have tighter turns, and are generally less conducive to high speeds for cars, people will feel much safer.
This should be a no-brainer. But you'd be surprised: not everyone takes kindly to these people-centric, New Urbanist approaches.
In September of 2024, I wrote a piece called, "The Case for Walkable Cities," in National Review, wherein I argued that people shouldn't have to worry about "two-ton steel contraptions zipping by" when they're out on the town. When I sent the piece to the submissions editor at the time, he warned me that readers might offer some pushback. Boy, was he right.
"Frank, you've got something there, and it's bad idea you've got," wrote one commenter.
"WTF publication am I reading? Beat it, Frank," wrote another.
I was accused of being a collectivist, hellbent on taking people's cars from them. Surely, if I think that people should take priority over cars, I must be a central planner! A Marxist, even!
While I was a bit taken aback by the intensity and volume of the comments, I expected the sentiment: to conservatives, anything that sounds hippy-dippy is bad.
Moreover, the conversation becomes about rights. "What about my rights?" In other words, my vision of safer American cities, to them, sounded like a slippery slope to State-coercion, wherein the purchasing of cars may very well become forbidden.
This is, of course, nonsense. Just as people have the right to live in sprawling suburbs where SUVs zip by, other people also have the right to live in walkable cities with ample public transit and greenspace.
This goes back to what has been my central critique of the boomer-conservative/neoliberal mind: when our philosophy becomes libertarian and focused only on my rights, the common good suffers.
We must begin to think more seriously about the common good.
