The ugliest urban environments were designed around older cars, long before SUVs were the norm. Like you said, it’s not just the car, but also the infrastructure it requires.
I’d honestly argue the infrastructure is the bigger issue because of all the other shit it influences as well. The poor infrastructure is a massive factor in both pedestrian and occupant safety, it makes cities spread out and inefficient, which causes all the buildings to also be leff effecient (more walls exposed rather than shared with other buildings etc).
The scale and lack of established alternatives makes it very difficult for even a small city to make minor changes without extreme push back (speed cameras and bike lanes were made illegal on province wide scale in my area, making it hard for a city to make improvements to cycling and speeding).
This hasn’t even touched on the environmental factors, road noise, or maintaince budgets. The infrastructure is the biggest part of the problem, it has gone on long enough to let the SUV become so wide spread.
The ugliest urban environments were designed around older cars, long before SUVs were the norm. Like you said, it’s not just the car, but also the infrastructure it requires.
I’d honestly argue the infrastructure is the bigger issue because of all the other shit it influences as well. The poor infrastructure is a massive factor in both pedestrian and occupant safety, it makes cities spread out and inefficient, which causes all the buildings to also be leff effecient (more walls exposed rather than shared with other buildings etc).
The scale and lack of established alternatives makes it very difficult for even a small city to make minor changes without extreme push back (speed cameras and bike lanes were made illegal on province wide scale in my area, making it hard for a city to make improvements to cycling and speeding).
This hasn’t even touched on the environmental factors, road noise, or maintaince budgets. The infrastructure is the biggest part of the problem, it has gone on long enough to let the SUV become so wide spread.