I’m also an early millenial / late GenX and broadly support the things you mention.

At the same time, how do you explain that earlier generations were happy to start families well before national pharma care, etc.? Before people were concerned with the climate crisis they were terrified of a population explosion (hence China’s one-child policy), nuclear war, etc.

My intuition is that the difference is that they were more financially stable and they were able to maintain a family with a single income, which provided them with both the money and the time that raising children require. So, maybe we should focus on that instead.

Basically, the “no immigration” path i

That is a strawman of your own creation. All I said is that I want my children to have the opportunity to have kids of their own if they wish to, which currently seems unlikely because our government does not prioritize fostering the conditions under which young people choose to start families.

I would prefer Canada to grow primarily through its own means rather than relying so heavily on immigration to avoid economic collapse.

If you prefer not having kids or grandchildren, that’s fine by me, but don’t assume we all want the same things.

That is a false dichotomy. Housing is expensive in Canada due to zoning laws forcing a very inefficient use of land, among other reasons.

I lived in Europe for decades, so I know for a fact that making our streets pleasant to walk around isn’t some weird utopia, it is the basic reality in many developed countries.

And I want my children to have the opportunity to have kids of their own. In my experience, when young people feel financially secure and are not working themselves to death, they tend to start families. I want our kids’ generation to have that opportunity.

Seriously. I’m in my mid-50s, and the bleakness of my generation is staggering. Nobody wants to be alive anymore.

I’m a decade younger. I thought Gen-Xers were doing decently well, at least compared to younger generations.

What sorts of problems are you folks having? I’d love to learn more.

Living in an area that is beautiful matters, and our urban landscapes are a big part of that. Trees, decorated facades, town squares, they may add some economic cost, but why is that the only cost that matters? What about the emotional cost of living in an ugly noisy jungle of concrete and glass?

I’m looking at 3br condos/townhomes for my car-free family and prices still look insane. We will likely have to leave the GTA.

You mean mixing businesses and residential units in the same walkable neighborhood like we’ve done for thousands of years? That would never work! We must maximize commuting distances in order to reduce traffic and commuting times.

Please stop being disingenuous. You know perfectly well that what we want is doable because it is already being done in many places in Europe and Japan. Stop fighting a strawman of your own creation.

We want fewer private motor vehicles in our streets because car-centric urban planning translates into places that are unpleasant to live in, especially for people who don’t drive.

I live right by a busy stroad. How many of the cars whizzing by do you think are delivery vehicles? How many busses? Very few compared to the number obese SUVs and lifted pickups, even though there are four large supermarkets and many shops within walking distance along this corridor.

If we reduced the number of private motor vehicles in this stroad the quality of life for my family would significantly increase: less air pollution, less traffic noise, more pleasant daily errands, less risk of being run over by a tank-sized ego booster, more room for trees and bicycles.

Stop spewing bullshit and fear. Let my kids and I hope for a better future.

Until people develop a workable alternative

The alternative will not appear out of thin air. More people need to have a sense of the long-reaching consequences of car-dependent urban planning and that’s what propels them to vote for better planning in their cities.

Nothing is going to change without a shift in political leanings, and that’s what this sort of advocacy is doing.

I rode in all weather for years

Same. And that includes snow and ice, for those at the back that think that riding a bike in winter is only possible in LA. If people can walk in that weather, people can ride a bike even more easily as the exercise keeps you warmer.

Vehicle safety needs to expand to the other side of the windshield.

I would take it further and day that regulations should prioritize the safety of the people outside the vehicle over the people inside, for the simple reason that the people buying the vehicle already have a strong incentive to maximize their own safety, while they currently have zero concerns about the safety of pedestrians.

Pedestrians, on the other hand, don’t have the freedom to choose which vehicle runs them over, so it is up to regulations to advocate for them because nobody else will.

Children steamrollers do not belong in cities.

Edit: Can you think of a better backronym for SUVs? Street Unsafe Vehicle? Super Unsafe Vision? Severely Unsafe Vehicle? Striking Unsuspecting Vulnerables?

I suspect you are conflating regular roundabouts with traffic-calming mini-roundabouts. The link above shows the latter, if you are curious.

Thank you for the source. It has great diagrams. I love mini roundabouts for traffic calming.

Drivers just ignore them and drive the speed the road or street is designed to drive.

That’s what drivers usually do. I thought the purpose of in-street signs is to reduce the speed at which drivers feel safe driving because there is a bloody sign in the middle of the road that will scratch their paint. It may work better combined with a chicane.

Blaming the victim is very easy to do when you don’t fear that the next victim could be you.

lol how to identify a dude on the Internet

Is that the best argument you can put forth against what I’m saying? I can give you some more ammunition: I’m queer, disabled, atheist, an immigrant and vote green. Or perhaps those are collectives that you don’t feel comfortable discriminating openly.

For example, a “women’s only” group may be for a group of women who are healing from a sexually violent relationship, so they really don’t want to see men there.

“Maybe that whites-only parenting group could be healing from some trauma caused by POC and they don’t really want to see POC there.”

Do you see the problem? A POC causing you trauma is not a good reason to reject POC people in general, and a man causing you trauma isn’t a good reason to reject men in general either.

A group dedicated to victims of domestic violence could easily encompass both men and women who have suffered from it, whether the perpetrators were men or women. Cis & trans, it bears saying.

A person who has a blanket phobia of people of a particular gender or ethnicity needs therapy to address their sexism/racism. “I don’t feel safe around men” has the exact same energy as “I don’t feel safe around black people”.

Yes, racially exclusive associations are gross. Same with events that exclude attendance based on sex/gender. We are all people.