<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>zamnos</author><text>Ah that&amp;#x27;s a bit of a false dichotomy though. In between a rustic rural house on several acres down a dirt unpaved road unsuitable for bicycles, and a tiny, loud, one-bedroom downtown apartment condo in a highrise, or worse  - one bedroom in a shared flat, in a superurban locale,
say Hong Kong, right above the nightlife or red light district, trying to raise a family of three or four; somewhere between the two extremes is a livable medium. Maybe a three-bedroom condo with a shared yard and pool raise a family in. A nestled away cute 2-bedroom cottage with a tiny yard at the edge of the city, but still within subway distance.&lt;p&gt;Now, I&amp;#x27;ll concede that most cities in the US aren&amp;#x27;t designed this way. I&amp;#x27;ll go further and say that most cities in the US lack the density to deserve being called cities, they&amp;#x27;re
just large swaths of adjacent suburbia with a tiny downtown district that most people drive to in order to access, which has huge implications on traffic and parking.&lt;p&gt;What recent changes in society has enabled us to see is just how much we were sold a crock of shit while on our way to buying 5-bedroom McMansions with expansive yards for hosting dinner parties. If the cost is a one hour each way commute, people are starting to see it&amp;#x27;s not actually worth it.&lt;p&gt;So I agree&amp;#x2F;you&amp;#x27;re right - real estate prices have to fall dramatically in order for things to be accessible to the non-rich households who aren&amp;#x27;t on dual tech worker salaries, and who can&amp;#x27;t afford a reasonably sized (2+ bedroom) urban apartment. But for better or worse, HN skews affluent, so there are undoubtedly readers here able to afford a 4-bedroom apartment in one of the nicer neighborhoods of San Francisco where you&amp;#x27;d want to raise a family. Pretending otherwise does no body any favors. The only question is how do we get from where we are today, which is that it&amp;#x27;s unaffordable to all but the upper-middle and upper class, to a place where is affordable on a single wage earners salary? The only answer to that is to build more housing. Stopgap measures like rent control don&amp;#x27;t work. It may be anathema to some, but part of that may include the government stepping in to  make that happen.&lt;p&gt;Ebikes allow us to get from here to there, as an ebike allows a slightly more sprawling city design, due to the added range enabled by an ebike vs walking+non-existent public transportation, which means we can get a lot of mileage by repainting and modifying existing roads to add bike-safe infrastructure without ripping out and replacing buildings, which is basically impossible.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Tade0</author><text>&amp;gt; So I think we will see a shift in where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives around owning multiple cars.&lt;p&gt;Not if real estate in cities remains as expensive as it is now. That&amp;#x27;s one of the main reasons why so many people move out and choose to spend so much time commuting.&lt;p&gt;Cars are just a means to an end, which is not living in a one-bedroom apartment as a family.</text></item><item><author>matsemann</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;- might be impossible depending on work or children;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The newer style of cargo bikes can for many families replace a car. Have two kids seated in the trunk of the bike and drop them off at kindergarten, then continue biking to work and pick them up on the way home.&lt;p&gt;Those are a bit on the pricier side, though. Still cheap compared to a car, but people often look at them as something &amp;quot;extravagant&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;in addition&amp;quot; to a car. But they can be a replacement for most car use, and then just rent a car for other more seldom occasions.&lt;p&gt;And to avoid the initial big purchase, not even sure if it&amp;#x27;s something for you, there&amp;#x27;s a startup where I live ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;whee.no&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;whee.no&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; ) where you also can rent the bike on a monthly basis. Really recommended to see if it suits your lifestyle.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I also think this kind of easier movement will change how people live. You can no longer expect to move out of the city and still get a short way to everything by using your car, making life miserable for everyone else (noise, danger, pollution, too much asphalt). So I think we will see a shift in where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives around owning multiple cars.</text></item><item><author>raphaelj</author><text>Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago.&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly, it hasn&amp;#x27;t been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription):&lt;p&gt;Pros:&lt;p&gt;- Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall;&lt;p&gt;- about €300&amp;#x2F;month in additional disposable income. That&amp;#x27;s basically a free lunch everyday!&lt;p&gt;- significantly faster if parking is taken into account for most trips. The bike is faster for any &amp;lt; 10 km &amp;#x2F; 7 mi trip;&lt;p&gt;- do not have to worry about car maintenance, parking tickets or theft;&lt;p&gt;- you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;&lt;p&gt;- amazing when the weather is great;&lt;p&gt;- (almost) no emission.&lt;p&gt;Cons:&lt;p&gt;- might be impossible depending on work or children;&lt;p&gt;- weather might make the ride unpleasant;&lt;p&gt;- somewhat dangerous when the infrastructure is lacking.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure I&amp;#x27;ll never own a car, unless absolutely required by work. Improving the infra and the car-sharing network would be awesome.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London</title><url>https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2023/03/01/cyclists-now-outnumber-motorists-in-city-of-london/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>CalRobert</author><text>Sadly this rings somewhat true, I&amp;#x27;m trying to make the maths work on moving from my house in the horrible Irish countryside (horrible if you don&amp;#x27;t like profound isolation and car-dependency, that is) and move to Utrecht or Houten, or Freiburg, and it is challenging, to say the least.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Tade0</author><text>&amp;gt; So I think we will see a shift in where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives around owning multiple cars.&lt;p&gt;Not if real estate in cities remains as expensive as it is now. That&amp;#x27;s one of the main reasons why so many people move out and choose to spend so much time commuting.&lt;p&gt;Cars are just a means to an end, which is not living in a one-bedroom apartment as a family.</text></item><item><author>matsemann</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;- might be impossible depending on work or children;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The newer style of cargo bikes can for many families replace a car. Have two kids seated in the trunk of the bike and drop them off at kindergarten, then continue biking to work and pick them up on the way home.&lt;p&gt;Those are a bit on the pricier side, though. Still cheap compared to a car, but people often look at them as something &amp;quot;extravagant&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;in addition&amp;quot; to a car. But they can be a replacement for most car use, and then just rent a car for other more seldom occasions.&lt;p&gt;And to avoid the initial big purchase, not even sure if it&amp;#x27;s something for you, there&amp;#x27;s a startup where I live ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;whee.no&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;whee.no&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; ) where you also can rent the bike on a monthly basis. Really recommended to see if it suits your lifestyle.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I also think this kind of easier movement will change how people live. You can no longer expect to move out of the city and still get a short way to everything by using your car, making life miserable for everyone else (noise, danger, pollution, too much asphalt). So I think we will see a shift in where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives around owning multiple cars.</text></item><item><author>raphaelj</author><text>Somewhat unrelated to the article, but I live in a mid-size EU city and dumped my car for an e-bike a few months ago.&lt;p&gt;Surprisingly, it hasn&amp;#x27;t been that hard (my GF kept her car, and I have a car-sharing subscription):&lt;p&gt;Pros:&lt;p&gt;- Immediately stopped having insomnia. Better feel overall;&lt;p&gt;- about €300&amp;#x2F;month in additional disposable income. That&amp;#x27;s basically a free lunch everyday!&lt;p&gt;- significantly faster if parking is taken into account for most trips. The bike is faster for any &amp;lt; 10 km &amp;#x2F; 7 mi trip;&lt;p&gt;- do not have to worry about car maintenance, parking tickets or theft;&lt;p&gt;- you will not kill someone if you ride after a night drinking;&lt;p&gt;- amazing when the weather is great;&lt;p&gt;- (almost) no emission.&lt;p&gt;Cons:&lt;p&gt;- might be impossible depending on work or children;&lt;p&gt;- weather might make the ride unpleasant;&lt;p&gt;- somewhat dangerous when the infrastructure is lacking.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m pretty sure I&amp;#x27;ll never own a car, unless absolutely required by work. Improving the infra and the car-sharing network would be awesome.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Cyclists now outnumber motorists in City of London</title><url>https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2023/03/01/cyclists-now-outnumber-motorists-in-city-of-london/</url></story>