Yeah this feels deeply classist and anti-solidarity. “My channel isnt for the poor and never has been”. Pretty shit message when you consider the things he is advocating for will uplift the poor and working class higher then anyone else. “We should have affordable public transportation options” but also “not in your city you filthy poor, it’s to late for you. Sorry bucko.”
Harsh to tell people to give up on America when the people most affected by poor urban planning can’t afford to move. Things aren’t getting better here any time soon though. Or any time late…
it’ll be fixed after decolonization
These urbanism channels just preach supply side Reaganomics, which itself only increases gentrification and displacement because housing/land is commodified in a market.
Europeans cities like Amsterdam were built through Colonialism and getting people around the world hooked on opium. The difference between the Euros and the Settler cities is that the Euros don’t want to trash their own land, while the Settler states are trashing someone else’s for maximum profitability. Countries like Switzerland built really nice train networks off of centuries of banking for empires. Their money comes from this so they don’t need to trash the land for profit as in the US and Canada.
NJBs isn’t as much of a Neoliberal dork as Oh the Urbanity or Strong Towns, but still there is zero connection with Colonialism in discussing the settler and colonizer creation of space. Relevant paper on gentrification in settler states: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/918979
Like so much of the shape of cities in “North America” is due to Colonialism in the form of land expropriation, racial segregation and casting, and making maximum money from workers in the form of rent, transportation, and food costs. Marxist Geography has pretty good theories on this stuff, the post I linked criticizes the field of study for its failure to address the specifics of Colonialism in city-building.
But yeah as long as Settlers rule over this land we’ll have deadly streets, food deserts, and fossil fuel reliance.
I can only really speak from a Canadian perspective and I think it’s important to focus on your local area. I’ve seen in my city and all of the other major cities (I’ve been luck enough to travel to here) that along with urbanism, a heavier emphasis on public transit and active transportation, is present.
While I can only speak to the large cities, a lot of the smaller towns I’ve been to are still somewhat closely knit. It’s the suburbs that are weird and hostile to the above ideas. Not that it’s all that surprising given the predominant political views of there but that’s a long topic that others have made YouTube videos about.
To bring it back around, similar to what some other comrades have said in this thread, local/municipal politics is where you’re most likely to get some change done.
NJB has an interesting view and I can see where he’s coming from as his story and mine aren’t too dissimilar (except the city that I moved to is till within Canada). I don’t agree on the nihilism that he exhibits around Canadian cities as my takeaway is he is still living within fixed boundaries of a political mindset. It’s important to realize that many urban residents support making their city more people oriented but just haven’t had the push to become more politically engaged.
For anyone interested in Canadian urbanism/active transportation/public transit, I can recommend a few channels:
They also have videos about cities outside of Canada but are nonetheless Canadian creators so they have a bit more of a focus on their home cities.
Insanely doomer vibes. America is clearly deeply fucked up, but if everyone leaves instead of fighting it’ll only get worse. The struggle is hard but can be worth it in the long run
Pretty sure neither Netherlands nor Canada were fixed since 70’s
idealism
I don’t know who this is, but I’m always very wary of influencers who tell you to give up on doing social change because it has never been done (exactly like that) before. Specially if they’re from Western Europe. Sure, acknowledge you don’t have hope for a place, though be more honest and say that you just don’t know how things can get better. But absolutely pay no heed to somebody speaking from a place of privilege that your worse situation is unfixable and you should “just move” (which for most Yankees means moving on to the afterlife because it’s what they can afford).
