Kansas Crimson

The footprint of the driveway and detached 2.5 car garage at my home is ~20% of my lot. I have a corner lot so I have more yard and sidewalk than most in the area. I’d say that is a significant amount of area.

You asked us to look, then you tell us what your house is....so....?

I dont have a garage at all and none of my lot is paved, I'd say thats an insignificant amount of area.

you chose to buy your house, no one forced you to have a 2.5 (?) car garage. Tear it down and put up a greenhouse instead. Then you can lecture others?

It's always easier to make sacrifices/concessions for others rather than yourself.

I heard people with 2.5 car garages have small penises.

pretty sure Dr. P has a point.

Automobiles are in many ways a luxury item. the automobile was very successfully pushed to us as some element of Merican individualism, with no regard for the downsides, nor for the merits of alternatives. Much of the country's entire infrastructure was basically built around accommodating the car.

It was never sustainable to begin with. But, particularly being a luxury item and an instrument of individualism, go figure how many Americans will go all "from mah cold dead hands" about cars too.

"And some of us go rent storage units or don’t even have space to put our car(s) in the garage for all the other “toys” and shit in the garages."

This is kinda true but.....
Snowblower, lawnmower, leaf blower, smoker, sand pail and salt pail, wheelbarrow are my main space suckers.
Then you got your weed wackers, dirt and snow hovels, rakes, ice chopper, splitting maul, sledgehammer, saws, hoes, clippers, hedge trimmers, soil tiller etc.

What of that am are you suggesting I give up?
( don't say hoes, they are essential )

give up all the yard tools and xeriscape.

Wouldn't work very well up here.
And I rarely water the lawn/plants anyways - mother nature is pretty good about that.

why wouldn't it work very well? how could it possibly not work very well?

but yea, it's a bigger concern in the arid west than in parts of the country that actually have water.

if this is the rabbit hole, might as well demonize owning and/or living in a single family home, which would then extend to all the neighborhoods in suburbia and all those living rurally as well

everyone should be living in apartment buildings, with expansion going vertically to reduce unnecessary conversion of biodiversity landscapes

the automobile and suburban sprawl grew right alongside one another. They grew because of one another.

I almost wanna go so far down the rabbit hole and mention how many "work from home" jobs indeed can be worked from home on a practical level, but The Man still wants us to have to commute and physically be there.

but that may be less cuz of the automobile version of The Man, and more cuz of the commercial real estate version. And just generally, the old school types who are too stubborn and traditional to ever consider WFH as a long-term option, merits be damned.

First, i'd need a number of the tools mentioned to convert said landscape to one that doesn't need as much maintenance.

Second, I already have the tools, so what do I do with them in this scenario?
Throw em in the dump?
Then after that, I've got this big empty garage with my tiny dick and no hoes.

KUTradition wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:07 am if this is the rabbit hole, might as well demonize owning and/or living in a single family home, which would then extend to all the neighborhoods in suburbia and all those living rurally as well

everyone should be living in apartment buildings, with expansion going vertically to reduce unnecessary conversion of biodiversity landscapes

you'd have to kill me first.

TDub wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:39 am

KUTradition wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:07 am if this is the rabbit hole, might as well demonize owning and/or living in a single family home, which would then extend to all the neighborhoods in suburbia and all those living rurally as well

everyone should be living in apartment buildings, with expansion going vertically to reduce unnecessary conversion of biodiversity landscapes

you'd have to kill me first.

i hear ya

TDub wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:39 am

KUTradition wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:07 am if this is the rabbit hole, might as well demonize owning and/or living in a single family home, which would then extend to all the neighborhoods in suburbia and all those living rurally as well

everyone should be living in apartment buildings, with expansion going vertically to reduce unnecessary conversion of biodiversity landscapes

you'd have to kill me first.

I 100% respect that people feel differently in regards to where they choose to live, how they choose to live, and why they choose to live in the manner they do.
That being said, I know people who own both apartments and "land". Both serve them well for the purposes they need/want them to. In the not too distant future I hope to be one of those people.

the thing is, if done with some forethought and attention, living rurally can be less impactful than living in many urban locales

I can get where Tdub's coming from too

but I also think one of the biggest obstacles facing the United States and the world at large is some sense of stubbornness.

How do we get more Americans to buy into some sort of greater good about more things, rather than glorifying the "you'd have to kill me first" mentality?

it's tough. A default sense of defiance is perhaps even more American than automobiles or suburban sprawl.

KUTradition wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:57 am the thing is, if done with some forethought and attention, living rurally can be less impactful than living in many urban locales

how so?

the big obstacle, once again, is transportation, right?

if one wants to live as a hermit on some self-sustaining plot and never go anywhere, sure.

Otherwise, I think of the point about how the urban hipster riding their bike to their coffeeshops and dive bars has a smaller carbon footprint than the "environmentalists" driving their big SUVs from their acreage in the burbs to go fish and ski and recreate in the mountains.

ousdahl wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:58 am I can get where Tdub's coming from too

but I also think one of the biggest obstacles facing the United States and the world at large is some sense of stubbornness.

How do we get more Americans to buy into some sort of greater good about more things, rather than glorifying the "you'd have to kill me first" mentality?

it's tough. A default sense of defiance is perhaps even more American than automobiles or suburban sprawl.

call me pessimistic, but it ain’t gonna happen

covid showed the world just how willing we were to sacrifice for our neighbor, and by and large we failed miserably (particularly in the good ‘ol U S of A)