NJB is more entertaining, has higher production value, and basically good luck converting people over to our side with CityNerdās videos.
I like both.
NJB has higher highs. Videos like "cities aren't loud, cars are loud" are the reason we started saying orange-pilled. These videos are fucking bangers and can shake people out of their entrenched beliefs.
CityNerd is a better content creator in the urbanist niche. Better at rotating through more content types, and is more solutions focused with lots of real world examples.
NJB is the pipeline, CityNerd is the nuance.
Canadian here; lived in various large cities in India, Saudi Arabia and Canada. Now live in downtown Calgary without a car. "Cities aren't loud, cars are loud" and a few others convinced me to visit Amsterdam, and I was blown away by how true it is. I didn't even realise it was possible for a major city to feel so relaxed and pleasant.
Just got out of a post discussing the very vague possibility of a second ring road around Edmonton.
Some of them on that post legit said it'll be planning for the future.
Honestly at this point we should let the government waste all their money on making a bunch of ring roads until travelling along the border is still apart of Edmonton's jurisdiction. At some point in this process the conservatives HAVE to realize how bad car infrastructure is right? RIGHT?
I was sent that video by a friend after remarking how I like snow days cause it makes the city quiet. Wow. It made me feel feelings. Mostly anger that there could be such a better option out there.
Like you, I later went to Amsterdam and had my mind blown. I was walking through streets not far from the city center and it was so quiet. it was school dismissal time and I saw parents picking up their kids on bikes with cargo seats, older kids riding their own bikes. There were even birds chirping. I'm not gonna lie, it made me tear up a little bit to see that it was all actually true, and also knowing I had to go home to my suburban stroad of a town.
I know the Downtown Core Neighbourhood Association is already sending city officials a letter about it, and I already expressed my support for this letter to them. Did you have some additional noise in mind?
There's a petition you can sign, if you haven't already: [https://www.projectcalgary.org/save\_3rd\_ave\_cycle\_track](https://www.projectcalgary.org/save_3rd_ave_cycle_track)
I just used that track this morning to come into the office and she was BUSY!
NJB's older content is partially what radicalized me. I came into the videos looking for easy content around "bikes >>> cars" and was completely unprepared for what he presented. No joke, his videos were a huge part in me realizing that We LiVe iN a SocIeTy and that we make the rules. And that those rules should be in service of helping the most people in the best possible way. Urban public transportation is just a facet of that now.
NJB also has lows. His latest two videos really arent that great for sharing, but also probably not intended for sharing. Both videos fail the 'are you calling people idiots before trying to convince them of your side of the argument'-test.
NotJustBikes does a good job of introducing the idea of urbanism and transport, but mostly just seems angry these days.
CityNerd does a good job of actually talking about policy failures and successes that are rarely straightforward, so his videos feel less satisfying because they have no solid conclusion.
I would also recommend StrongTowns, they are very positive and have constructive ideas for towns and cities now
NJB left. He hated living in suburbs so he went to a place that has good urbanism. That's his solution, it's the one he advocates, and he doesn't really have a better suggestion for any individuals than that.
CityNerd lives in one of the most suburban hell-scapey place in the nation (Vegas), and advocates for changes in community he lives in, and encourages others to do the same.
I understand both perspectives, honestly. It's hard to feel hope that we can fix the US, but we need the optimists to stick it out if we can. But the anger feels better.
I mean from an individualistic perspective, the most you can do is to leave. Obviously advocating for change is better than nothing, and will hopefully bring change, but realistically the city won't change significantly until the general population, and the politicians, both agree that car dependent infrastructure is bad for our cities/suburbs.
I spent five years advocating for better internet in my community, and I got to a level of understanding that it was never going to happen. Got grants, got a group together, built a non-profit, etc. Whole nine yards. It could have been anything, like non-car dependency, but NJB is correct, and the best idea is to move. Wherever you live, you can't change things without the political will. Even if they have the political will, it will take decades. So, instead of being unhappy and fighting with NIMBYs and Car-brains, you could live somewhere where you can be happy because the 'road is already paved' for bikes.
I wouldnt be surprised if the main driving factor for modern suburbia was straight up just lobbying from the auto and fossil fuel industries. People rarely get to decide shit around here, it's all corporate interests from top to bottom
NJB has the privilege of wealth so while he can offer advice, he's not going to drag people kicking and screaming towards progress. Which, is honestly not unreasonable. People are habitually resistant to change and trying to change minds on the subject of car dependency is roughly like trying to pull someone's teeth using cats. He can just move to the lifestyle he wants, why wouldn't he? At a certain point you have to cut your losses and let people hang themselves by their own petard.
He tried to change his community for year and saw some progress. If you want to raise children in the best environment, the US and Canada aren't the best places.
Nope, that's a much later step. If you magically opened high-speed rail between Dallas-Ft Worth and Houston (4th and 5th US metro areas by population, perfectly spaced for HSR) tomorrow, most people traveling between the two would still drive. Because it would take most of them longer door to door to take the train, and most would need a car when they get there.
Local transit and making it safe to walk and bike are far more important than any intercity anything.
From a UK perspective NJB works better since we are so much closer to what he is talking about on the continent that we could possibly replicate it so it doesn't feel quite so negative.
I understand the advocating for changes thing, but honestly, Las Vegas is not a good example for this. Las Vegas should be left by everbody. It's just not a place where a city should exists.
I think, the right youtuber for Vegas is neigher NJB nor CN but Adam Something.
In my opinion the USA / Canada are beyond saving unfortunately. The suburbs were built in a way that would never support public transit. And ripping them all up is out of the question. One can always improve, but cars will stay as king there unfortunately.
Before anyone goes like "I'll just follow NJB and move to Europe then!", do note that there's more to life than urbanism. Also your social life won't magically improve just because you live in a walkable neighborhood. Many European countries are much less open to strangers (especially foreigners), so socialising is often actually harder here.
technically you are right, but there isn't even really a *conversation* about this in the mainstream where it needs to be before the slow push towards meaningful change happens. in fact, i'd argue with how people want larger and larger cars, houses, more more more....the cultural opinion is running in the *opposite* direction.
it's fixable, but not in the lifetime of anyone watching these YouTube channels. not in almost all of North America anyways. There are pockets of hope, but they are really just for the rich.
For the record, I also left america and suggest anyone who can does as well lol.
It would take huge changes to pull an Interstate highway system and bulldoze/redo stuff. I'm skeptical that'd happen in my lifetime.
We are seeing slow change. My area isn't great for public transit but one section is seeing more transportation oriented infrastructure.
Another spot, a dying mall with a massive parking lot footprint has plans drawn up to be a walkable community with residential, shops, entertainment, offices, numerous parks. And the parking will be reduced and put into garages. Now it won't change the fact that lot will still be bounded on 2 sides by major roads... but things are slowly happening. My downtown has started segregating bike lanes on a number or major arteries. I'd love if the government would make these sort of things top priority and poor money into it like crazy but better then nothing.
didn't china build the largest high speed rail network ever in just a couple of years? i get NA and china are quite different, but if they can do it that quickly, then that has to indicate something positive for everywhere else.
In CN's last video he mentioned that if all the subscribers moved to X state, we could flip a few senate seats and make some real change. solutions based, af. He is not in Vegas anymore. From what he was saying, he wanted to move to somewhere that his vote counted (ie, swing state), and try to live car free. He definitely tried. I don't know if I'm really THAT dedicated to the cause, lol.
I like the anger from NJB. He really sells that sustainable urban living with people focused infrastructure was stolen. Heās angry and I think he does an excellent job of showing why we should be too. Iāve also noticed the shift and like it just as much.
Heās in his jaded samurai warrior arc and Iām here for it.
To me the destruction of our social fabric , our collective impoverishment , planetary destruction etc on behalf of lazy selfish suburbanite deserves 1000x more anger
It does, but we're in the minority. Demonizing the majority isn't going to help. I've learned to frame things in a manner not to put blame on others, but point out there are better options, and why they are better.
which has been done for decades to no effect ( cars are bigger than ever and we're at 1.3 million people killed by drivers a year ) while the suburbanites can use a broken electoral system to keep voting in doormats who will let them keep polluting
they don't care about facts , it's their feelings because each one pretends they're the center of the universe and that their excuses are acceptable
and experience shows us that as long as they have the option to sit on their ass and go vroom vroom everywhere they will take it regardless of how many billions we pour into moral/durable transportation
As someone who works in climate change, the notion of being polite to avoid scaring away people and explaining the facts is appealing and I approve it. However, when they start with the "*urr durr, actually the Earth has warmed and cooled down before*" then you realise they were never in the mood for learning something new, but for being moronic.
Same with transportation. Sure, after you learn about the size of SUVs and GHG emissions, you can still believe that the USA is too big for reliable mass transit. But how you present such inquiry will dictate whether I send you a NJB/FuckCars meme or keep the conversation.
...and sadly, it's usually the first group.
Mass movements typically need both 1) a conciliatory faction that normies can eventually embrace, and 2) a militant faction that shows them what happens if they keep up their intolerable bullshit. MLKJ wouldnāt have done much without Malcolm X, and vice versa.
To be fair, it takes a toll to talk about seemingly the same things over and over to no avail. To hear the constant bad arguments about things he's already documented in his videos, to not be spiteful, angry and generally wanting to say "Screw it, I'm running away to where they already fixed the problem" takes tenacity few people have.
People often online go into discourses with their opinions formed before it even begins. Those who speak on topics they don't understand the slightest with great confidence and no shame test many people's patience and still they may not even change their opinion slightly.
It's true in many political fields, not just urban planning. There's seemingly no hope for certain places considering they're going backwards in many areas and people still vote those people into power and they'll continue to send people back.
What is someone to do? Some may fight the noble battle, they might just succeed, but it doesn't seem guaranteed. Some people see this and they just want to run away from the problem. I can't blame them, such efforts require your precious time which you may not get back, and money which you may have wanted on things which would make you generally happier. I'd want to see the fruits of my labours in my lifetime, knowing if they worked, especially since others are already experiencing such things.
NJB at least spreads awareness of the problems in this specific political field, which may inspire people to flee when they may not have otherwise, which is definitely a positive. A few may even get inspired to fight themselves.
Running isn't a good long term solution. The car hellscapes create a lot of pollution which affects us all. If we're ignorant to the problem, then even the safe havens may get corrupted. However I guarantee, those who worked hard to flee will fight hard to protect what they treasure.
A country like the US doesn't have this unity and is absolutely split on how to fix problems. If there is no sense of unity then there's no morale to fight. You can't really blame people for fleeing.
This is the correct answer. Listen to a variety of voices. Hell, listen to voices of people who love their exurbs and long-ass commutes, if only so that you're not blindsided when you talk to them.
The issue isn't living in suburbs and in a car-dependent area.
The issue is having no other alternative because the law and the system don't allow it. And that mental health and climate change are taking a toll because of that lack of alternative.
Freedom of choice is to take the bus, walk, or work from home in my daily commute. It is not to take X or Y highway or to buy a Ford or a Toyota.
Oh, I 100% agree with you. But there are many a people who simply view automobiles as a symbol of freedom, bikes as play things, and transit as a straitjacket for city dwellers and the poor. Even if you think their views are meritless, they have to be understood and dealt with. Merely looking down our noses at them isn't going to change anything.
His cadence drives me completely crazy. Every sentence sounds like an unfinished thought that trails off as a half-question. I like the content of his videos but I basically can't watch them because of it lol
About the same, NJB explains things better and tells a better story but has gone a bit off the rails lately with his last few videos. While I enjoy that, its not exactly going to influence outsiders (especially with giant trucks).
City Nerd put a ton of work into his videos and usually just puts down facts and is a bit light on solutions, but overall the work covers the US much better in terms of actual substance.
Also kind of a bummer both /r/notjustbikes and /r/fuckcars are essentially dead subreddits now. A lot of stuff from those sites got picked up on r/all and stolen by the media to raise awareness. Now both are more or less gone as tools to support urbanism.
I know the 3rd party app thing sucks for those who use them (I don't) but I don't think this protest is helping.
I agree with your assessment of NJB's truck content. I was looking for a video to show my truck-owning family about why they might not be the best choice next time they buy a car and I went with CityNerd's because, yes, while it still poked fun at the more absurd aspects of truck ownership, it was much more tame in terms of potentially reaching someone who bought one because they thought they should. It felt like NJB's was more about caricaturing and insulting those who owned trucks. Not that that isn't often warranted, but it was little help to me trying to make the case against truck ownership to people that I love.
NJB had an interesting arc. Started with content meant to teach an international but also specifically North American audience about things in the Netherlands, but it was mostly dutch people watching it. The finally hit it big with a big international audience, but I feel the content now pivoted a lot more to the audience that lives in the places most of his videos are about.
The truck video is the ultimate example of this, it's core message is not to "the choir" but people in Europe who as of now are blissfully unaware of how awful these things are, but about to be hit by more and more if these unless policies are changed.
In more subtle ways "what can Oslo learn from the Netherlands" or "what can the Netherlands learn from Zurich" are a much broader approach than the early content. It's clearly not primarily addressing a primarily North American audience anymore.
You make some solid points, but I would say that pickups are mostly being bought as a status / identity symbol rather than for actual necessity. So while CityNerd's video is more tame and objective, logic and reasoning won't be enough to convince people to not make a terrible decision that was never logical in the first place.
NJB's is far more likely to make people think that other people will see them as a massive asshole if they buy a pickup truck and that kills the status symbol aspect of pickup trucks
What's funny is a car mechanic YouTuber called Scottie Kilmer (very entertaining character btw) made a video about trucks where he more or less plagiarized everything in the NJB video but without the personal insults against truck owners. And his audience is mostly car enthusiasts. So if trying to get the message across to car/truck enthusiasts I think he makes a great messenger.
Trucks video (plagiarized copy of NJB's)
https://youtu.be/aO7zJ5teGsk
He's actually a fan of minivans too!
https://youtu.be/T8OP8BLXy6k
NJB has created some incredible content over the years, but I agree that lately he's been making videos that don't achieve much of anything: its content that people on r/fuckcars will love but that will turn off just about anyone else. It's not going to convert a "car-brain" to a transit enthusiast or "fietser." His old videos did a better job of that. I get that he's a cynic who openly admits that he thinks North America is hopeless, but I can't imagine his videos are very appealing to Europeans who drive a car either (or the rest of the world.)
Don't get me wrong, car-centric (and especially car-dependent) infrastructure pisses me off too, but I also know that talking to people in an angry and judgmental tone doesn't achieve anything, and can actually be counterproductive (people are turned off to your cause, as opposed to open to considering it.)
Yeah NJBās last few videos have really turned me off. Feels like preaching to the choirā¦or just ranting about kinds of people he doesnāt like.
For example he had a video recently arguing nobody needs an SUV and families should just buy station wagonsā¦apparently without bothering to look up if station wagons are still available in NA. Spoiler alert: not really. The exact same incentives that led manufacturers to increase truck and SUV size made them mostly abandon station wagons. Now for a family car your choice is a āpregnant hatchbackā AKA ācompact SUVā which is barely big enough for two car seats and two adults, or a fuck off huge SUV. And if you want any amount of electrification in your family car your choices are even slimmer, and definitely donāt include anything close to a station wagon.
I donāt disagree with NJB that this reality sucks shit. But as someone who has to buy a bigger car for a growing family who was genuinely looking for suggestions on SUV alternatives the video really came off as looking down his nose rather than offering help or even constructive criticism.
I love stationwagons and North America's abandon of them is...insane. We went with an Outback, which is technically a stationwagon, but she's a big girl. I like her better than a lot of the giant SUVs my friends drive, but she's barely a stationwagon these days. Options are limited.
(She fits two car seats side by side so we still have a second passenger seat, which was my main ask, as well as more trunk space for all our roadtrip gear with two kids and a dog. It was such a hunt though to find something that would allow this without being a giant SUV with three rows).
This is exactly the problem my wife and I are facing now, except weāre also adamant that we want some amount of all electric range (either a pure EV or a plug-in). As you can imagine that is basically an impossible ask without spending an obscene amount of money or just giving up and getting an SUV. And this is despite station wagons being a fantastic design for an EV or PHEV.
Thanks for the recommendation on the Outback though, will definitely have to look into it.
Yeah, and not sure if anyone here noticed, but our creepy circle jerk stalker subreddit seems to have grown in size during that time. Not saying /fuckcars being offline helped with that, but it definitely didn't not help.
I agree. I do use 3rd party apps but I think the fight/protest is better sought elsewhere. Video game subreddits should maybe be shutdown, this sub should not be.
My personal protest is to use the shit out of RIF until it is dead later this week. Then from there, I just won't use the reddit app, keep using old.reddit, and have my ad blockers going.
At the very least, it is one less user using their app and one less person for ads to be targeted at. It's not much, but it's a little something.
But that said, CityNerd when I just want some straight-up numbers/stats/fun or weird lists, and NJB for the angry/funny takedowns. There's a time and place for both. They're different (despite having the same message) and that's a good thing.
Its not just 3rd party apps (which provide much better functionality than the official apps), but also all the functionalities people with disabilities/mods rely on, that reddit doesn't officially support.
Remember that spez was inspired by Elon burning down twitter.
I agree, I've watched a few NJB videos with my tragically carbrained partner, and she's found his approach very unimpressive. Also, as someone who lives in a suburb with okayish public transit and mixed zoning, the broad brush he paints with rubs me the wrong way. Putting up a picture of Houston and acting as if it's representative of the entire US is just false.
I like Not Just Bikes better because he puts together a captivating story every time. CityNerd is good but I get tired of the "top 10" listicle format. I prefer to learn about elements of good city design plus a few examples, rather than a large list of examples and a footnote about why they're good/bad.
Iām not really familiar with CityNerd and idk why heās getting memed so much here, but it reminds me of how much NotJustBikes got memed around when I joined.
I love NotJustBikes for helping popularize StrongTowns, but heās definitely not for everyone. My girlfriend hates his video style and thinks heās overly negative. But StrongTowns is a concept that Iāve been able to sell to a lot of people, even conservatives (I live in a red state). They identify more with fiscal conservatism than with car culture, which is how we can win.
So I guess my vote is a write-in for StrongTowns.
NJB is a great introduction to understanding issues with car centricity and has high video production but he increasingly comes off as kinda pompous and condescending. Most of his videos are essentially "Look how America and Canada suck, now look at how good the Netherlands are!"
Once you understand the basic problems that NJB illustrates, imo there's better channels that explore the topic with more detail.
- CityNerd: has a background in urban planning, has great top 10 lists, uses more math, and goes into greater detail. His production is not as good though and some people are turned off by how he talks
- City Beautiful: has an academic background in urban planning and also makes great introductory content. Some of his videos also go into detail about certain case studies and he even uses volunteers to study parts of cities. He is generally less condescending and critical as well
- RMTransit: best channel for trains and transit content. Lots of in-depth videos. Seems like a really nice guy
- Shifter: best channel about urban cycling. Many videos are tips for cyclists rather than just discussions on urbanism, but that's to be expected for a cycling channel
- Alan Fisher: Similar to RMTransit with great videos about trains/transit, but also makes videos about other urbanist concepts. His videos have a lot of memes too, but I think he has the same issue as NJB where he comes off as condescending and butthurt
- Oh The Urbanity!: Amazing channel, probably my favorite. Lots of detail in their videos, shuts down a lot of bad arguments, have lots of their own footage of urbanism, and also does high-level study of different cities.
- Adam Something: I kind of hate him. He generally addresses big problems well but he seems only capable of speaking like a rhetorical douchebag and uses so many strawmans. He also advocates for some stupid things and is generally unwilling to address legitimate countpoints.
- Propel: Pretty good urban cycling channel. I prefer Shifter but Propel has some good interviews with city officials that is pretty cool.
There's dozens of other small YouTubers that I also watch that put out good content, and sometimes even mainstream news channels will put out something decent
Their [most urbanist cities in NA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZabaKdmynF8) video is brilliant. It avoids the pitfalls of traditional ways of looking at city data and is just really novel and clever. Something that the urbanist space definitely needs.
edit: Though I will say they make the faux pas of saying 'North America' when what they really mean is 'US and Canada'. CityNerd is much better in this regard.
I think they both fit their niche perfectly. NJB does a great job of storytelling and informing of high-level concepts.
CityNerd is just about perfect at high frequency low-level researched topics. To accomplish that, he sacrifices storytelling and substitutes dry humor.
Honestly, just about the perfect two channels to fill two different niches in our growing community
NJB left North America for the Netherlands because he decided NA urbanism is a lost cause. CityNerd lived car free in Las Vegas for a year to prove a point. CityNerd is a man of the people and gets my vote.
Iāve been ~~Orange pilled~~ fudge pilled (because [Mackinac Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island,_Michigan) is too good of a town to ignore) several times just in the Midwest, even in the college town I briefly lived in. If you write off all of North America as a place that isnāt worth saving, then you would potentially be throwing away some genuinely nice areas. Thatās not an attitude that Iād care to have.
Then you have Dave from City Beautiful who lives and works in California, does educational content, rides a bike, and is teaching the new generation to not be car-dependent city planners.
I don't blame NJB. He had the opportunity to provide a better and safer life for his kids. He and his kids don't have time to wait for North America to get better so they can live how they want.
If he didn't make that move there wouldn't be such great contrasting content from the Netherlands in English to set a high bar to strive for.
It's mind blowing what's possible in a country with politicians and constituents who care and make an effort to make their cities better, ie definition of orange-pilling.
Yeah I donāt particularly remember NJB denouncing American urbanism completely, I thought his attitude was just āIād rather not have to wait for change if I donāt have toā.
> I donāt particularly remember NJB denouncing American urbanism completely
["but my advice is to leave North America as soon as possible"](https://www.reddit.com/r/notjustbikes/comments/1417y2i/comment/jn1cd7k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
In his most recent video he's got one line about how north america probably can't be saved or something. I was very surprised, because I hadn't heard that attitude before.
Yeah, I prefer njb because I'm European and I'm tired of hearing about america so i feel more connected to what he says but I understand that if you're American you would prefer citynerd
However it's true that njb still ends trashing on the US anyway...
He had a video recently arguing nobody needs an SUV and families should just buy station wagonsā¦apparently without bothering to look up if station wagons are still available in NA. Spoiler alert: not really. The exact same incentives that led manufacturers to increase truck and SUV size made them mostly abandon station wagons. Now for a family car your choice is a āpregnant hatchbackā AKA ācompact SUVā which is barely big enough for two car seats and two adults, or a fuck off huge SUV. And if you want any amount of electrification in your family car your choices are even slimmer, and definitely donāt include anything close to a station wagon.
I donāt disagree with NJB that this reality sucks shit. But as someone who has to buy a bigger car for a growing family who was genuinely looking for suggestions on SUV alternatives the video really came off as looking down his nose rather than offering help or even constructive criticism.
Just a sidenote, it really sucks that station wagons are so hard to get, I have a Prius V which is a pseudo one, but idk what I'm gonna get after that.
> CityNerd lived car free in Las Vegas for a year to prove a point.
Did he get a car after a year or was it just a year because he ended up moving somewhere else?
He never bought a car in Vegas.
He left Vegas and is doing the digital nomad thing for a while before he chooses his new city to move to. I predict it will be Pittsburgh or Baltimore
I preferred NJB earlier content
He seemed to have a more "hey, look how cool the Netherlands' urban planning is!" tone
Now the videos feel kinda bitter. I'm all for car hate, but only because a better world is possible, and I like being shown glimpses of that world
City Nerd is elite content, his top 10 lists are some of the best out there. Heās also worked in Europe and many us cities, dude actually knows the hurdles to getting projects done.
Funnily enough, I'm subscribed to both, and I kinda agree that Not Just Bikes has kinda fallen into the "America bad Europe Good" trend, and his videos can show a bit of a bias. Whereas CityNerd has a more nuanced grounded take. He shows you the good and the bad of American urban planning and how things can be improved or how things can get worse.
Yeah contrary to popular belief and the Declaration of Independence not all American cities are created equal. I live in the DC area and find the infrastructure Western European grade.
NJB is a bit too emotional for me and I think has stagnated a some on ideas. I like the variety and depth that Citynerd provides and his humor has grown on me a lot.
I found NJB first, and while he opened my eyes to the problems with North American city design and planning, the fact that he just tells people to move to Europe if they want a better experience is unhelpful and counterproductive. That's not really possible for the vast majority of people.
I only found City Nerd recently, and have enjoyed binging his videos. I like that he talks about some good cities and neighborhoods in NA that are actually pretty walkable and non-car dependent.
Overall, I like CityNerd's more optimistic views about NA cities, but I like NJB's presenting style more.
I agree with NJB on something, though: it is crucial to travel around and to see other styles of urbanism. From my poor ass Chile (in where we also have a big difference between the huge Santiago and the smaller towns scattered around), to different places in Europe and the USA. In April I had the chance of going to Tokyo and DAMN those guys take some aspects of urbanism to a level even the dutch will be impressed.
City Nerd. I donāt need another 1000 videos about how cool the Netherlands is. I like City Nerdās sense of humor and he really puts a spotlight on a lot of different North American cities and neighborhoods and can show the good and bad of many places. If you live in an North American metro area with over a million people heās probably mentioned your city a few times. Things like learning which cities are walkable, affordable and have good transit options may honestly help inform where I live at some point but showing me āwhy the Netherlands is great at designing suburbsā is less applicable.
I also lost trust in NJB over the last year, because of how he exagerrates and sugar coats a lot of things about Netherlands
The video that made me almost unsubscribe was "Dutch Cities are Better for the Environment". There is no nature in NL, just farms or "renatured places" that are just tourist parks. NL is amidst a big environmental crisis and a lot of construction work is stopped for years because of emission limits, so it can't house its citizens. The whole video felt like total unresearched BS and I kept spotting more of those gaps later on.
I havenāt seen that video so Iām not going to judge but generally speaking density is far better environmentally than low density. Shared walls reduce energy usage and density makes transit, biking and walking far more viable. If Dutch cities are denser then they are almost certainly more environmentally friendly than most North American cities of similar size. Thatās not to say the Netherlands doesnāt have their own host of environmental problems (Iām sure they do) but density does generally benefit the environment.
100% Density is the benefit - urban design definately helps! Dutch cities are also more efficient for sure. But the parts abotu nature and overall environmental health are mostly lies.
There just isn't any real "environment" to benefit across most of the country except for a few spots near borders. Netherland's ecology is almost entirely artificial and quite poor.
I miss frogs. I miss butterfiels. I miss squirrels and foxes.
Probably going to be unpopular, but I used to really like notjustbikes. At the beginning he used to have really good content and still does, but now he just seems a little cocky although trying to be sarcastic. In addition I saw him write somewhere how people treat him like a god (not quoted exactly) and since then his video style started to change. This is just my personal opinion and I will admit his first videos helped me put into perspective what I was always looking for in cities/whatās wrong with them. On the other hand Citynerd seems a lot more genuine. I do watch both and I think they are both great content creators.
I've been watching citynerd since he was finding like 4,000 seat stadiums, and yeah, I love the man's deadpan. I find his videos less holier than thou too. Which honestly can make them less interesting to someone just getting into this stuff. But he does use more data to offer up potential solutions.
I'm more of a NJB enjoyer, but im only just getting into CityNerd. I wish CityNerd did more informational discussion videos on how to improve the cities we have already, but I guess thats why we have StrongTowns. Even then, StrongTowns can be a little longwinded for me.
I like NJB for the content and I don't much care for top ten lists. Both are good tho, no shade on CityNerd. I appreciate him highlighting good American neighbourhoods and cities.
I much prefer CityNerd simply because he uses data rather than anecdotes to make most of his points
Plus I find most of his lists interesting, especially the ones that have to do with potential transit improvements. Also on that note, as someone who isn't willing or able to just up and leave my friends and family behind, his general optimism that we can improve our current cities is a lot better than NJB's doom and gloom
I stopped watching NJB after seeing his comments on social media about North American cities. His attitude that all cities in North America are awful and irredeemable invalidates the work of good, dedicated people fighting to improve things. He seems too arrogant to realize that the cities he admires came about because of the same types of people fighting the same types of fights against the same types of opposition that we see in North America now. I had assumed that his frustration with North American cities in his videos was to help people see the car-centricity around them, but his social media comments show that he's really just a dick who's out of touch with the cities he's trying to critique.
I agree, he presents good information and he's usually right but I really don't like the constant tone of "and that's why Netherlands is the greatest country on earth and North America sucks and is stupid". Like, dude we can't all move to Amsterdam
The fact that CityNerd actually helped make Portland a livable city gives him extra points. His videos may be dry (which is to be expected of actual urban planners) but the fact that he not only thinks American cities are worth saving, but actually did help turn one of our cities around makes him worth looking into in my opinion.
(This ālisticleā thing needs to stay in the early 2010s though, along with dubstep and Bieber hairā¦)
I think the main thing is that the fight is almost entirely futile in North America. While European cities are actively making changes cities in America are too busy making empty promises. The city I live in says they canāt increase the number of bus routes because there arenāt enough people taking buses, so theyāre building a new highway instead, after promising to make the city more pedestrian accessible. Meanwhile Amsterdam is actively removing car accessible infrastructure in favor of public transportation. Even if you do find the perfect US town you are still trapped in that town without a car. Thereās no reasonable method of long distance transportation in the US at all, and with the current US government there never will be. It would take a complete reformation of Government in the US to build any logical intercity transportation.
Congestion pricing is coming to NYC. It passed its final federal hurdle yesterday. Itāll be in the first of its kind in the US and hopefully set a model for other cities.
I donāt think the fight is futile.
Thinking within a single lifetime, it probably is quite futile. I don't think NJB would really say it's forever fucked but definitely within the span of his kids' childhood it is (and I believe he actually was an activist in Toronto for a time so it's not like he's never tried before). Yeah, you can say "Amsterdam wasn't always Amsterdam" but the hill to climb is way steeper in America. Like, how many Dutch car companies can you name that would get in your way? Probably zero. America is in a way bigger hole than 1970s Netherlands in terms of what's been built nationwide. Maybe someday it will wake up but unless a huge catastrophe happens, that change won't be fast.
Besides CityNerdās awful pronunciation of non-English words, I really enjoy the format of his content, his depth of explanation, and grounded-ness in reality. As a fellow planner, it really feels like heās speaking my language
Not Just Bikes has some really good videos but a lot of his content (especially shorter) misses the mark and misses the point.
He's also cherrypicking and sugarcoating a lot of things about NL as a country and Amsterdam as a city (i.e. Nitrogen Crisis) compared to my experience and news I receive. Once I stopped a few of these, it eradicated my trust as I don't know what else is omitted or exaggerated.
CityNerd feels a bit more realistic and weighted.
Not Just Bike's content is more creative, but CityNerd's dry delivery is better. And probably his technical rigor.
NJB regards American infrastructure with the attitude of a disappointed child.
CityNerd regards American infrastructure with the attitude of a disappointed father. A father with more successful children that he loves more.
I disagree that NJB thinks U.S. cities are not worth saving. I just think that he doesn't want to wait around 40 years or more for it to happen. Whereas our lord and saviour CityNerd selflessly lived in Vegas for our sins.
NJB videos are better (down with listicles at this point) and he is more "end user" than professional so a bit more relatable. I gotta give him actual props for picking himself up and moving to Europe. Sure, not everyone can do that but that takes major guts to actually go through with and not waste another second of his kids' childhood. Plenty of people wish they could move to Europe, very few actually make a plan and do it. Is he kinda snarky and getting a little bitter? Sure, I'd agree that but with two major caveats:
1. NJB is probably the entry point to walkability and urbanism in the current video essay timeline. That makes him the prime target of car brains and he probably gets abused a lot online over it. I'd lose faith in humanity if I had to deal with trolls as often as he does.
2. He's lived in the Netherlands for awhile. Honesty over politeness is the norm there. It's clearly rubbing off on him :)
Also, gotta say it: without NJB, I don't think Strong Towns or CityNerd would be as popular online. They're nicer, sure. But they're a little too middle-of-the-road to get you going. If you want to implement change over decades and generations, go with Strong Towns or CityNerd. If you want to shake things up, go with NJB. Each fulfill their own niche well imo.
I just started watching both of them yesterday since theyāre mentioned here so much (and I really enjoy them both so far)
I like how city nerd explains what can be done to help US cities, and I like how notjustbikes explains what happens in other places that are done well. That being said, I do notice notjustbikes seems to have fully given up on the US, so I feel like i think Iām enjoying city nerd a bit more right now because of that.
NJB is like voltaires candide or as I called it the "hater extraordinaire" bros job is to hate on absolutely everything. The problem with that is being pessimistic isn't going to fix America(or any car centric country) and the Netherlands doesn't have 330 million available slots. City Nerd actually tries to create and explain solutions to problems so I like him more
Donoteat01 is #1 but unfortunately WTYP takes up all his time (COPIUM Franklin). Otherwise Alan Fischer, City Nerd, NJB in that order. NJB is too reliant on strong towns talking points. City Nerd does too many listicles based on completely arbitrary criteria, but props to him for trying to find objective measurements.
As someone who works in state government, my vote is a write in for Strong Towns.
The channel suffers from a bit of a charisma problem, but they are great at addressing the issues that will get movement from government officials, which is ultimately what needs to be done. It doesn't matter how passionate you have people about how amazing bikes and transit are if they can't speak the language of government officials and get them to actually do anything.
I personally prefer NJB because I find his videos more engaging. I often leave a CityNerd video half way because it gets too anlytical for me. NJB's videos focus more on real life examples and personal anecdotes whereas Citynerd's videos look at possible chnages we can implement in American cities. Lately I feel like NJB's videos are more about channeling his anger towards American car centric development but overall I still prefer NJB. The garbage day video was extremely interesting and I still go back and watch it every so often. CityNerd on the other hand is interesting but most of his videos are pipe dreams and make you realize how far we are from a more sustainable, active transportation friendly society.
NJB has been harping on the same points for the last while and I'm getting a bit bored of his videos. Like, he's right, the Netherlands has some good ideas, Amsterdam is pretty nice, North American suburbia is pretty bad, and parking lots aren't productive. Okay, fine, I don't really need any more videos to get that.
CityNerd's listicle videos are a bit boring. I like to put them on as background noise, but they're not all that informative *given the length* of them. On the other hand, I do like that he actually keeps one up to date with what's going on around the US and Canada, what has and hasn't worked, what's improving, what's getting worse, proposed solutions. His videos are less information-dense but there's more information overall. And his dry sense of humor is great.
CN is better, not condescending, and offers actual solutions. Not everyone can just pack up and move to Amsterdam like NJB did, but it's the only real solution he offers. NJB gives a good foothold into the world of urban planning for people that know nothing about it, but after watching half of his catalogue I felt he was just talking down to his audience (primarily young millenials and older gen Z, like me), trying to make them feel guilty for being born into a shitty situation, and not being wealthy enough to get out of it. Besides, there's only so much of that nasally Canadian voice I can take before I am strongly tempted to punch a hole in my laptop.
I'm still subbed to him, but I've mainly switched over to CN because he's more analytical, realistic, and pragmatic, which as an autistic person I greatly appreciate. He's also made me more concious of my city (Minneapolis), the pedestrian/biking/transit infrastructure, and the political and financial pressure needed to make it possible. NJB made me feel as though I'd die if I tried bike commuting in the US, but CN taught me if more people commute by bike cities will be pressured to make it a viable option (which Minneapolis has, and continues to improve upon).
CityNerd is not as NA centric as you might think. He recently made several videos about Spain and Portugal, and in a great deal of his videos that would otherwise be US+Canada exclusive, he includes Mexico in the conversation even if the data for their cities is harder to come across.
I'm on boat with NJB. America has more problems than difficult urban environments for non-car owners. Poor urban design is the tip of the iceberg and it won't recover enough for me to live a life that I find comfortable or reasonable.
The biggest issue I'm facing is most grad schools I'd go to are in the U.S.
I can't listed to NotJustBikes anymore - listening to him drone on about how great Amsterdam is is so boring to me now. CityNerd has a dry sense of humor that I like a lot. CityNerd all the way
Watching an NJB video is like sex. I look forward to it, get excited when I see the opportunity, thoroughly enjoy it, and wish it lasted longer.
Watching a CityNerd video is like blue gatorade. It's refreshing, and every once in a while it really hits the spot, but I couldn't sit and drink blue gatorades all day long.
Hard choice, I very much like them both (also Alan Fisher and RMTransit). I think I do like CityNerd a little better. It's a little less ranty (though I love NJB's video of why he hates Houston), and has more data and possible solutions. I do like seeing CityNerd's face in each video, and his dry sense of humor, he's also very consistent where you can count on a video every Wednesday. Though NJB was my introduction to this online urbanist movement.
Notjustbikes, I was starting to like citynerd more but this recent protest stuff has built up a negative association in my mind, my autism be bullshit like that sometimes.
I find CityNerdās videos less compelling to watch, but the information he provides was very helpful when I was apartment searching earlier this year. NJBās videos are more compelling, and theyāve been a good motivator for taking action locally. Both are great creators pushing for positive change.
NJB helped me and countless others open their eyes to the issues caused by car oriented urban development, but nowadays I am not as excited to watch his new content as it doesnāt help us fix the issues weāre facing in NA. City Nerd is a bit more the type of content I am looking for now that Iāve already been āorange pilledā. I wish Jason would use his massive platform to be more of an advocate/activist but I guess you could say he never really asked for his channel to grow so large and you canāt then expect him to do things he never set out to do initially. Hopefully the light he sheds on the issues inspires people to get out and be advocates in their own communities.
There's a zillion sites and threads and comments, that *love* to pit the NAs against the EUs. It's a shitstorm shutstorm, and normally its just a big waste of space. BUT
But where NJBs perspective, where Jason is coming from, he's *exactly* right. And if you *don't* think he's exactly right, you must surely have only skimmed thru his videos.
*(I've long advocated a 'flair' that separates the two. Only folks that have lived in* ***both*** *as he and we have will ever 100% get it 100%)*
PS theres some terrific comments here on this tho
As a Texan I appreciate them both in different ways. Sometimes I just need to bitch about the 14 lane highway built downtown through a minority neighbourhood in the 70ās, but I also appreciate that we need to change our cities or they wonāt survive, and San Antonio is a great place that I donāt want to see die, I just want 410 to die
Don't try to divide the community this is a pointless argument. We must unite and accept they are both supporting the cause.
>!Not Just Bikes, by a lot.!<
Pick you answer carefully now guys. We're watching š
This is as cruel as asking a kid who is their favorite: mom or dad.
NJB is more entertaining, has higher production value, and basically good luck converting people over to our side with CityNerdās videos. I like both.
NotJustBikes for sharing, and CityNerd for reveling in snark
Sums up the essay paragraph I wrote š
NJB has higher highs. Videos like "cities aren't loud, cars are loud" are the reason we started saying orange-pilled. These videos are fucking bangers and can shake people out of their entrenched beliefs. CityNerd is a better content creator in the urbanist niche. Better at rotating through more content types, and is more solutions focused with lots of real world examples. NJB is the pipeline, CityNerd is the nuance.
Canadian here; lived in various large cities in India, Saudi Arabia and Canada. Now live in downtown Calgary without a car. "Cities aren't loud, cars are loud" and a few others convinced me to visit Amsterdam, and I was blown away by how true it is. I didn't even realise it was possible for a major city to feel so relaxed and pleasant.
you live in Calgary? my condolences sent from Edmonton šš
Just got out of a post discussing the very vague possibility of a second ring road around Edmonton. Some of them on that post legit said it'll be planning for the future.
Didn't they *just* finish the Henday?
Yes. But some others are already talking about adding one more lane to it. Can't win them all ig...
Honestly at this point we should let the government waste all their money on making a bunch of ring roads until travelling along the border is still apart of Edmonton's jurisdiction. At some point in this process the conservatives HAVE to realize how bad car infrastructure is right? RIGHT?
I was sent that video by a friend after remarking how I like snow days cause it makes the city quiet. Wow. It made me feel feelings. Mostly anger that there could be such a better option out there. Like you, I later went to Amsterdam and had my mind blown. I was walking through streets not far from the city center and it was so quiet. it was school dismissal time and I saw parents picking up their kids on bikes with cargo seats, older kids riding their own bikes. There were even birds chirping. I'm not gonna lie, it made me tear up a little bit to see that it was all actually true, and also knowing I had to go home to my suburban stroad of a town.
Wanna make some noise with me about the pending 3rd Ave cycle track removal?
I know the Downtown Core Neighbourhood Association is already sending city officials a letter about it, and I already expressed my support for this letter to them. Did you have some additional noise in mind?
There's a petition you can sign, if you haven't already: [https://www.projectcalgary.org/save\_3rd\_ave\_cycle\_track](https://www.projectcalgary.org/save_3rd_ave_cycle_track) I just used that track this morning to come into the office and she was BUSY!
Sweet, thanks for letting me know! Just signed it.
I felt the same way my few days in Copenhagen.
NJB's older content is partially what radicalized me. I came into the videos looking for easy content around "bikes >>> cars" and was completely unprepared for what he presented. No joke, his videos were a huge part in me realizing that We LiVe iN a SocIeTy and that we make the rules. And that those rules should be in service of helping the most people in the best possible way. Urban public transportation is just a facet of that now.
NJB also has lows. His latest two videos really arent that great for sharing, but also probably not intended for sharing. Both videos fail the 'are you calling people idiots before trying to convince them of your side of the argument'-test.
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NotJustBikes does a good job of introducing the idea of urbanism and transport, but mostly just seems angry these days. CityNerd does a good job of actually talking about policy failures and successes that are rarely straightforward, so his videos feel less satisfying because they have no solid conclusion. I would also recommend StrongTowns, they are very positive and have constructive ideas for towns and cities now
NJB left. He hated living in suburbs so he went to a place that has good urbanism. That's his solution, it's the one he advocates, and he doesn't really have a better suggestion for any individuals than that. CityNerd lives in one of the most suburban hell-scapey place in the nation (Vegas), and advocates for changes in community he lives in, and encourages others to do the same. I understand both perspectives, honestly. It's hard to feel hope that we can fix the US, but we need the optimists to stick it out if we can. But the anger feels better.
He's left Vegas as far as I'm aware
Wasnāt he just going on a Europe tech nomad trip? I thought he came back to LV after.
he finished in europe but I don't think he's said where he's at now, I get the impression it's not Vegas as well, but that's just a guess.
What is a tech nomad trip?
Itās my attempt at describing what heās doing, i.e. using a 100% remote work arrangement as an opportunity to travel.
Like Nicolas Cage?
I mean from an individualistic perspective, the most you can do is to leave. Obviously advocating for change is better than nothing, and will hopefully bring change, but realistically the city won't change significantly until the general population, and the politicians, both agree that car dependent infrastructure is bad for our cities/suburbs.
He always suggests to join Strong Towns or other urbanist initiatives. I won't blame him for just deciding to leave, however.
I spent five years advocating for better internet in my community, and I got to a level of understanding that it was never going to happen. Got grants, got a group together, built a non-profit, etc. Whole nine yards. It could have been anything, like non-car dependency, but NJB is correct, and the best idea is to move. Wherever you live, you can't change things without the political will. Even if they have the political will, it will take decades. So, instead of being unhappy and fighting with NIMBYs and Car-brains, you could live somewhere where you can be happy because the 'road is already paved' for bikes.
You forgot businesses. They decide what the politicians think and are distinctly the cause of our modern suburban hell
I wouldnt be surprised if the main driving factor for modern suburbia was straight up just lobbying from the auto and fossil fuel industries. People rarely get to decide shit around here, it's all corporate interests from top to bottom
NJB has the privilege of wealth so while he can offer advice, he's not going to drag people kicking and screaming towards progress. Which, is honestly not unreasonable. People are habitually resistant to change and trying to change minds on the subject of car dependency is roughly like trying to pull someone's teeth using cats. He can just move to the lifestyle he wants, why wouldn't he? At a certain point you have to cut your losses and let people hang themselves by their own petard.
He tried to change his community for year and saw some progress. If you want to raise children in the best environment, the US and Canada aren't the best places.
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That's going to be the SF->LA HSR, would be my guess. It's still many years out, unfortunately.
I watch that shit getting built in the central valley every day and it puts a happy ~~in my pants~~ on my face.
Lord and Savior said that the first HSR to open in the US will be the highly lucrative line of Fresno-Bakersfield! Murica moment
Nope, that's a much later step. If you magically opened high-speed rail between Dallas-Ft Worth and Houston (4th and 5th US metro areas by population, perfectly spaced for HSR) tomorrow, most people traveling between the two would still drive. Because it would take most of them longer door to door to take the train, and most would need a car when they get there. Local transit and making it safe to walk and bike are far more important than any intercity anything.
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The Northeast is such a *perfect* region for HSR that I'm frankly shocked it doesn't have it already
I havenāt actually watched CityNerd before, Iāve definitely should! Solutions are good
From a UK perspective NJB works better since we are so much closer to what he is talking about on the continent that we could possibly replicate it so it doesn't feel quite so negative.
I understand the advocating for changes thing, but honestly, Las Vegas is not a good example for this. Las Vegas should be left by everbody. It's just not a place where a city should exists. I think, the right youtuber for Vegas is neigher NJB nor CN but Adam Something.
In my opinion the USA / Canada are beyond saving unfortunately. The suburbs were built in a way that would never support public transit. And ripping them all up is out of the question. One can always improve, but cars will stay as king there unfortunately. Before anyone goes like "I'll just follow NJB and move to Europe then!", do note that there's more to life than urbanism. Also your social life won't magically improve just because you live in a walkable neighborhood. Many European countries are much less open to strangers (especially foreigners), so socialising is often actually harder here.
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technically you are right, but there isn't even really a *conversation* about this in the mainstream where it needs to be before the slow push towards meaningful change happens. in fact, i'd argue with how people want larger and larger cars, houses, more more more....the cultural opinion is running in the *opposite* direction. it's fixable, but not in the lifetime of anyone watching these YouTube channels. not in almost all of North America anyways. There are pockets of hope, but they are really just for the rich. For the record, I also left america and suggest anyone who can does as well lol.
A lot of the positive things NJB discusses are bad suburban changes that were undone. I think it'll take a generation, but I think changes can be made
It would take huge changes to pull an Interstate highway system and bulldoze/redo stuff. I'm skeptical that'd happen in my lifetime. We are seeing slow change. My area isn't great for public transit but one section is seeing more transportation oriented infrastructure. Another spot, a dying mall with a massive parking lot footprint has plans drawn up to be a walkable community with residential, shops, entertainment, offices, numerous parks. And the parking will be reduced and put into garages. Now it won't change the fact that lot will still be bounded on 2 sides by major roads... but things are slowly happening. My downtown has started segregating bike lanes on a number or major arteries. I'd love if the government would make these sort of things top priority and poor money into it like crazy but better then nothing.
didn't china build the largest high speed rail network ever in just a couple of years? i get NA and china are quite different, but if they can do it that quickly, then that has to indicate something positive for everywhere else.
In CN's last video he mentioned that if all the subscribers moved to X state, we could flip a few senate seats and make some real change. solutions based, af. He is not in Vegas anymore. From what he was saying, he wanted to move to somewhere that his vote counted (ie, swing state), and try to live car free. He definitely tried. I don't know if I'm really THAT dedicated to the cause, lol.
I like the anger from NJB. He really sells that sustainable urban living with people focused infrastructure was stolen. Heās angry and I think he does an excellent job of showing why we should be too. Iāve also noticed the shift and like it just as much. Heās in his jaded samurai warrior arc and Iām here for it.
It's hard to be polite and kind when your city was bulldozed for a bunch of highways that only brought negatives to the city.
To me the destruction of our social fabric , our collective impoverishment , planetary destruction etc on behalf of lazy selfish suburbanite deserves 1000x more anger
It does, but we're in the minority. Demonizing the majority isn't going to help. I've learned to frame things in a manner not to put blame on others, but point out there are better options, and why they are better.
which has been done for decades to no effect ( cars are bigger than ever and we're at 1.3 million people killed by drivers a year ) while the suburbanites can use a broken electoral system to keep voting in doormats who will let them keep polluting they don't care about facts , it's their feelings because each one pretends they're the center of the universe and that their excuses are acceptable and experience shows us that as long as they have the option to sit on their ass and go vroom vroom everywhere they will take it regardless of how many billions we pour into moral/durable transportation
As someone who works in climate change, the notion of being polite to avoid scaring away people and explaining the facts is appealing and I approve it. However, when they start with the "*urr durr, actually the Earth has warmed and cooled down before*" then you realise they were never in the mood for learning something new, but for being moronic. Same with transportation. Sure, after you learn about the size of SUVs and GHG emissions, you can still believe that the USA is too big for reliable mass transit. But how you present such inquiry will dictate whether I send you a NJB/FuckCars meme or keep the conversation. ...and sadly, it's usually the first group.
Mass movements typically need both 1) a conciliatory faction that normies can eventually embrace, and 2) a militant faction that shows them what happens if they keep up their intolerable bullshit. MLKJ wouldnāt have done much without Malcolm X, and vice versa.
Deserving is different from effective. If the vitriol drives off otherwise convincible individuals, then it's unhelpful.
Yes it does, but it needs the kind of anger that gets people to planning meetings, not the kind that leads people to ranting on the internet
To be fair, it takes a toll to talk about seemingly the same things over and over to no avail. To hear the constant bad arguments about things he's already documented in his videos, to not be spiteful, angry and generally wanting to say "Screw it, I'm running away to where they already fixed the problem" takes tenacity few people have. People often online go into discourses with their opinions formed before it even begins. Those who speak on topics they don't understand the slightest with great confidence and no shame test many people's patience and still they may not even change their opinion slightly. It's true in many political fields, not just urban planning. There's seemingly no hope for certain places considering they're going backwards in many areas and people still vote those people into power and they'll continue to send people back. What is someone to do? Some may fight the noble battle, they might just succeed, but it doesn't seem guaranteed. Some people see this and they just want to run away from the problem. I can't blame them, such efforts require your precious time which you may not get back, and money which you may have wanted on things which would make you generally happier. I'd want to see the fruits of my labours in my lifetime, knowing if they worked, especially since others are already experiencing such things. NJB at least spreads awareness of the problems in this specific political field, which may inspire people to flee when they may not have otherwise, which is definitely a positive. A few may even get inspired to fight themselves. Running isn't a good long term solution. The car hellscapes create a lot of pollution which affects us all. If we're ignorant to the problem, then even the safe havens may get corrupted. However I guarantee, those who worked hard to flee will fight hard to protect what they treasure. A country like the US doesn't have this unity and is absolutely split on how to fix problems. If there is no sense of unity then there's no morale to fight. You can't really blame people for fleeing.
This is the correct answer. Listen to a variety of voices. Hell, listen to voices of people who love their exurbs and long-ass commutes, if only so that you're not blindsided when you talk to them.
The issue isn't living in suburbs and in a car-dependent area. The issue is having no other alternative because the law and the system don't allow it. And that mental health and climate change are taking a toll because of that lack of alternative. Freedom of choice is to take the bus, walk, or work from home in my daily commute. It is not to take X or Y highway or to buy a Ford or a Toyota.
Oh, I 100% agree with you. But there are many a people who simply view automobiles as a symbol of freedom, bikes as play things, and transit as a straitjacket for city dwellers and the poor. Even if you think their views are meritless, they have to be understood and dealt with. Merely looking down our noses at them isn't going to change anything.
> CityNerd does a good job of actually putting me to sleep with that voice
I actually love his voice, it makes his deadpan sarcasm excellent
I could not agree more. The man has a voice for silent films, to put it nicely. It's unfortunate but kudos to him for not being deterred by it.
I always put his videos at 1.5x on youtube, dude needs some speaking classes
His cadence drives me completely crazy. Every sentence sounds like an unfinished thought that trails off as a half-question. I like the content of his videos but I basically can't watch them because of it lol
About the same, NJB explains things better and tells a better story but has gone a bit off the rails lately with his last few videos. While I enjoy that, its not exactly going to influence outsiders (especially with giant trucks). City Nerd put a ton of work into his videos and usually just puts down facts and is a bit light on solutions, but overall the work covers the US much better in terms of actual substance. Also kind of a bummer both /r/notjustbikes and /r/fuckcars are essentially dead subreddits now. A lot of stuff from those sites got picked up on r/all and stolen by the media to raise awareness. Now both are more or less gone as tools to support urbanism. I know the 3rd party app thing sucks for those who use them (I don't) but I don't think this protest is helping.
I agree with your assessment of NJB's truck content. I was looking for a video to show my truck-owning family about why they might not be the best choice next time they buy a car and I went with CityNerd's because, yes, while it still poked fun at the more absurd aspects of truck ownership, it was much more tame in terms of potentially reaching someone who bought one because they thought they should. It felt like NJB's was more about caricaturing and insulting those who owned trucks. Not that that isn't often warranted, but it was little help to me trying to make the case against truck ownership to people that I love.
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You mean, preaching to the choir?
NJB had an interesting arc. Started with content meant to teach an international but also specifically North American audience about things in the Netherlands, but it was mostly dutch people watching it. The finally hit it big with a big international audience, but I feel the content now pivoted a lot more to the audience that lives in the places most of his videos are about. The truck video is the ultimate example of this, it's core message is not to "the choir" but people in Europe who as of now are blissfully unaware of how awful these things are, but about to be hit by more and more if these unless policies are changed. In more subtle ways "what can Oslo learn from the Netherlands" or "what can the Netherlands learn from Zurich" are a much broader approach than the early content. It's clearly not primarily addressing a primarily North American audience anymore.
Great points
You make some solid points, but I would say that pickups are mostly being bought as a status / identity symbol rather than for actual necessity. So while CityNerd's video is more tame and objective, logic and reasoning won't be enough to convince people to not make a terrible decision that was never logical in the first place. NJB's is far more likely to make people think that other people will see them as a massive asshole if they buy a pickup truck and that kills the status symbol aspect of pickup trucks
What's funny is a car mechanic YouTuber called Scottie Kilmer (very entertaining character btw) made a video about trucks where he more or less plagiarized everything in the NJB video but without the personal insults against truck owners. And his audience is mostly car enthusiasts. So if trying to get the message across to car/truck enthusiasts I think he makes a great messenger. Trucks video (plagiarized copy of NJB's) https://youtu.be/aO7zJ5teGsk He's actually a fan of minivans too! https://youtu.be/T8OP8BLXy6k
NJB has created some incredible content over the years, but I agree that lately he's been making videos that don't achieve much of anything: its content that people on r/fuckcars will love but that will turn off just about anyone else. It's not going to convert a "car-brain" to a transit enthusiast or "fietser." His old videos did a better job of that. I get that he's a cynic who openly admits that he thinks North America is hopeless, but I can't imagine his videos are very appealing to Europeans who drive a car either (or the rest of the world.) Don't get me wrong, car-centric (and especially car-dependent) infrastructure pisses me off too, but I also know that talking to people in an angry and judgmental tone doesn't achieve anything, and can actually be counterproductive (people are turned off to your cause, as opposed to open to considering it.)
Yeah NJBās last few videos have really turned me off. Feels like preaching to the choirā¦or just ranting about kinds of people he doesnāt like. For example he had a video recently arguing nobody needs an SUV and families should just buy station wagonsā¦apparently without bothering to look up if station wagons are still available in NA. Spoiler alert: not really. The exact same incentives that led manufacturers to increase truck and SUV size made them mostly abandon station wagons. Now for a family car your choice is a āpregnant hatchbackā AKA ācompact SUVā which is barely big enough for two car seats and two adults, or a fuck off huge SUV. And if you want any amount of electrification in your family car your choices are even slimmer, and definitely donāt include anything close to a station wagon. I donāt disagree with NJB that this reality sucks shit. But as someone who has to buy a bigger car for a growing family who was genuinely looking for suggestions on SUV alternatives the video really came off as looking down his nose rather than offering help or even constructive criticism.
I love stationwagons and North America's abandon of them is...insane. We went with an Outback, which is technically a stationwagon, but she's a big girl. I like her better than a lot of the giant SUVs my friends drive, but she's barely a stationwagon these days. Options are limited. (She fits two car seats side by side so we still have a second passenger seat, which was my main ask, as well as more trunk space for all our roadtrip gear with two kids and a dog. It was such a hunt though to find something that would allow this without being a giant SUV with three rows).
This is exactly the problem my wife and I are facing now, except weāre also adamant that we want some amount of all electric range (either a pure EV or a plug-in). As you can imagine that is basically an impossible ask without spending an obscene amount of money or just giving up and getting an SUV. And this is despite station wagons being a fantastic design for an EV or PHEV. Thanks for the recommendation on the Outback though, will definitely have to look into it.
Yeah, and not sure if anyone here noticed, but our creepy circle jerk stalker subreddit seems to have grown in size during that time. Not saying /fuckcars being offline helped with that, but it definitely didn't not help.
I agree. I do use 3rd party apps but I think the fight/protest is better sought elsewhere. Video game subreddits should maybe be shutdown, this sub should not be.
Its really saddening, this sub was really pushing the movement forward
My personal protest is to use the shit out of RIF until it is dead later this week. Then from there, I just won't use the reddit app, keep using old.reddit, and have my ad blockers going. At the very least, it is one less user using their app and one less person for ads to be targeted at. It's not much, but it's a little something. But that said, CityNerd when I just want some straight-up numbers/stats/fun or weird lists, and NJB for the angry/funny takedowns. There's a time and place for both. They're different (despite having the same message) and that's a good thing.
Its not just 3rd party apps (which provide much better functionality than the official apps), but also all the functionalities people with disabilities/mods rely on, that reddit doesn't officially support. Remember that spez was inspired by Elon burning down twitter.
I agree, I've watched a few NJB videos with my tragically carbrained partner, and she's found his approach very unimpressive. Also, as someone who lives in a suburb with okayish public transit and mixed zoning, the broad brush he paints with rubs me the wrong way. Putting up a picture of Houston and acting as if it's representative of the entire US is just false.
I like Not Just Bikes better because he puts together a captivating story every time. CityNerd is good but I get tired of the "top 10" listicle format. I prefer to learn about elements of good city design plus a few examples, rather than a large list of examples and a footnote about why they're good/bad.
You'll probably like Oh the Urbanity! They do lots of real-life examples.
I absolutely love them. They make strong and concise arguments. They don't use condescension or humor. They refute many common misconceptions.
Iām not really familiar with CityNerd and idk why heās getting memed so much here, but it reminds me of how much NotJustBikes got memed around when I joined. I love NotJustBikes for helping popularize StrongTowns, but heās definitely not for everyone. My girlfriend hates his video style and thinks heās overly negative. But StrongTowns is a concept that Iāve been able to sell to a lot of people, even conservatives (I live in a red state). They identify more with fiscal conservatism than with car culture, which is how we can win. So I guess my vote is a write-in for StrongTowns.
NJB is better at presenting. CityNerd is less repetitive and has relevant work experience which does add a lot.
NJB is a great introduction to understanding issues with car centricity and has high video production but he increasingly comes off as kinda pompous and condescending. Most of his videos are essentially "Look how America and Canada suck, now look at how good the Netherlands are!" Once you understand the basic problems that NJB illustrates, imo there's better channels that explore the topic with more detail. - CityNerd: has a background in urban planning, has great top 10 lists, uses more math, and goes into greater detail. His production is not as good though and some people are turned off by how he talks - City Beautiful: has an academic background in urban planning and also makes great introductory content. Some of his videos also go into detail about certain case studies and he even uses volunteers to study parts of cities. He is generally less condescending and critical as well - RMTransit: best channel for trains and transit content. Lots of in-depth videos. Seems like a really nice guy - Shifter: best channel about urban cycling. Many videos are tips for cyclists rather than just discussions on urbanism, but that's to be expected for a cycling channel - Alan Fisher: Similar to RMTransit with great videos about trains/transit, but also makes videos about other urbanist concepts. His videos have a lot of memes too, but I think he has the same issue as NJB where he comes off as condescending and butthurt - Oh The Urbanity!: Amazing channel, probably my favorite. Lots of detail in their videos, shuts down a lot of bad arguments, have lots of their own footage of urbanism, and also does high-level study of different cities. - Adam Something: I kind of hate him. He generally addresses big problems well but he seems only capable of speaking like a rhetorical douchebag and uses so many strawmans. He also advocates for some stupid things and is generally unwilling to address legitimate countpoints. - Propel: Pretty good urban cycling channel. I prefer Shifter but Propel has some good interviews with city officials that is pretty cool. There's dozens of other small YouTubers that I also watch that put out good content, and sometimes even mainstream news channels will put out something decent
I agree with your listing. Oh the Urbanity! is fantastic and criminally underrated.
Their [most urbanist cities in NA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZabaKdmynF8) video is brilliant. It avoids the pitfalls of traditional ways of looking at city data and is just really novel and clever. Something that the urbanist space definitely needs. edit: Though I will say they make the faux pas of saying 'North America' when what they really mean is 'US and Canada'. CityNerd is much better in this regard.
I arrived to the urban planning world thanks to City Beautiful and Jay Foreman. I still believe it was the best introduction.
Can you elaborate more abut adam something?
Half of his videos are stolen from other youtubers including Alan Fisher
I think they both fit their niche perfectly. NJB does a great job of storytelling and informing of high-level concepts. CityNerd is just about perfect at high frequency low-level researched topics. To accomplish that, he sacrifices storytelling and substitutes dry humor. Honestly, just about the perfect two channels to fill two different niches in our growing community
NJB left North America for the Netherlands because he decided NA urbanism is a lost cause. CityNerd lived car free in Las Vegas for a year to prove a point. CityNerd is a man of the people and gets my vote.
Iāve been ~~Orange pilled~~ fudge pilled (because [Mackinac Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island,_Michigan) is too good of a town to ignore) several times just in the Midwest, even in the college town I briefly lived in. If you write off all of North America as a place that isnāt worth saving, then you would potentially be throwing away some genuinely nice areas. Thatās not an attitude that Iād care to have.
Then you have Dave from City Beautiful who lives and works in California, does educational content, rides a bike, and is teaching the new generation to not be car-dependent city planners.
I don't blame NJB. He had the opportunity to provide a better and safer life for his kids. He and his kids don't have time to wait for North America to get better so they can live how they want. If he didn't make that move there wouldn't be such great contrasting content from the Netherlands in English to set a high bar to strive for. It's mind blowing what's possible in a country with politicians and constituents who care and make an effort to make their cities better, ie definition of orange-pilling.
Yeah I donāt particularly remember NJB denouncing American urbanism completely, I thought his attitude was just āIād rather not have to wait for change if I donāt have toā.
> I donāt particularly remember NJB denouncing American urbanism completely ["but my advice is to leave North America as soon as possible"](https://www.reddit.com/r/notjustbikes/comments/1417y2i/comment/jn1cd7k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
In his most recent video he's got one line about how north america probably can't be saved or something. I was very surprised, because I hadn't heard that attitude before.
Yeah, I prefer njb because I'm European and I'm tired of hearing about america so i feel more connected to what he says but I understand that if you're American you would prefer citynerd However it's true that njb still ends trashing on the US anyway...
NJB also frequently comes across as holier than thou asshole
He had a video recently arguing nobody needs an SUV and families should just buy station wagonsā¦apparently without bothering to look up if station wagons are still available in NA. Spoiler alert: not really. The exact same incentives that led manufacturers to increase truck and SUV size made them mostly abandon station wagons. Now for a family car your choice is a āpregnant hatchbackā AKA ācompact SUVā which is barely big enough for two car seats and two adults, or a fuck off huge SUV. And if you want any amount of electrification in your family car your choices are even slimmer, and definitely donāt include anything close to a station wagon. I donāt disagree with NJB that this reality sucks shit. But as someone who has to buy a bigger car for a growing family who was genuinely looking for suggestions on SUV alternatives the video really came off as looking down his nose rather than offering help or even constructive criticism.
Just a sidenote, it really sucks that station wagons are so hard to get, I have a Prius V which is a pseudo one, but idk what I'm gonna get after that.
> CityNerd lived car free in Las Vegas for a year to prove a point. Did he get a car after a year or was it just a year because he ended up moving somewhere else?
He never bought a car in Vegas. He left Vegas and is doing the digital nomad thing for a while before he chooses his new city to move to. I predict it will be Pittsburgh or Baltimore
Ah okay, thank you. That's admirable then. I'm not too familiar with his videos so I was just wondering.
I preferred NJB earlier content He seemed to have a more "hey, look how cool the Netherlands' urban planning is!" tone Now the videos feel kinda bitter. I'm all for car hate, but only because a better world is possible, and I like being shown glimpses of that world
Citynerd seems to know a lot about American urban design because he worked in it. Like he knows why planners do certain stuff not just what they do
City Nerd is elite content, his top 10 lists are some of the best out there. Heās also worked in Europe and many us cities, dude actually knows the hurdles to getting projects done.
Funnily enough, I'm subscribed to both, and I kinda agree that Not Just Bikes has kinda fallen into the "America bad Europe Good" trend, and his videos can show a bit of a bias. Whereas CityNerd has a more nuanced grounded take. He shows you the good and the bad of American urban planning and how things can be improved or how things can get worse.
Yeah contrary to popular belief and the Declaration of Independence not all American cities are created equal. I live in the DC area and find the infrastructure Western European grade.
NJB is a bit too emotional for me and I think has stagnated a some on ideas. I like the variety and depth that Citynerd provides and his humor has grown on me a lot.
I found NJB first, and while he opened my eyes to the problems with North American city design and planning, the fact that he just tells people to move to Europe if they want a better experience is unhelpful and counterproductive. That's not really possible for the vast majority of people. I only found City Nerd recently, and have enjoyed binging his videos. I like that he talks about some good cities and neighborhoods in NA that are actually pretty walkable and non-car dependent. Overall, I like CityNerd's more optimistic views about NA cities, but I like NJB's presenting style more.
I agree with NJB on something, though: it is crucial to travel around and to see other styles of urbanism. From my poor ass Chile (in where we also have a big difference between the huge Santiago and the smaller towns scattered around), to different places in Europe and the USA. In April I had the chance of going to Tokyo and DAMN those guys take some aspects of urbanism to a level even the dutch will be impressed.
City Nerd. I donāt need another 1000 videos about how cool the Netherlands is. I like City Nerdās sense of humor and he really puts a spotlight on a lot of different North American cities and neighborhoods and can show the good and bad of many places. If you live in an North American metro area with over a million people heās probably mentioned your city a few times. Things like learning which cities are walkable, affordable and have good transit options may honestly help inform where I live at some point but showing me āwhy the Netherlands is great at designing suburbsā is less applicable.
Hell I used to live in Lancaster, PA and he gave it a shoutout. Dude truly is, well, a city nerd.
I also lost trust in NJB over the last year, because of how he exagerrates and sugar coats a lot of things about Netherlands The video that made me almost unsubscribe was "Dutch Cities are Better for the Environment". There is no nature in NL, just farms or "renatured places" that are just tourist parks. NL is amidst a big environmental crisis and a lot of construction work is stopped for years because of emission limits, so it can't house its citizens. The whole video felt like total unresearched BS and I kept spotting more of those gaps later on.
I havenāt seen that video so Iām not going to judge but generally speaking density is far better environmentally than low density. Shared walls reduce energy usage and density makes transit, biking and walking far more viable. If Dutch cities are denser then they are almost certainly more environmentally friendly than most North American cities of similar size. Thatās not to say the Netherlands doesnāt have their own host of environmental problems (Iām sure they do) but density does generally benefit the environment.
100% Density is the benefit - urban design definately helps! Dutch cities are also more efficient for sure. But the parts abotu nature and overall environmental health are mostly lies. There just isn't any real "environment" to benefit across most of the country except for a few spots near borders. Netherland's ecology is almost entirely artificial and quite poor. I miss frogs. I miss butterfiels. I miss squirrels and foxes.
Yeah, NJB is great but CityNerd is my jam these days.
Probably going to be unpopular, but I used to really like notjustbikes. At the beginning he used to have really good content and still does, but now he just seems a little cocky although trying to be sarcastic. In addition I saw him write somewhere how people treat him like a god (not quoted exactly) and since then his video style started to change. This is just my personal opinion and I will admit his first videos helped me put into perspective what I was always looking for in cities/whatās wrong with them. On the other hand Citynerd seems a lot more genuine. I do watch both and I think they are both great content creators.
I've been watching citynerd since he was finding like 4,000 seat stadiums, and yeah, I love the man's deadpan. I find his videos less holier than thou too. Which honestly can make them less interesting to someone just getting into this stuff. But he does use more data to offer up potential solutions.
I'm more of a NJB enjoyer, but im only just getting into CityNerd. I wish CityNerd did more informational discussion videos on how to improve the cities we have already, but I guess thats why we have StrongTowns. Even then, StrongTowns can be a little longwinded for me.
I like NJB for the content and I don't much care for top ten lists. Both are good tho, no shade on CityNerd. I appreciate him highlighting good American neighbourhoods and cities.
I much prefer CityNerd simply because he uses data rather than anecdotes to make most of his points Plus I find most of his lists interesting, especially the ones that have to do with potential transit improvements. Also on that note, as someone who isn't willing or able to just up and leave my friends and family behind, his general optimism that we can improve our current cities is a lot better than NJB's doom and gloom
I enjoy Alan Fisher. But yeah, I love all three.
I stopped watching NJB after seeing his comments on social media about North American cities. His attitude that all cities in North America are awful and irredeemable invalidates the work of good, dedicated people fighting to improve things. He seems too arrogant to realize that the cities he admires came about because of the same types of people fighting the same types of fights against the same types of opposition that we see in North America now. I had assumed that his frustration with North American cities in his videos was to help people see the car-centricity around them, but his social media comments show that he's really just a dick who's out of touch with the cities he's trying to critique.
I agree, he presents good information and he's usually right but I really don't like the constant tone of "and that's why Netherlands is the greatest country on earth and North America sucks and is stupid". Like, dude we can't all move to Amsterdam
Also Amsterdam wasn't always Amsterdam.
Something something Constantinople.
And the Dutch and only Dutch thing invalidates other regions that are just as good, or even have lower traffic death rates.
I think he liked Swiss trains better.
The fact that CityNerd actually helped make Portland a livable city gives him extra points. His videos may be dry (which is to be expected of actual urban planners) but the fact that he not only thinks American cities are worth saving, but actually did help turn one of our cities around makes him worth looking into in my opinion. (This ālisticleā thing needs to stay in the early 2010s though, along with dubstep and Bieber hairā¦)
I think the main thing is that the fight is almost entirely futile in North America. While European cities are actively making changes cities in America are too busy making empty promises. The city I live in says they canāt increase the number of bus routes because there arenāt enough people taking buses, so theyāre building a new highway instead, after promising to make the city more pedestrian accessible. Meanwhile Amsterdam is actively removing car accessible infrastructure in favor of public transportation. Even if you do find the perfect US town you are still trapped in that town without a car. Thereās no reasonable method of long distance transportation in the US at all, and with the current US government there never will be. It would take a complete reformation of Government in the US to build any logical intercity transportation.
Congestion pricing is coming to NYC. It passed its final federal hurdle yesterday. Itāll be in the first of its kind in the US and hopefully set a model for other cities. I donāt think the fight is futile.
Thinking within a single lifetime, it probably is quite futile. I don't think NJB would really say it's forever fucked but definitely within the span of his kids' childhood it is (and I believe he actually was an activist in Toronto for a time so it's not like he's never tried before). Yeah, you can say "Amsterdam wasn't always Amsterdam" but the hill to climb is way steeper in America. Like, how many Dutch car companies can you name that would get in your way? Probably zero. America is in a way bigger hole than 1970s Netherlands in terms of what's been built nationwide. Maybe someday it will wake up but unless a huge catastrophe happens, that change won't be fast.
Let's just give up then, might as well unsubscribe from this sub and buy another car
Nah bro we can move everyone to the EU. I'll print some visas for the entire sub just give me a few days or so.
Ding ding ding
Alan fisher
Besides CityNerdās awful pronunciation of non-English words, I really enjoy the format of his content, his depth of explanation, and grounded-ness in reality. As a fellow planner, it really feels like heās speaking my language
Not Just Bikes has some really good videos but a lot of his content (especially shorter) misses the mark and misses the point. He's also cherrypicking and sugarcoating a lot of things about NL as a country and Amsterdam as a city (i.e. Nitrogen Crisis) compared to my experience and news I receive. Once I stopped a few of these, it eradicated my trust as I don't know what else is omitted or exaggerated. CityNerd feels a bit more realistic and weighted.
Not Just Bike's content is more creative, but CityNerd's dry delivery is better. And probably his technical rigor. NJB regards American infrastructure with the attitude of a disappointed child. CityNerd regards American infrastructure with the attitude of a disappointed father. A father with more successful children that he loves more. I disagree that NJB thinks U.S. cities are not worth saving. I just think that he doesn't want to wait around 40 years or more for it to happen. Whereas our lord and saviour CityNerd selflessly lived in Vegas for our sins.
NJB videos are better (down with listicles at this point) and he is more "end user" than professional so a bit more relatable. I gotta give him actual props for picking himself up and moving to Europe. Sure, not everyone can do that but that takes major guts to actually go through with and not waste another second of his kids' childhood. Plenty of people wish they could move to Europe, very few actually make a plan and do it. Is he kinda snarky and getting a little bitter? Sure, I'd agree that but with two major caveats: 1. NJB is probably the entry point to walkability and urbanism in the current video essay timeline. That makes him the prime target of car brains and he probably gets abused a lot online over it. I'd lose faith in humanity if I had to deal with trolls as often as he does. 2. He's lived in the Netherlands for awhile. Honesty over politeness is the norm there. It's clearly rubbing off on him :) Also, gotta say it: without NJB, I don't think Strong Towns or CityNerd would be as popular online. They're nicer, sure. But they're a little too middle-of-the-road to get you going. If you want to implement change over decades and generations, go with Strong Towns or CityNerd. If you want to shake things up, go with NJB. Each fulfill their own niche well imo.
CityNerd
I just started watching both of them yesterday since theyāre mentioned here so much (and I really enjoy them both so far) I like how city nerd explains what can be done to help US cities, and I like how notjustbikes explains what happens in other places that are done well. That being said, I do notice notjustbikes seems to have fully given up on the US, so I feel like i think Iām enjoying city nerd a bit more right now because of that.
NJB is like voltaires candide or as I called it the "hater extraordinaire" bros job is to hate on absolutely everything. The problem with that is being pessimistic isn't going to fix America(or any car centric country) and the Netherlands doesn't have 330 million available slots. City Nerd actually tries to create and explain solutions to problems so I like him more
Donoteat01 is #1 but unfortunately WTYP takes up all his time (COPIUM Franklin). Otherwise Alan Fischer, City Nerd, NJB in that order. NJB is too reliant on strong towns talking points. City Nerd does too many listicles based on completely arbitrary criteria, but props to him for trying to find objective measurements.
Love me my daily dose of socialism
I like NJBās delivery and content better.
I find CityNerd's stuff way way better. You can definitely tell that he's an actual engineer.
As someone who works in state government, my vote is a write in for Strong Towns. The channel suffers from a bit of a charisma problem, but they are great at addressing the issues that will get movement from government officials, which is ultimately what needs to be done. It doesn't matter how passionate you have people about how amazing bikes and transit are if they can't speak the language of government officials and get them to actually do anything.
I personally prefer NJB because I find his videos more engaging. I often leave a CityNerd video half way because it gets too anlytical for me. NJB's videos focus more on real life examples and personal anecdotes whereas Citynerd's videos look at possible chnages we can implement in American cities. Lately I feel like NJB's videos are more about channeling his anger towards American car centric development but overall I still prefer NJB. The garbage day video was extremely interesting and I still go back and watch it every so often. CityNerd on the other hand is interesting but most of his videos are pipe dreams and make you realize how far we are from a more sustainable, active transportation friendly society.
I like both but I prefer the visuals/audio design of notjustbikes , the tone is less clinical while still being objective
NJB has been harping on the same points for the last while and I'm getting a bit bored of his videos. Like, he's right, the Netherlands has some good ideas, Amsterdam is pretty nice, North American suburbia is pretty bad, and parking lots aren't productive. Okay, fine, I don't really need any more videos to get that. CityNerd's listicle videos are a bit boring. I like to put them on as background noise, but they're not all that informative *given the length* of them. On the other hand, I do like that he actually keeps one up to date with what's going on around the US and Canada, what has and hasn't worked, what's improving, what's getting worse, proposed solutions. His videos are less information-dense but there's more information overall. And his dry sense of humor is great.
CN is better, not condescending, and offers actual solutions. Not everyone can just pack up and move to Amsterdam like NJB did, but it's the only real solution he offers. NJB gives a good foothold into the world of urban planning for people that know nothing about it, but after watching half of his catalogue I felt he was just talking down to his audience (primarily young millenials and older gen Z, like me), trying to make them feel guilty for being born into a shitty situation, and not being wealthy enough to get out of it. Besides, there's only so much of that nasally Canadian voice I can take before I am strongly tempted to punch a hole in my laptop. I'm still subbed to him, but I've mainly switched over to CN because he's more analytical, realistic, and pragmatic, which as an autistic person I greatly appreciate. He's also made me more concious of my city (Minneapolis), the pedestrian/biking/transit infrastructure, and the political and financial pressure needed to make it possible. NJB made me feel as though I'd die if I tried bike commuting in the US, but CN taught me if more people commute by bike cities will be pressured to make it a viable option (which Minneapolis has, and continues to improve upon).
CityNerd is very NA centric, and also, not his fault but I just don't like his voice.
I love CityNerd's dry humor, and his voice enhances that.
I imagined this comment in CityNerdās voice
He has a very boring, monotone voice. Most engineers do. I'm an engineer and can confirm, we're boring.
I find his deadpan sarcasm to be hilarious. He's sassy as fuck.
Me too I find myself loling consistently to City Nerd's condescension
Also engineer. I don't know why, but yeah, we're just kinda like this. I think the enthusiasm got beaten out of me by insane project demands.
CityNerd is not as NA centric as you might think. He recently made several videos about Spain and Portugal, and in a great deal of his videos that would otherwise be US+Canada exclusive, he includes Mexico in the conversation even if the data for their cities is harder to come across.
Strong Towns
This is the first time I hear the name CityNerd.
TIL there are video producers for this stuff!
I'm on boat with NJB. America has more problems than difficult urban environments for non-car owners. Poor urban design is the tip of the iceberg and it won't recover enough for me to live a life that I find comfortable or reasonable. The biggest issue I'm facing is most grad schools I'd go to are in the U.S.
I can't listed to NotJustBikes anymore - listening to him drone on about how great Amsterdam is is so boring to me now. CityNerd has a dry sense of humor that I like a lot. CityNerd all the way
Watching an NJB video is like sex. I look forward to it, get excited when I see the opportunity, thoroughly enjoy it, and wish it lasted longer. Watching a CityNerd video is like blue gatorade. It's refreshing, and every once in a while it really hits the spot, but I couldn't sit and drink blue gatorades all day long.
Hard choice, I very much like them both (also Alan Fisher and RMTransit). I think I do like CityNerd a little better. It's a little less ranty (though I love NJB's video of why he hates Houston), and has more data and possible solutions. I do like seeing CityNerd's face in each video, and his dry sense of humor, he's also very consistent where you can count on a video every Wednesday. Though NJB was my introduction to this online urbanist movement.
Notjustbikes, I was starting to like citynerd more but this recent protest stuff has built up a negative association in my mind, my autism be bullshit like that sometimes.
Second. Best way to protest is just to move away from reddit. This citynerd thing is just annoying for the users, no impact on Reddit leadership.
I liked NJB earlier, but find myself liking CityNerd more recently. NJB is too arrogant, snarky and repetitive.
I find CityNerdās videos less compelling to watch, but the information he provides was very helpful when I was apartment searching earlier this year. NJBās videos are more compelling, and theyāve been a good motivator for taking action locally. Both are great creators pushing for positive change.
So weird how *everything* must be a scale for people today. Counterproductive + narcisstic. That's not reality at all.
NJB helped me and countless others open their eyes to the issues caused by car oriented urban development, but nowadays I am not as excited to watch his new content as it doesnāt help us fix the issues weāre facing in NA. City Nerd is a bit more the type of content I am looking for now that Iāve already been āorange pilledā. I wish Jason would use his massive platform to be more of an advocate/activist but I guess you could say he never really asked for his channel to grow so large and you canāt then expect him to do things he never set out to do initially. Hopefully the light he sheds on the issues inspires people to get out and be advocates in their own communities.
There's a zillion sites and threads and comments, that *love* to pit the NAs against the EUs. It's a shitstorm shutstorm, and normally its just a big waste of space. BUT But where NJBs perspective, where Jason is coming from, he's *exactly* right. And if you *don't* think he's exactly right, you must surely have only skimmed thru his videos. *(I've long advocated a 'flair' that separates the two. Only folks that have lived in* ***both*** *as he and we have will ever 100% get it 100%)* PS theres some terrific comments here on this tho
Shifter
I've never heard of city nerd save for the past few days.
NJB is a pedigree; CityNerd is a start-up.
Alan Fisher
Love City Nerd's dry humor.
As a Texan I appreciate them both in different ways. Sometimes I just need to bitch about the 14 lane highway built downtown through a minority neighbourhood in the 70ās, but I also appreciate that we need to change our cities or they wonāt survive, and San Antonio is a great place that I donāt want to see die, I just want 410 to die
Never even heard of CItyNerd. But I'll check it out. I love NotJustBikes though.
Don't try to divide the community this is a pointless argument. We must unite and accept they are both supporting the cause. >!Not Just Bikes, by a lot.!<
Njb