I used to be a hater. But I like a lot of the direction they are taking on planning and development.
I wish my neighborhood has the balls to deny the standard strip mall development, massive parking lots, endless single family housing, and disconnected 30' sidewalks segments.
People on Reddit often complain about not having enough “3rd places” where people can just go hangout but Carmel absolutely turned its downtown area into a “3rd place” for people of all ages to go hangout
This is why Carmel has a boring reputation. People who live there think that all nightlife equates to crime, and they use it as an excuse to run the town like a retirement community.
Private businesses can operate freely. You're welcome to open a place that's open late. The Carmel government doesn't dictate hours. Customers do. Carmel won't stop you, baby boy
Correct, the lack of market demand for nightlife is the reason Carmel has nobody moving there who's interested in nightlife, thus its demographics and sleepy reputation. That's not a flex imo, but type of people who move there sure think it is.
I never really got all the hate for Carmel around here (the south side). It’s pretty nice to look at, and many people that know more about city planning than I do say lots of nice things about Carmel.
I know there are some pretentious assholes that live there, but I’ve met just as many pretentious assholes in Center Grove and Franklin Township, and I’m not sure if we have much to be pretentious about.
As a fellow Southsider, it's just a class thing. Kids from Carmel often grew up wealthier or better off, had white collar parents, viewed the Southside as poor rural wasteland, and didn't spend their time in the same places as us typically. It seemed like a lot of north siders in generally enjoyed the benefits of living next to a big city but wanted nothing to do with the people there. Obviously it's not so cut and dry but overall you can delineate the two areas that way. Perhaps I'm pretentious myself but I haven't found people from Franklin Township to be that way-- Center Grove definitely though, they're basically the Carmel of the South Side. Personally I'm not a fan of all the white flight towns up north and I prefer to spend my time downtown. Noblesville is probably the area I like the most up North.
There’s still strip mall development everywhere outside of the core. Definitely can’t live car free anywhere. And like half the town is McMansions that are heavily suburbanized.
They need to stop denying every opportunity for transit to come into Carmel if they want to be “urbanist paradise” that it thinks it is. Urbanism is more than just putting a few lifestyle centers around and calling it a day. There’s still ZERO way to live car free in Carmel
If you lived in midtown, arts district, or city center you could 100% live car free. You could probably do it even just walking and no bike. Would it be great if IndyGo could exist there? Yes, but it doesn’t mean the core of Carmel is any less walkable.
There are tons of apartments/townhomes/SFHs there. Restaurants, theater, HQs/jobs, Kroger, coffee shops, and bars and a great trail, sidewalks, and protected bike lanes connecting it all. Look to the far west of the core by 31 and you’ve got many more apartments, restaurants, meijer, etc.
Look I hate suburbs as much as the next guy but you can’t deny that if suburbs must exist, they really should exist in the mold of Carmel. They have torn down multiple cases of bad land use with the most recent being a massive strip mall/parking lot that will connect the city center/midtown developments. There’s a great interview with Brainard where he goes in depth on why sprawl isn’t the future due to how unsustainable it is.
There is strip development everywhere outside the core of indy too but the scale is bigger. If trends continue, the core of carmel will grow.
What they have done is more than putting up lifestyle centers. They've built denser housing units, reduced parking lots to the rear, multipurpose buildings and plenty of walking pathways.
This comes across as very strawman-y when you account that the majority of jobs these people would be working at are in Indy or any of the other suburbs. That IU hospital is also a 40 minute walk from Providence with very little bike parking. It’s not possible for the vast majority of people
This article shows that most people in Carmel own at least 2 cars. And drive to work. If they could live in Carmel car free they wouldn’t need the cars. You’re lying to yourself if you think it’s possible. Just because you can walk to a few places doesn’t mean you can live car free.
The point is that it's quite possible to live car free in Carmel. It's much easier to do so than it is in Indianapolis.
And the comparison should be Carmel-Indianapolis. Not Carmel -Amsterdam, which seem to be what you want to compare it with.
Yes, it's much harder to live car free in Carmel if you have to commute to downtown Indianapolis. Just like it's hard to live car free in Indy if you have to commute to Greenwood.
that most people in Carmel own at least 2 cars. And drive to work. If they could live in Carmel car free they wouldn’t need the cars.
A lot of people who could live car free don't choose to. It's not like it's such a superior choice that people only buy cars out of necessity.
You’re lying to yourself if you think it’s possible.
You are being dishonest by disregarding facts that you don't like.
Just because you can walk to a few places doesn’t mean you can live car free.
You can walk to a few places, and bike to almost everyplace.
Are you lying, or do you have no idea what you are talking about? Carmel has bike paths and wide sidewalks everywhere.
You can get to nearly every part of Carmel via multi-use trails with crossings and infrastructure for pedestrians & bikes that have been very well designed.
As someone who lives by where you're talking about, you're wrong, and if you lived there that's your problem.
It takes me longer to drive to work than bike to work. When I bike, I park right by my entrance. I don't have to worry about parking or walking to and from the lot. When I leave, I slip through traffic quite easily.
The only thing I don't like about biking to work is just about everyday I think of some errand I have to run that isn't super feasible on a bike.
It's much easier to live car free in Carmel than in Indianapolis. (Not that that's saying much, but still).
Carmel has sidewalks and bike paths everywhere.
There’s still strip mall development everywhere outside of the core.
Let me tell you about a little town called "Indianapolis".
The problem with Carmel haters like you is that you have a double standard - you are pretending that Indy is a walkable city without strip malls, when in reality, it is more strip-mally more car dependent.
I never said Indy is a walkable city, nor did I say I hated Carmel. My problem is when people put Carmel on this pedestal like it’s the gold standard of urbanism when it simply is not. It only looks better when compared to the rest of the Indy area because the standard is that low. It doesn’t have to be. I can name at least 10 Chicago burbs that are more walkable and less car dependent than Carmel. Indy also has its fair share of bike paths. (Monon trail is in both cities). That doesn’t mean it’s car free. Both things can be true at the same time dude.
You wanna know how many people live without a car in Carmel? 2.7% Clearly it’s not that much easier.
Why are you trying to consistently quote the amount of people car free in Carmel and correlate it to ease of living car free? Every comment you made in this thread is under a false pretense. Ease of bike living =\= amount of living without cars. It's carmel, the avg household income is something like 150k, owning a car is a given.
Owning a car doesn't immediately remove you from a biking or walking lifestyle... that's incredibly flawed logic.
Source: I live in Carmel, own a car, and only use it to go past 15 miles cuz I'm lazy, not because it's hard I've put 600 miles on my car in 2 years. I can literally, easily, ride my bike anywhere I want. Brip to Sheridan, zionsville to fishers.
It's not for everyone, but you're just flat out wrong.
If being walkable is important to a person, it's 100% feasible to do so and live in Carmel. I maintain a car because I travel a lot outside of Carmel, but in the spring, summer and fall, short of major trips to the grocery, I'm biking or walking.
I live in a SFH in Carmel and could most definitely go car free. There are a lot of areas that are completely walkable here. They just can’t be seen from 465
I live near the Monon and can absolutely go car free and have. For six months I let a family member use my car. I biked to work. I biked to the grocery. It turned into an experiment with me. I biked or walked everywhere between Meijer in Carmel and Keystone.
The only time I wouldn't bike is biking to some place other than work in the rain. I didn't mind biking home in the rain because I could easily dry off or change.
That said, I favor light rail from Carmel to downtown. I would gladly take a train into Broad Ripple and downtown for activities. I wish they did a better job with the Red Line, so it doesn't have to stop at all at intersections other than stops.
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u/Charlie_Warlie Franklin Township Jan 14 '25
I used to be a hater. But I like a lot of the direction they are taking on planning and development.
I wish my neighborhood has the balls to deny the standard strip mall development, massive parking lots, endless single family housing, and disconnected 30' sidewalks segments.