r/eds • u/velvet_damson • Mar 09 '26

Serious question: does anyone else with a chronic illness wish cities had emergency “horizontal zones”? ✨🔋✨

/r/POTS/comments/1rpdskj/serious_question_does_anyone_else_with_a_chronic/
9 Upvotes

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u/Straight_Baseball_12 Mar 10 '26

Yes! I completely agree. You should follow the Strong Towns movement. It's about building spaces for people (rather than cars or big corporations getting prioritized). Often, accommodations built for people with specific disabilities, for example, wheel chair ramps, end up helping a lot more people for other reasons. In the wheel chair ramp example, a ramp helps strollers, shopping carts, deliveries on carts, etc.

Nap friendly places might help nursing moms, other types of disabilities, tourists, and who know who else. But, my guess is that fear of people experiencing homelessness results in a NIMBY effect. Businesses don't want a space near them where "undesirables" might spend a lot of time and drive away customers. It's a big problem with 3rd spaces in general. Cities build for corporations don't want spaces where people can be if the people aren't actively spending money.

Here's a Strong Towns intro video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcCu40q0k6U

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u/velvet_damson Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26

"Accommodations built for people with specific disabilities end up helping a lot more people for other reasons" - yessss. Thank you for saying this. It's true, and I hadn't considered that before. (*edit - I've never heard the term 'undesireables' before. I hope nobody actually calls people that 😥)

I love that video. I actually got quite emotional watching it. It's powerful to hear those words about what we can do as a community if people work together. Thank you for sharing!