
How the Car Keeps Americans Apart - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/07/how-cars-divide-america/565148/
======
yosito
Anecdotally, I always loved having a car and the sense of independence and
freedom that came with it. Then at the age of 25, I moved out of the country
to a small, walkable town in Latin America where I either walked, drove my
scooter, or took motorcycle taxis everywhere. After two years of living there,
I moved back to the US, bought a Jeep, and was super excited to have the
autonomy and ability to travel between cities easily in a day. I didn't have a
commute at the time, so I never really had to drive in traffic. A year later,
I ditched my car again and spent a whole year traveling around the world. I
got around by walking and taking trains and taxis. By the time I got back to
the US, I hated driving. It felt so isolating and boring. Then I got a job
where I had to commute for an hour and a half a day in heavy traffic. It was
one of the most miserable periods of my life. I started resenting having to
drive anywhere. I started resenting places that weren't walkable. I started
resenting how roads designed for cars break up and eliminate public space.
Finally, two months ago I sold my car and committed to a car-free lifestyle,
probably for life. It's completely changed how I do things; I spend more time
out of the house, I spend more time socializing, and of course, I walk more. I
went from walking less than a mile a day to walking an average of five miles a
day. I'm much happier with this lifestyle, and I hope I'm never forced to go
back.

~~~
roymurdock
What happens if/when you have kids. I’ve seen many people biking around
Amsterdam with their kids in protective bike high seats. But this is unheard
of in many US cities. Minivans are the usual solution. Would you teach them to
take public transport or try to live within walking distance of everything?

Obvs doesn’t apply if u don’t plan on it, but curious if anyone has found a
solution in US cities.

~~~
couchand
I'm a parent to a one-and-a-half year old in New York City, and I grew up in a
mid-sized midwestern city. I'm obviously biased, but I think we've got it much
better off here.

A block and a half away is one of the best playgrounds in the city, and three
blocks the other direction is another fine playground. Both of them are packed
with kids at all hours of the day. When we go visit family in the midwest, we
make a point to take walks and visit the neighborhood playgrounds. We're
almost always the only people there. Of course people have their yards so
nobody needs the playground... I think something is lost.

Walk a few blocks in any direction from our house and you'll see tons of
wonderful daycares, family-friendly restaurants, and other parents'
necessities, most of them locally owned and operated by another member of the
community.

We travel all around the city, we take the train. My son passes the time on
the ride charming the other passengers and subway surfing. It's much more
civilized than strapping him into a car seat and not looking at him for an
hour every day.

I'll grant you that New York City is something of an outlier as far as
American cities go.

~~~
eysquared
I live in Seattle with a 2 year old and one more on the way. I can't believe I
ever considered leaving the city to have kids. I can walk to a coffee shop 3
blocks away without taking 15 minutes to strap my kid in a car seat and the
amount of parks we have access to in a short walk in incredible. We take the
bus to the zoo and aquarium and my son loves seeing all the people and looking
out the window.

Being out and about means I feel a real sense of community and have really
gotten to know my neighbors.

When we see our friends from the suburbs its amazing how cooped up they are,
how unlikely they are to leave the house, and how unattached they feel from
their surroundings. Its too easy for them to play in their basement or yard.

Staying in the city has given me and my family a much higher quality of life.

~~~
ryanhuff
I suspect when your kids become older, your life will become more dictated by
your kids activities that you don’t control as much. Sports practices and
games, school, etc. These will be unlikely be centered around walking distance
from home. And, then, I will welcome you back to the fold of parent
indenturedness. :)

~~~
rorykoehler
Why would anything change? I live car free and everything is either walkable
or public transportable distance away. Same for the activities you mentioned.
When I was a kid and played a lot of sports if there was an out of town meet
the team bus would take us.

~~~
briandear
You don’t have kids, that much is clear. And if you do, you certainly don’t
have more than one.

------
adrian_mrd
A great Dutch ‘invention’ is what is known as a Bakfiets - effectively a
longer, heavier bicycle with a large ‘bucket’ (bak) at the front that can
carry two children and/or lots of shopping or goods.

Also worth noting is the huge environmental cost of cars - not just in carbon
monoxide, huge array of components and metals they require to build, impact on
climate change, etc., but also how they create ‘nature barriers’ dividing land
corridors for flightless animals. Witness roads in the middle of otherwise
pristine forests or road networks that clear huge swaths of wilderness.

I’ve frequently thought how the true cost of cars has been understated,
possibly due to the assumed bias that cars are positive pieces of technology,
lobbying efforts by vehicle manufacturers, a bias against public transport,
etc.

Cars are in many ways, the precursor to the most private of popular, self-
focused technologies: the mobile phone.

Cars benefit a private (individual, family) need generally over a public one.
It is your car and your ‘asset’. Whilst there are, of course, ‘public cars’
(taxis and ride-sharing), they are not the norm in most cities, in most
suburbs, in most places.

We should, as a society, spend more time debating the merits of cars and road
networks - especially factoring in the downsides for those with physical
disabilities and those on low incomes.

edit: fixed spelling mistake, added last three paragraphs.

~~~
systemtest
I live in a neighbourhood formed between 1910 and 1930. When I looked it up in
the photo archives, I saw how the road was a single piece spanning the entire
width of the street, front door to front door. I saw how children and people
just walked and played on it. A horse carriage moving through it. Nowadays
from left to right it's a small side-walk, parked cars, a road for cars, a
small strip for cyclists and another small side-walk. I really want to go back
to having just a big wide lane for general use.

------
mariodiana
I feel bad if my comment ends up being the first one, because I'm coming to
suggest a book that I immediately thought of as I got halfway through the
article. If you want to read about human society and how much of it we're
missing, read _The Great Good Place,_ by Ray Oldenburg. (I believe it came out
in the late 1980's.) There is a chapter on suburbia, and what an awful mess
that has made of human sociability, particularly because you have to get in
your car to go anywhere.

It's one of those books that lots of people have read, but many more people
have heard of and mean to get around to reading. It's very good and very
thought-provoking. I read it more or less when it came out, and it has stayed
with me ever since. (I did re-read it about 10 years ago.)

With respect to the article, the automobile is one of those things that has
changed society so thoroughly—and which seemed like such a great idea at the
time—that most people can't even imagine the impact or what they've lost. We
just take it for granted.

~~~
sillysaurus3
I hope the first HN comment is always a book suggestion. :)

I recently got rid of my car after four years of living in a city. I don't
know why I held onto it for so long, but my life has improved dramatically.
Not only can I go anywhere I want, but I never have to worry about permits,
tickets, or parking.

This lifestyle can't work for people outside of cities, though. There's no way
to get anyplace without a car, and there isn't enough density to make uber
very effective. No one wants to wait a half hour for a ride.

Being in a city has downsides, but for this reason it's wonderful. There's
even an app now where you can just use someone else's car. (Getaround, I
think?) I've used it twice: one when I needed to go buy something about 20
miles away, and another to go on a trip a hundred miles away. And the price
was very low.

~~~
MarkusAllen
In a city, how do you handle buying a socket wrench to fix something in your
house? (It sounds like a MAJOR hassle.)

~~~
couchand
I walk a block to the locally-owned hardware store and give my dollars to my
neighbor, obviously. What do you do, throw your money into the giant corporate
black hole?

------
King-Aaron
I have three cars.

I have a four wheel drive, for going out to collect fire wood, go camping, and
do generally outdoors things with. I have a race/track car for being a general
nuisance to society and shooting flames at people. And then I have a silly
little automatic Honda for doing errands around the city when I need something
cheap to operate and nimble around tight streets and things.

Having these cars all fit particular requirements I have. However I still end
up riding my push-bike or taking the bus, because the normal day-to-day
commute doesn't always require storage capacity.

I can certainly understand the reasons that people can be sufficiently happy
with doing without a car. I can also understand the reasons why people are
forced to need a car. I don't, however, like seeing people vilified or
interrogated for being on either side of that fence.

~~~
bluetomcat
Exactly, owning a car doesn't actually oblige you to use it every day. I also
have two garaged cars (a sports coupe and an economical diesel estate),
located within a 30 minute walking distance from my home, because parking
space is scarce. I use the estate for long trips and the coupe for short
weekend trips. While driving, I enjoy every bit of it. I also enjoy keeping
both cars in top shape. During the week, I solely walk and the temptation to
use the cars is reduced because of the long distance to the garage.

------
claydavisss
Americans want to be "apart"! Most people in America see high-density living
as a negative. Most want a yard and a garage. The country is huge - you can
fit three UKs into the state of Texas alone. We have the space, we have the
roads, we like our yards.

I have moved our family into progressively rural environments and will
continue to do so until the distance to basic necessities is intolerable. In
most rural environments there is no meaningful traffic so people aren't that
down on being in their vehicles.

~~~
didibus
Have you lived the alternative? It's obvious people are raised to want large
houses and large yards, its cultural, but given we'd know the true experience
of both would we still feel that way?

I've lived the big city, high density European lifestyle, I lived it in
America too, and in Canada, and I've lived the American and Canadian small
town life.

They're both nice. The small town life is great if the community is healthy,
and there is a town core that is dense of businesses and shops which you can
go to and walk around. It gives you access to nature and land in an
unprecedented way. And the small population means you get a feel of community
and know others, and events can be hosted on peoples properties.

If the town is struggling, its not that great, and can start to feel
depressing and isolated.

The european city style is also great, it feels like a buzzing small town,
minus the access to land and nature. The sense of community, knowing your
neighbors, being proud and invested in your neighborhood. Being physically
active. These are all there. Similar to how you can find that in prosperous
small towns too.

In the end, I feel the choice between small town and European style cities is
personal. If you prefer nature, enjoy quiet downtime, and peace, small town
wins. If you prefer urban landscapes, a buzzing vibrant environment, and
constant flux of activities and creativity, European cities would win.

That said, I'd be surprised if anyone prefers the American style cities and
suburbs. Its like the worst of both worlds. You get a medium sized house, big
enough that maintenance is a chore, yet too small to have the space for
serious house endeavors. A yard, but too small to have it be a place to enjoy
nature. Its not quiet, yet also not buzzing. It lacks creativity and the
feeling of community, and everywhere is hard to get too, too far to walk, too
crouded to drive.

That's what I think people complain about. I personally hate them with a
passion.

~~~
bigger_cheese
I'm not sure about Europe and America but where I live (Australia) living in
the city is ridiculously expensive (Sydney routinely ranks as one of the
highest cost of living cities in the world).

When I was growing up I lived in the suburbs, I hated it so far from
everything, very infrequent public transport (lucky to get one bus an hour).
Maybe worst of all as a young geek poor internet speed. I was stuck on dial up
for years because it was all we had...

I vowed when I left my parent's home I'd live closer to the city. But it is
just so expensive (especially rent) there is no way I can justify it. So I
suffer through all the long commutes, traffic congestion hell etc.

~~~
linkregister
Why not move to a smaller city that is more affordable? Brisbane has software
jobs and a lower cost of living.

Condos in Perth near the CBD are surprisingly very affordable, though there
are fewer good jobs.

~~~
King-Aaron
Perth has a sickeningly low density of residents within the CBD, and as a
result you can get some really good deals on apartments within a stones throw
to the city. It's also got a pretty good 'small town' sort of atmosphere
compared to other cities.

It's not exactly the most progressive of places, however. But personally I
love it.

NB: I'm currently in the position of purchasing land in Perth and you can get
some good sub-$200k deals on 350-400 square metre blocks within 20 minutes to
the city too if you look around.

~~~
dbetteridge
Existing house or empty lot?

I'm looking in the near future so would be keen to know where to look.

~~~
King-Aaron
I'm looking at empty lots.

------
maerF0x0
I find there are a number of things I cannot do without someone having a car.

1) Go hiking, snowboarding, mountain biking 2) Drive fast on road courses 3)
Come home from the airport after midnight 4) Purchase more than 2 bags of
groceries (including TP, laundry detergent et al) 5) Go on road trips 6)
Isolate myself from the mentally ill or obnoxious behaviors and smells I'm
surrounded by, including their fecal matter 7) Isolate myself from the
constant crime that I am surrounded by 8) Isolate myself from the constant
excessive sound that I am surrounded by 9) Easily move around tools and
supplies to maintain my home

on and on it goes. A life without a car is a life of either hiring everything
out (expensive), doing without (no hikes for me) or constantly renting (what's
the point?)

~~~
flatline
If you live in a walkable area, that means a city, and if you ever want to get
_out_ of the city you’ll need a car, or a serious dedication to biking. There
are exceptions, I had no trouble getting out of the city on foot in Boulder
for example, the bus will even take you out to semi-rural areas.

A motorcycle is one potential solution but they are incredibly dangerous and
not very practical in many parts of the country due to weather.

~~~
maerF0x0
Yeah I actually have a motorcycle as a way to deal with #2 :P I accept the
risk. All the gear all the time.

------
DoreenMichele
_For one, the geography of car use tracks with income and wealth: Car-
dependent places are considerably less affluent. Metros in which a higher
share of people depend on their cars to get to work are poorer, and those
where more people use transit or bike or walk to work are considerably more
affluent._

I always hated driving. I gave up my car more than a decade ago. I am happy to
see stats like this.

In spite of how sprawling the US is, I think it is a myth that we have no
choice but to build a car-centric America, a myth that serves as self-
fulfilling prophecy. And I hate hearing it.

~~~
pdonis
We don't have to build either a car-centric America or a non-car-centric
America. We can, if we choose, build an America that has places for people who
want cars, _and_ places for people who don't. That was supposed to be a key
idea of America--that not everybody has to live the same way.

~~~
sampo
You can spring up a new, distant, car-based suburb on a pristine land. The
deer and the groundhog who used to live there, don't get a vote.

But usually, people who already live in a city of, say, density X, are pretty
strongly opposed to building more and increasing the density to 1.2 X. Also,
those 0.2 X new residents naturally are only moving in in the future, so they
don't get to vote, either.

Somehow, the attitude of the people who get to enjoy the dense, walkable
neighborhoods, would need to change so that they'd be more open to sharing
their lifestyle with more new people.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Increasing density in cities is not the only way to get people out of their
cars. It is very possible to expand cities outwards, while still maintaining
walkability and bikeability. Expanding public transit alongside the city is
one of the best ways.

~~~
sampo
This inevitably means increasing density in those suburbs the city is
extending to. Very uncommon to have unbuild land right next to a dense city.

~~~
KozmoNau7
You're only increasing density to be similar to the city proper. The
"preferred density" zone doesn't disappear, it simply moves outwards a bit.

------
arenaninja
I'm a little torn. I don't remember my apartment days fondly (except during
college and in Houston where apartments can be LARGE). Noise/smell/bugs from
neighbors is awful to deal with, crummy stairwells (never an elevator),
fighting for a parking spot and hauling groceries was a hassle.

But I dislike driving for a commute, I've done as little as 30 minutes and up
to 1.5 hours of commute, it's very stressful to be constantly alert for a good
chunk of your day just to get from A to B.

I think I've found the best of both worlds; a house that's my family's own
space, and Houston Park and Ride stations. I drive 10 minutes to the station,
leave my car there and commute on a bus to my job. The stop is about 5 blocks
from the building I work at, I'm relatively stress-free and I can choose to
make good use of the time spent riding the bus (generally reading books, news,
sports, etc.). The bus gets there at the same time I would have in spite of
the stops it makes because it uses the HOV when I would be stuck in traffic on
the freeway

~~~
passthefist
> Noise/smell/bugs from neighbors is awful to deal with, crummy stairwells
> (never an elevator), fighting for a parking spot and hauling groceries was a
> hassle.

That's unfortunate. One of the things I love about my apartment (Chicago) is
that I've got friendly neighbors, it's well kept, there's decent parking, and
I've got a deli and 2 grocery stores in walking distance.

I'm a big fan of park and rides though, esp if it connects to rail. They seem
like a good compromise to help alleviate congestion from a city and work to
collect from lower dense areas where there's not enough density to support
rail.

------
Agustus
Those who are able to afford to live in affluent areas have high income jobs
and can purchase the land surrounding their workplace, enabling non motorized
conveyance or transit. The low and middle class, are forced out of the area,
however these middle to low income jobs still exist and they need to be
accomplished; think how far out a janitor is pushed away from a high income
residence area before they can afford a place. An example of this is San
Francisco's suburb expansion with the streetcar's development. As the
streetcar line expanded, the lower income folks could afford better residences
as opposed to having to live in a walking distance to their job, which drove
up costs as individuals competed for residences.

The automobile enabled individuals to find affordable residences and provided
middle income and lower income individuals the power to find jobs not within
walkable distance of a residence or rail line. The automobile has been a net
good for society, especially the low income or middle class.

~~~
Arn_Thor
You're describing a chain of events that happened, but doesn't necessarily had
to occur. Firstly, the mechanism you describe where people bid up housing near
transit corridors also happens near highways and traffic corridors, though it
is more dispersed. This effect can and has been mitigated by combining rail
transit with buses or trams leading to rail stations. It is of course more
effective in less suburbanized areas where density is higher.

That's not to say that there's something inherently wrong with the American
suburban model, it just doesn't scale well. So much space is wasted on parking
lots for vehicles that stand empty most of the day. And rush hour traffic is
just not fixable beyond a certain point, no matter how many lanes are added to
the highways.

It's just flat-out wrong to claim that non-car commutes only benefit the
affluent. That's entirely dependent on how the economics of the community are
set up. If there's a will to have everyone commute by public transit, there
are many ways to achieve it.

~~~
KozmoNau7
>"So much space is wasted on parking lots for vehicles that stand empty most
of the day"

Don't forget that these stretches of black asphalt act as giant heat
accumulators, soaking up the sun during the day and keeping temperatures
uncomfortably high after the sun goes down.

~~~
yellowapple
That can be fixed with some trees (or better yet: captalized upon with solar
panels). Parking garages are another option for more space-efficient parking

~~~
KozmoNau7
Parking garages are much superior to flat parking lots, especially if you put
them underground, underneath the buildings in question. Keep the eyesores
hidden.

The best option would be to make neighborhoods walkable/bikeable, implement
good public transit as much as possible, and offer an affordable delivery
service for bigger items. Going further, it would be beneficial to abolish
megastores and return to more human-sized retail outlets.

~~~
yellowapple
"Parking garages are much superior to flat parking lots, especially if you put
them underground, underneath the buildings in question. Keep the eyesores
hidden."

Indeed. A lot of this sort of infrastructure can and should be built below-
ground. Parking garages, warehouses/storage, utilities, the works.

"Going further, it would be beneficial to abolish megastores and return to
more human-sized retail outlets."

Not sure if I follow. Megastores are nice as one-stop shops, reducing the need
to drive around town to get everything.

I _am_ in favor of making them more modularized/sectionalized, such that they
can be rearranged vertically (whether above-ground or below-ground) and reduce
the horizontal footprint. Their similarly-sprawling parking lots also can and
should be replaced with underground parking garages.

~~~
KozmoNau7
My point regarding megastores is that they squeeze out neighborhood stores,
which they can do because corporate is willing to burn money to take over
markets.

Sterile charmless megastores are a symbol of unrestrained corporatism.

I don't mind department stores, but I do have a problem with Walmart and their
ilk.

~~~
yellowapple
Wal-Mart as a specific example also happens to be readily affordable and
available to lower-class (let alone middle-class) Americans 24-hours a day and
7 days a week. Very few neighborhood or even department stores offer that, nor
do most grocers (Safeway being a notable exception). It's for that reason that
I tend to appreciate Wal-Mart's existence; yeah, it certainly ain't the best
employer, and I know I personally prefer shopping at the mom-and-pop stores,
but I also recognize that most Americans don't have the privilege of being
choosy about those sorts of things.

As an additional bonus, most Wal-Marts (in my observation) will let you park
your car there overnight, no questions asked. For someone who's homeless and
living out of one's car, or for someone who's traveling and can't afford
lodging, that's a pretty huge help.

------
nimbius
speaking as an engine mechanic for a small chain of auto repair shops, it
feels like americans have grown outright apathetic to the commute offered by
cars --any car-- in this age.

How do i figure? Maintenance. My most common customer comes in complaining
about a noise or a smell and stares at her shoes when asked when the last
major service was, what the mileage is, or when the last oil change was. Its
almost like drivers have learned to internalize their hatred of the commute
into the car itself. Like they just dont want to think about _any_ of it.

Bare brake pads, scored rotors, and boiled oil are all so common it hurts. I
once had to spend two weeks rebuilding most of a partially seized engine
because a customer couldnt understand why his two year old car idled so rough.
a $40 oil change could have prevented what ended up being $8000 in parts and
service.

~~~
analog31
I'm glad for the light on the dash that blinks when my car needs an oil
change. And I'm lucky to have an honest mechanic who keeps me up to date on
issues without gouging me.

I've become apathetic about driving too. It's become mostly unpleasant due to
congestion. What you say cuts pretty close for me: A car is an appliance.

But also, cars have gotten so reliable that it's easy to stop thinking about
what's going on under the hood.

------
KozmoNau7
As a preface, I will admit that while I hate traffic, I do generally love
driving. Not for any particular reason, just the act of making a machine obey
my whims and take me where I want to go, ideally with AC and a good stereo. It
satisfies some primal need in me, and I enjoy being the driver when we're on
vacation, in a rental car.

However, I am now in the third car-free period of my life, and I am not likely
to buy a car again anytime soon, unless circumstances force me to do so. I
grew in up a small town in the countryside, where I will certainly admit that
not having a car would have been a major setback.

But I've since lived in slightly bigger towns, where a car-free existence was
easy, and now I live in Copenhagen, where the bicycle is basically king. The
only reason I had a car here was because I thought I couldn't do without it.

I see a lot of comments about people not wanting to interact with other
people, and expressing fear of diseases, psychopathic homeless and people and
a whole host of other -- frankly rather paranoid -- ideas. I use public
transport and bike every day, and you absolutely don't have to interact with
people, if you don't want to. And besides, people watching can be fun. There
are some really bizarre and interesting folks out there.

------
GiorgioG
I personally love driving - but I work from home. Nothing makes me happier
than remote starting my F150 and hearing its V8 roar from inside the house
through several walls/doors.

Have kids? When your kid spikes a fever at 1am and you have no car and you
need to go buy some children’s ibuprofen, what are you going to do? I can run
to my local 24/7 grocer or Walmart and be back in 10 minutes flat.

My son had a bad reaction to a doctor prescribed medicine and had a seizure
early one morning. We were at the hospital in 15 minutes thanks to the modern
automobile. We don’t live in a city because we consciously chose the suburbs.
I grew up in a walkable city and getting my first car was still one of the
highlights of my youth.

Now my kids play soccer and they practice and play 4 days/week all over the
local area. Good luck doing that without a car.

The freedom/flexibility a car provides us as individuals is unprecedented in
human history. You can drive from NY to LA in 41 hours and you are on your own
schedule.

For the folks that don’t like driving, you have plenty of cities to choose
from where that’s doable. That’s the beauty of modern society - the choice is
yours and we don’t have to judge/demonize one another’s choices.

~~~
WhompingWindows
What about the choice of an individual to get an F150 which has an
unnecessarily large V8 engine roaring and idling when no one is using it for
what it was designed for? I am in a city surrounded by cars that are far too
large for their designated duties. People choose, like you mention, and yet
it's the children with asthma and my mother with asthma who pays the price for
the ridiculously oversized and smog-producing vehicles that are everywhere in
society. I'm all for pickup trucks and minivans and buses, but only in the
right application. At other times, which is probably 80-90% of the large
vehicles I see, your choice to go alone in the car hurts all of our lungs and
our planet.

~~~
GiorgioG
> I'm all for pickup trucks and minivans and buses, but only in the right
> application.

I'm glad I don't live in a place where it's ok to limit people's choices based
on someone's opinion on what is or isn't the 'right application.'

I'm sorry about your mother's asthma; my 6 year old son is a type 1 diabetic -
that doesn't make it ok for me to go chastising society's choice to put sugar
in practically EVERYTHING we eat or to try force society to change because of
my son's misfortune.

~~~
wilsonnb2
Unless someone is forcing your kid to eat food with sugar in it, it's not a
good comparison.

Your neighbors don't really have a choice as to whether or not they enjoy
"hearing its V8 roar from inside the house through several walls/doors" or
breathe the extra pollution that some (but not all) large trucks create.

> When your kid spikes a fever at 1am and you have no car and you need to go
> buy some children’s ibuprofen, what are you going to do? I can run to my
> local 24/7 grocer or Walmart and be back in 10 minutes flat.

I'm sure your neighbors will love being woken up in the middle of the night.
Perhaps some of them would be glad to live in a society where there are
reasonable limits on what situations other people can force you into for their
own pleasure.

Please note that this comment isn't really directed at you specifically - you
might not have close neighbors or they might be truck enthusiasts as well.
It's directed at all owners of obnoxiously loud trucks who don't care how it
affects other people, which may or may not be you.

~~~
GiorgioG
> Your neighbors don't really have a choice as to whether or not they enjoy
> "hearing its V8 roar..."

You're right, they don't - but since many of them have a truck, it really
isn't an issue. I'm honestly not a 'truck enthusiast', but I'd wanted one for
the longest time and I'm happy with my choice. It makes trips to Home Depot /
Lowes / etc a dream. Going to the mountains on vacation with it has been great
as well - having gone up the side of a mountain up a single lane dirt road to
a house we rented a couple of years ago (you never know what kind of
infrastructure exists when you rent a place on VRBO/HomeAway/etc.) in our
minivan was an experience let me tell you. This year we rented another place
up in the mountains and having a truck was a godsend.

I don't remote start my truck at night (because I'd like to think I'm not an
inconsiderate A-hole) - I only start the truck remotely during the day for a
few minutes to get the A/C started since it's over 100 degrees (F) in
summertime here. I let my non-truck owning neighbors/friend borrow my truck
when they need it - so on the contrary, our neighbors love us.

Personally my experiences living in a city have been far louder and had much
ruder neighbors than I could dream of than in our current situation (people
blaring music at all hours of the night and early morning, driving cars with
seemingly no mufflers or motorcyclists whose sole purpose seems to be to
irritate everyone sleeping, domestic disputes between deaf people (otherwise
why would I have been able to hear them from several houses over, etc.)

------
ta1234567890
Also, according to this research/experiment, driving to work is one of the
unhappiest activities that people perform in their lives:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_killingsworth_want_to_be_happ...](https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_killingsworth_want_to_be_happier_stay_in_the_moment/transcript?language=en)

------
EADGBE
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing; just what we've developed our vast
infrastructure around.

My commute is 30 miles one way. Luckily, I go against all the traffic, so it's
a rather relaxing commute. It's one of the few times I get 30-40 minutes to
myself a day.

We spend many weekends at my in-laws' place on the lake. Even though it's in
the same state, it's a completely different view, weather, and life style.
It's about a 200 mile drive and many great conversations have happened on that
commute.

I went to college in a completely different state about an 8 or 9 hour drive.
It was perfect because I wanted to be away from everyone I knew. I wanted to
be self-sufficient. When I was too poor to afford a plane ticket, I could
always afford the 3 tanks of gas it took round-trip to drive home whenever I
wanted; at any pace I wanted. The reflecting time I had on that commute was
pivotal to my career and life choices.

Plenty of out-of-state family vacations have been haphazardly planned over
long weekends and a few days of PTO. We never need to worry about leave time,
TSA security checkpoints, our fluid bottles being too large, my guitars I
bring with me, or anything else. We just get in the car and go.

One of my bucket-list items is as-complete-as-possible trip down Route 66. I
want to see America as it was, before vast interstates took you through
nowhere to get where you were going.

Roads (and therefore cars) are an integral part to understanding the vastness
of the United States. If you haven't experienced it, I highly recommend it.

Lastly, our rental properties all require handyman work. Access to a truck bed
most weekends out of the year has saved me countless hours and money renting
and borrowing.

I only wish electric vehicles were more available, absolutely no other qualms
about the Americans-and-Cars debate.

------
mmirate
Sure, bicyxles are great and all - but I _dare_ you to try even a half-mile
commute via bicycle during the Florida summer if your job involves presenting
yourself in a non-slobby manner.

~~~
shankr
You guys are spoiled. It doesn't even get in high 35 degree Celsius (95 degree
Fahrenheit). I grew in a area where 35 was degree was the average temperature
with lot of humidity, and we biked to our school. We didn't even have AC in
most of the places. At least in USA, AC is so much more common. Also biking
early in the morning is different from doing it during the afternoon. I
suppose most of the people go to the work during the morning. We did bike to
school around 8-9 AM. We felt heat starting around 10 AM. So there are ways to
avoid baking under the Sun, and still able to bike.

~~~
mmirate
Spoiled, eh? Well _excuse me_ for wanting to be able to focus my thoughts onto
something other than the ambient temperature, and for wanting to not drown in
my own sweat.

Seriously, now that uncomfortable weather is largely a solved problem in the
modern world, we really would do better to move on to less mundane problems
that have yet to be solved.

------
starpilot
Always suspicious of these preaching to the choir type articles. Like we've
been gamed and figured out, and this is dressed up clickbait.

------
JDiculous
This is honestly the main reason why I can't see myself settling down in the
US. After 5 years living in Manhattan, I find the American suburbs
extroardinarily isolating and depressing. Sure I could live in the city, but
living in any city big enough to be interesting is too expensive for my
tastes. I don't like being dependent on the paycheck of a high salary job
(especially in workaholic NYC/USA where you get little time off). So in the
meantime I've left the U.S. in search of cheaper cities that still have high
quality of life, and walkability is a huge component of that.

------
geoka9
In my city we have a great transit system which often gets disrupted by the
traffic jams caused by personal cars.

I can understand that not every city can provide a good transit system, but
for cities like ours I wonder if the problem can be solved by creating
dedicated bus lanes that are always separate from other lanes throughout the
city. When you're stuck in traffic and see the buses whizzing through without
delay, it's easy to make the decision to ditch the car and start using the
transit.

------
chiiidog
I'm torn. I hate driving to work but, living in Colorado, I can't imagine not
having a car to drive up to the mountains. Ideally, I could use public transit
for getting around in town and just use my car when I need to either transport
things or leave the city. Unfortunately, the closest light rail stations to my
home and work are about 1 and 2 miles respectively--a long walk. I've recently
considered the combination of riding a bike and taking the light rail though.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Definitely try riding your bike to the light rail station, 1-2 miles is a very
comfortable riding distance.

~~~
kaybe
An electric scooter could be good too, depending on the road surface.

------
walrus01
I would encourage anyone who wants to compare two very different cities to
drive and ride the rail systems around Seattle and Vancouver.

Vancouver has had a fully automated light rail system since 1986. New lines
added in 2000 and 2009. There's significant high rise condo and apartment
density around many stations.

City council a very long time ago cancelled a plan to build a freeway from
east vancouver to downtown.

Seattle is sort of the opposite of that, it's very much more car dependent.
The new light rail line helps a lot but its entry into service date was 22+
years after Vancouver's.

In my experience in Vancouver a great deal more people live a lifestyle that
doesn't involve owning a car. Gas is a lot more expensive and insurance is
more expensive. Many "normal" people commute daily on transit.

This is from 2002 but I don't think there's anything about it which is less
relevant today, regarding suburban architecture/urban design and the
lifestyles associated with extensive suburban sprawl:

[https://www.weeklystandard.com/david-brooks/patio-man-and-
th...](https://www.weeklystandard.com/david-brooks/patio-man-and-the-sprawl-
people)

------
matttproud
If you’re interested more in this topic, may I recommend the following books:

\- The Geography of Nowhere
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Nowhere](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Nowhere)

\- Suburban Nation
[https://books.google.ch/books/about/Suburban_Nation.html?id=...](https://books.google.ch/books/about/Suburban_Nation.html?id=UZ0-0X4aiwQC&redir_esc=y)

Much of the car-bound design resulted from zoning and simple the-rode-to-hell-
is-paved-with-good-intentions. The problem is fixable, but it will probably
take much clamoring over a generation’s timespan to undo the damage.

------
boxcardavin
I started commuting by ebike full time last year and now when I do drive in
traffic I notice how crazy my road rage gets. I get so upset at the insanity
of sitting in this giant box that is 25x my body weight as I crawl in orderly
queues with other people doing the same thing. In a world without cars we
could have small EVs (bikes, scooters, pods) that all had no crash safety
features and all weighed under 500lbs. Average speeds on freeways around
cities are below 30mph these days anyways, why are we doing this still?
Anyways, I'm workin on it.

------
wufufufu
This article and some of the comments in here come off as extremely entitled
to me. My background is I grew up in the suburbs away from any major city
(closest city <200k people) and now I live walking distance to work in a major
city. I still have a car, but I don't need it, and some of my coworkers don't
have cars.

The author never shows anything but correlation between transportation method
and demographics. It's much more likely that wealth determines your proximity
to work / transportation method than vice versa.

This whole article just seems like a thinly veiled "I ride a bike to work and
I hate cars -- they probably all voted for Trump cause they're poor and
uneducated. Why don't they just get rich and smart and then they can walk to
work and we don't need cars anymore and we can all live next to parks?"

> “But it is increasingly clear that in addition to wasted time and
> productivity, reduced quality of life, and even fatalities, the automobile
> takes another toll. It may be that cars are not only the chief destroyer of
> our communities, but are tearing at the nation’s political and social
> fabric.”

I posit that cars allowed population expansion because resources across a
larger area became accessible and that we would have less people in existence
if Fordism never happened. So blaming that innovation for wealth inequality is
like blaming mass food production for wealth inequality. Why doesn’t everyone
just have their own garden with chickens and quinoa? Why would anyone ever eat
fast food? Why would anyone eat processed foods?

> “The car and car-dominated infrastructure propelled suburbanization and
> white flight. They split our society into white, affluent suburbs and poor
> black and minority cities.” What? I’m pretty sure cities are segregated
> also, sometimes intentionally in history. This comes off as a pretty weak
> argument, but I could be convinced with more evidence.

------
twoquestions
It'd be nice to not have to drive, but people _hate_ people not behind the
wheel of a car around here. Taking a bike on the road is taking your life in
your own hands, people go out of their way to injure or kill cyclists around
here, and the cops don't care.

The sidewalks are also deliberately designed to be unpleasant, if they're
present at all.

~~~
mmirate
I don't hate those people _per se_ (and I'm not stupid enough to attempt to
harm them).

What I hate is that they are usually moving _far more slowly_ than what I and
the people behind me would prefer, and that they do so even when passing them
by is not possible.

I'm not paid per-hour to commute, and I'm sure as hell not paid to sit behind
some shit-for-brains who thinks it's a great idea to block an entire direction
of a two-lane road with his slow-ass single-speed bicycle, whilst there is a
solid wall of oncoming traffic.

------
briandear
There is an assumption that I actually want to interact with random members of
the community. I don’t. Cars give me the freedom to choose my interactions and
just generally be left alone. I don’t like waiting at bus stops, I don’t like
having to watch my bag carefully or worry about forgetting things. I also
don’t have to be exposed to whatever cold is making the rounds. I also don’t
have to deal with psychotic, drug addicted homeless harassing me for money.
Nor do I have to ride on a bus that makes twenty stops before it gets me to
where I need to go. For me, cars represent freedom. If I want cold AC, I can
do that. If I want to make a random diversion, I can do that too. Try to stop
by Home Depot on the way home from work using public transit. Not only do you
have to figure out the route and wait for the bus and possibly transfer and
then tote whatever you buy back to a bus stop to do it all in reverse. If that
makes me a bad person, then I am ok with that.

------
chadcmulligan
This is interesting and relevant - Walkable cities
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wai4ub90stQ&frags=pl%2Cwn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wai4ub90stQ&frags=pl%2Cwn)

------
BooneJS
This is true of larger cities and metros, but the size of the US is too large
to get rid of cars. I’m currently on a road trip through at least 7 states,
and the car is the only way I pull that off.

~~~
adrianN
If the main use of cars were seven state road trips I don't think people would
complain about being stuck in rush hour traffic or having to drive twenty
minutes to the nearest grocery store.

~~~
BooneJS
My point was that cars are versatile people moving machines. They’re very
imperfect, but they go almost anywhere. HN seems to have an assumption that
what’s good for the Bay Area can be exported everywhere, but that’s simply not
true.

------
godot
I grew up in Hong Kong, one of the densest place in the world. Most of my
childhood, getting to places was either walking or taking a bus (with family).
I moved to the US / SF Bay Area in my teens and while here, experienced living
in both the suburbs and the city, as well as my college town ("deep suburbs",
if you will). My feeling is that living in the suburb (either where I
currently live in a suburb in the bay area, or my college town) is way more
pleasant than the city (either HK or SF). I felt this way before I had kids,
and I feel this way even more now after having a baby.

Yes, you have to drive everywhere. It seems that for some people, "having to
drive everywhere" is automatically a negative point, by definition. IMO, it's
only negative when you do that in San Francisco, where traffic is everywhere,
and you can't park anywhere or have to pay exorbitant parking fees.

Take some anecdotes of my current life now. People in SF and cities love to
bring up the point of being able to walk to coffee shops, restaurants, bars,
parks, and not having to find parking (which is an SF problem). I don't drink,
so bars and DUI is not a thing for me. I reach my favorite coffee shop in 10
minutes of local driving (no traffic any time of the day, any day of the
week), and there's always ample parking, and there's never a line. Same for
all the restaurants I frequent in the east bay (Fremont/Newark/Union City
area). Places in the city always have a line; whereas the longest line I've
had at my coffee shop was 2 people in front of me. There's always seating
available there, unlike most coffee shops in SF. I spend $3 on my favorite
coffee there, not $6. This same example works similarly for every other aspect
of life really, whether it's restaurants, parks, even urgent care/ER at the
hospitals. Drive to get there in 10-15 minutes, there's always parking, no
line at the place, and it's cheaper. Same applies for friends, even those who
live a city or two away (Milpitas, San Leandro, Castro Valley) -- 15-30
minutes to get there, no traffic.

I live in an older part of town, where houses are generally 50+ years old, so
you can imagine the kind of neighborhood. I know each one of my neighbors by
names. It's not like I grew up here too; I've only lived here for 5 years
since I bought the house.

Pulling from my own experience, I really don't see how the car keeps us apart,
and how living in the city is better. Everything is more expensive, there's
more wait time, more transportation time, and people are ruder in general
because everyone is understandably frustrated with everything, whether it's
patience, gentrification issues, homelessness, etc. In the suburb crawl,
everything is the opposite of all of above. People are nicer to each other.

I commute to the city for work (because the jobs are mostly in the city), and
it's the least favorite part of my life.

------
earloflexus
The author did a great job of arguing the case that transportation preferences
map semi-neatly to red tribe / blue tribe distinctions, but it doesn't
convince me that cars cause Americans to be apart.

I'm sure Americans would be closer together if more things were walkable for
more people and I don't oppose investments in walkability. However, some
people don't want that, some people are thrilled to drive a big vehicle and
burn a gallon or three of gas to pick up a case of beer and log of chewing
tobacco.

What virtue do we need to inoculate into Joe Sixpack to get him to participate
in a the vegetarian version of personal transportation?

~~~
adrianN
We could start by pricing in the damage cars do to the environment. A first
step would be raising taxes on fuel until Joe Sixpack thinks twice before
burning a gallon of gas to get his beer.

------
antt
One thing I have always found odd is how no one talks about treating cars like
guns.

Both have reasonable use cases. Both are fun to tinker with. Both are the main
ways people kill other people. And you shouldn't need to use either daily in a
civilized society.

That's not even talking about the rest of the problems mass car ownership
creates, from climate change to destroying neighborhoods to the health crisis
sitting instead of walking creates.

~~~
BRAlNlAC
>And you shouldn't need to use either daily in a civilized society.

This is either some next-level elitism or a false argument. Does the recluse
have no place in society? What about the logger, or the Tractor operator? What
about the surgeon who is on call, do you want them to bike to the hospital at
2 AM? I sure as hell don't.

If your argument is that no individual should have to own a car, we already
live in that America. If your argument is that no one should have to own in a
car, get real.

~~~
antt
Tractors, trucks, ambulances and motor bikes are not cars.

> we already live in that America.

Perhaps you should visit the old town centres in Europe, or the country
villages. You can see what a society built around not using cars looks like.

~~~
BRAlNlAC
I have been to old town centers in Europe, you really ought to tone down your
elitism.

What I meant when I said "tractor drivers getting to work" is people like my
friend who grades and compacts pads for new homes. He drives a 4x4 pickup down
a dirt road sometimes for 10+ miles to get to his tractor so he can start
working. How does mass transit work for new construction?

~~~
antt
> __Both have reasonable use cases. __

Building is a reasonable use case for cars while protecting yourself from
polar bears is a reasonable use case for guns [0].

I don't understand why you, and a large number of other people, are being
willfully obtuse about this. 10+ miles on dirt roads to get to a tractor is
not someone who lives in civilization, it's someone out in the wilderness.

[0] [https://www.cntraveler.com/story/alaskan-town-kaktovik-
polar...](https://www.cntraveler.com/story/alaskan-town-kaktovik-polar-bears-
and-tourists)

