Car ownership is highly correlated with income, people in the bottom 10%ile of income are much less likely to have a car than people of higher income. If you look at modeshare for people in the bottom 10% it’s a much much larger share of biking, public transit, walking, and carpooling than others. Cars are one of the top sources of bankruptcy for people in the bottom 10% of income (car repairs, car accidents, making car payments). Car dependent life is a huge stressor to people in the bottom 10% of income
That is only in cities. Across the majority of the US your statement is not true. Poor people across the Midwest and South need a car because walking, biking, bussing, and trains are not available to them.
The poorest people in the Midwest can be seen walking down the sides of busy highways that have no sidewalks, carrying large loads of groceries for miles at a time.
You're just echoing my point. This city centric view that "cars aren't needed", "cars are a failure" is not helpful. The Midwest and South do not have the density to support those statements, moreover, most folks end up having to budget for a car first, then a home because of this.
Making cars easier to afford and maintain would benefit the South and Midwest a lot more.
Poor across the Midwest and south want a car but often live without. The difference is simply how important people consider cars and how expensive they are to keep. Being able to park for free makes a huge difference at the edge.
That's not true to my experience at all. We usually budgeted for a car first and a house second. Mass transit in most forms isn't cost efficient below a certain density, so at most you'll have a light bus system or rail system available to you.
In regards to your "often live without" statement, I met very few people in the South who didn't have cars. For the reasons I stated above, they're practically a necessity. Data also doesn't indicate that people are often going without cars except in major, wealthy cities: https://www.governing.com/archive/car-ownership-numbers-of-v...
From your 2015 data: Miami, Florida has 19.9% of households without cars, New Orleans, Louisiana at 18.8%. Even Birmingham, Alabama is at 15.8% and Atlanta, Georgia has 15.2% of households without cars.
That’s much higher than say Arlington, Virginia at 13.4% which is connected to one of the best public transportation networks in the US.
A handful of places on that list sat at 2% without cars, but most of the south was over 5% without cars largely due to poverty.
PS: Not that I think the data is very accurate Murrieta, California seemingly went from 3.5% (2015) down to 0.7% (2016) which seems extremely unlikely for a single year. The poor are often missed in official statistics like census unless significant effort is used to track them.
20% of a city not having a car sounds pretty typical, and from that data looks average. The wealthiest cities seem to correlate to not having cars, with San Francisco leading. The smaller towns on that list, and especially the ones in the Midwest and South are anywhere from single digit to 20%, with Cleveland having the highest number. So what's your point?
Edit: the whole point of my reply was to say that mass transit is effective in dense, wealthy cities. In the Midwest and South those same sentiments will not work because our highest density is in the middle of the city. The farther you go out is quickly drops off. Given that, it makes sense to make cars cheaper and easier to maintain for people there, while focusing on mass transit in areas where it will work. Unfortunately, in areas like SF (where I currently live) it's NIMBYs who get in the way and waste everyone's time while acting like they support mass transit expansion.
New Orleans, Louisiana where 18.8% of households live without cars has a 23.7% poverty rate and a median income of $41,604, that’s well below the national average.
Dallas Texas where 10.2% of households live without cars has a 18.9% poverty rate, median income of $52,580, so it’s larger, wealthier, and denser yet has significantly more cars.
Also, 20% is unusually high. Nationwide it’s about 8.7% and that’s heavily influenced by NYC. Excluding just NYC and that number falls closer to 7%.
PS: It’s really region specific but in general the wealthy are more likely to own a car in their area but different areas don’t have anything close to the same breakdown. https://slate.com/business/2019/05/maps-car-ownership-income.... Just look at El Paso vs San Jose on the bottom graph.
>New Orleans, Louisiana where 18.8% of households live without cars has a 23.7% poverty rate and a median income of $41,604, that’s well below the national average.
Dallas Texas where 10.2% of households live without cars has a 18.9% poverty rate, median income of $52,580, so it’s larger, wealthier, and denser yet has significantly more cars.
Are you suggesting that when poor people get cars, they are better able to drive to work, then make more money? Because that is my take-away from this
No, for one thing many of these people are retired. Anyway, a few poor people making marginally more money isn’t going to move median income, it’s going to show up at the 5th and 10th percentile but largely disappear past the 25th.
So, I am suggesting a car is considered a luxury or unaffordable by large segments of the poor population outside of the largest and richest cities.
Right, which circles back to my main point that the people who are making comments like "cars are a failure", who are usually arguing for mass transit, are not being helpful. What would help the poor in the Midwest and South is cheaper and easier to maintain cars.
That’s well outside of what we where talking about but I think two points are reasonable here.
Poor people who can’t currently afford a car are hardly going to buy a new one, so at best you might start to change things for them a decade from now. Improving transit doesn’t have that delay or all the knock on affects around new car regulations.
Mass transit meanwhile can actually solve the root problem even in rural areas. Hell, America already has mass transit driving past almost every home in America 2 or more commonly 4 times every weekday day for most of the year, their called school busses and they don’t charge their users or cost that much to operate. I am not suggesting we should have free public transit to every home, but it does suggest far more is possible than is currently being done.
Poor people without cars really aren't the issue, if you can't afford a car in America, you are extremely poor and really an outlier. Pretty much anyone working even minimum wage can afford a car. The problem is a ballooning costs of ownership and all the other systemic failures that keep the majority of lower income people ~60% of the US trapped in a situation where they can not accumulate any substantial savings, assets or wealth and are merely surviving.
The reason they can't save is exactly that they're forced to buy a car. It costs several thousand per year for maintenance, insurance and gas. It's the second most expensive thing people spend money on. And all these things should cost even more money, the only reason they don't is government subsidies.
It very much does cost several thousand. My insurance alone was almost $1K per year. Gas was about $100 per week, but, in rural areas, that's probably $50 per week. That's about $2,500 per year.
In addition, most poor families have ONE, and only one, car. Putting it in for maintenance not only costs money for the maintenance but also money for alternate transportation.
I had a 20 year old Honda and a 20 year old Pontiac. It cost me about $2K per year for maintenance on each (I calculated that if it reached $5K per year it was time to get a new car). However, because I had two, I could put one in the shop and use the other without thinking. This is a luxury that the poor do not have.
