> But living in a walking city with a car is even nicer!
I think that's fine. Most over time will realize they don't need 2 or more cars if they're living in a true walking city because driving will be more inconvenient than walking, and eventually either paying for or building a garage (or having it used up by 2 cars that are seldom used) or paying for street parking or other things will cause people to change habits. It just takes time if you have a walkable city.
Personally I think the sweet spot is one crossover SUV, highly walkable and bikeable city, and probably street cars that run up and down main commerce arteries. At that point you really do cover almost every conceivable local transit need or chore that you might have to undertake.
One is yea there's a certain level of cultural idiocy and laziness. I live in front of a bus stop and see it. But I also see lots of parents walking to pick up their kids, so I'm not sure what the breakdown is (this is in the suburbs in Ohio with the bad weather and all of that).
The other is that we don't really have a lot (any at all?) of examples where you have a true walkable neighborhood with desirable schools. Most walkable neighborhoods that I've seen were built before automobile traffic became prevalent, which puts them close to cities which tend to have the worst schools. So I'm not actually sure what parents would do if they had the combo of schools and neighborhood that we'd be talking about here, but I bet they'd walk because in those neighborhoods it just wouldn't be possible for all or most parents to drive their kid to school at the same time.
It's really hard to break out of thinking about things in terms of the suburbs and convenience because most use that as their starting frame of reference. How will I go to Costco if XYZ, well you wouldn't. How will my kids get to school? They'd walk or ride their bikes. "But it's dangerous" ok then make it safe. Participate in your community and your government. That's half the reason we have the problems we have now. For better or worse though economic physics is going to win. We'll either all perish in war over resources or these activities will just become too expensive. EVs won't save us either, and this is particularly true given the underinvestment in nuclear energy that has occurred world wide.
Kind of. It's a chicken-egg thing. When you design your society around cars and car infrastructure people take their cars everywhere and watch the news and get scared and all that. We can think back to earlier times where this wasn't the case.
I am living the life (in the us) of your last paragraph and it’s not that plug and play. Add kids to that equation and that goes out the window. Not saying it’s not possible, saying that my wife who is absolutely not accustomed to that will not be giving up her pampered life and I know many of my friends in the same boat.
I think that's fine. Most over time will realize they don't need 2 or more cars if they're living in a true walking city because driving will be more inconvenient than walking, and eventually either paying for or building a garage (or having it used up by 2 cars that are seldom used) or paying for street parking or other things will cause people to change habits. It just takes time if you have a walkable city.
Personally I think the sweet spot is one crossover SUV, highly walkable and bikeable city, and probably street cars that run up and down main commerce arteries. At that point you really do cover almost every conceivable local transit need or chore that you might have to undertake.