Electric cars emit a lot more than 0g/CO2 per mile, even in a perfect world. We need to get people out of car dependent suburbia, and it's going to be painful for a lot of Americans.
In a perfect world, why would electric cars be emitting any CO2? A carbon neutral electrical production is clearly possible right now with enough investment and we're moving in that direction now because it's profitable. Carbon neutral steel is currently expensive but people are working on that. Likewise with the cement and other materials going into the roads. The big impediment I see is that the plastic that goes into a car isn't easy to replace and will decay after the car breaks down, but if we create it via direct air capture and synthesis that doesn't prevent a carbon neutral car. So what do you see as preventing us from getting to carbon neutral cars?
No, because people fundamentally don't want to do this.
The plan exists now. Downsize your lifestyle drastically and move closer to the downtown of a major-ish city.
But you suggest that to anyone and it's a litany of excuses for why this just won't work for them. The truth is that either they can't or they won't. And for the vast majority of people it's just that they won't.
> No, because people fundamentally don't want to do this.
This is untrue, because
> The plan exists now. Downsize your lifestyle drastically and move closer to the downtown of a major-ish city.
this is untrue.
The problem isn't a lack of alternatives, the problem is the auto industry lobbying to make alternatives illegal and spending billions to make people believe alternatives don't exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb
Yea - also idk why people keep thinking you need to downsize your lifestyle drastically or at all. I live in a decent-sized metro area in a 2500 square foot detached home in an urban neighborhood. It's perfectly normal and fine. People have cars, but they also walk and bike to a lot of places. There are restaurants and shops nearby to walk to. There are lots of young parents with kids and a school nearby too.
Unfortunately people equate good urban planning with this weird dystopian view of a 400sqft apartment and clothes hung out to dry and getting stabbed to death on the street instead of how Americans built in the late 1800s and early 1900s with small businesses, restaurants nearby, parks for everyone to enjoy getting out and gettin some sunshine, and other amenities.
"But it's expensive" - yes because we are market-locked into building nothing like this so scarcity drives up the prices.
I’ve lived in both. Both are fine and serve different communities and different people at different points in their lives. Ideally these different size dwellings are mixed in to the same neighborhood.
I didn’t mean to suggest one is bad (though I think skyscrapers are an anti-pattern as well just less harmful) - just that some Americans will paint any attempts at meaningful urbanization as Hong Kong as opposed to their current size home when the reality is there isn’t a size trade off that needs to be made you just need to do more with how the suburban neighborhood is built/zoned out.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. Blame the auto industry. Blame whoever.
But the plan to live a walkable lifestyle exists. It’s just that people don’t want a walkable lifestyle as much as they say they do or they’d find a way to make it happen.
> But the plan to live a walkable lifestyle exists. It’s just that people don’t want a walkable lifestyle as much as they say they do or they’d find a way to make it happen.
My dude, it is illegal in almost all of the USA.
Besides that, you missed the point about how most people don't know it's an option because they've never seen anything else. I also think you're a bit confused about the power that individuals have to determine the makeup of their neighborhood. Walkable neighborhoods are expensive because they are highly desirable and rare.
If you look beyond the highest prices on that list and compare the cost of a smaller apartment to the cost of a larger suburban home plus car plus filling that home with stuff then walkable living gets a lot more competitive cost-wise.
It’s just that people won’t spend a bit more to get the thing they claim they want. So it’s hard for me to believe that they really want walkable neighborhoods that badly. They want big cars, big houses, and suburbs.
For example, I’m in Portland, OR and rent a 600 square foot apartment for $1,200 a month. I can bike downtown in 20 minutes. I walk or bike everywhere and have no transportation expenses beyond bike maintenance and the occasional bus pass.
It’s just that people like to ignore that so they can avoid changing their lifestyle and put the blame on the system rather than themselves. “This would never work for me… I need… I have to… It’s too expensive…”
That's because of scarcity. We don't build those anymore. We only build car-dependent American style suburban areas where walking and things to walk to are not permitted. That's 100% the only reason "walkable" places are so expensive.
More like zoning laws, I was shocked at the density drop between "residential/office tower" to "single family houses" in most of the US cities. Local governments are also super worried about mixed use for some reason, they really don't want a corner store so people won't drive in the hood.
But that's a solvable problem. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, certainly, but if more people want to live in walkable "major downtowns", we could just, you know, build more walkable "major downtowns", not just inflate the prices of ones we already have. There's nothing really stopping us from building more cities or at least planning more suburban/exurban neighborhoods to be independently walkable and with enough amenities to be city-like other than status quo momentum and what remains of the current "American suburban dream" of single family detached homes and cars over public transportation and walking.
