Car-centric planning is horrible for children, the elderly, disabled people, sick people, and the poor. It makes them heavily dependent on able-bodied drivers

Car-centric planning is horrible for children, the elderly, disabled people, sick people, and the poor. It makes them heavily dependent on able-bodied drivers (family members, taxis, hired helpers, ...) to move about. Children are much more independently mobile in cities with good transit. In car-centric suburbs parents or other caretakers are responsible for personally carting their children from place to place, with huge negative impact on children’s quality of life. Children end up sheltered, over-scheduled, over-controlled, and dramatically delayed in learning to live for themselves. It is for good reason that many college campuses and retirement homes are organized as little self-contained car-free villages. In my opinion car-centric suburbs are optimized for healthy, wealthy 30–50 year-old full-time workers, and increasingly hostile as people get further from matching that.