This essay observes that the advantages conferred by cars were significantly dampened once the cityscape evolved to benefit from those advantages. At a time whe

This essay observes that the advantages conferred by cars were significantly dampened once the cityscape evolved to benefit from those advantages. At a time when cars weren't so widespread, they allowed freedom of movement, freedom of leisure travel, and a fast, personal commute from a leafy suburb instead of having to live in crowded cities. But the availability of cars allowed those suburbs to be worthwhile to develop and many moved (for complex reasons that include a mix of personal, economic, discretionary, aspirational, classist, and racist), and many years later enough people have cars in an area that not having one is a significant hindrance. When this is observed, some interpret it as a tragedy of the commons. But while noting a class struggle, it's this socialist essay that accidentally makes a surprisingly capitalistic point: that much of one's outcomes depends on comparative advantage, and this advantage can disappear when everyone else catches up. In parts of the world dominated by the car, living close to one's work and adjacent to serviceable public transit can become the comparative advantage in turn. This is a major factor in gentrification and center city housing prices, as landowners, landlords, and developers are eager to maximize their earnings on their inelastic holdings while renters are eager to outbid others until reaching their personal ceiling. As a society, we've once again externalized the costs of transportation to the people but at costs significantly higher than before motorization, we've turned housing into an auction, and we've (accidentally, or perhaps deliberately) made it significantly more difficult to live a life that's not dependent on continuous, recurring expenditures to landholders, resource extractors and processors, and middlemen.