I've never lived in a place where going without a car was remotely feasible - at least not in the US. I've lived in Norway for some years, and do not drive. Fi

I've never lived in a place where going without a car was remotely feasible - at least not in the US. I've lived in Norway for some years, and do not drive. First and foremost, lets be clear: I lived in small to medium-sized towns in the midwest. Two towns had taxi service, and one had a limited bus service. The town with taxis only... well, those taxis weren't reliable. You couldn't pre-order a taxi to go to work and the waiting time could be anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours. They weren't cheap: Taking a taxi to a minimum wage job would usually cost an hour of work. Living outside of the small towns was no picnic without a car: You couldn't ride a bike on the shortest route, and it took more time. Biking was often unsafe: You were expected to use the road much like a car. Except lesser. All of the places had a lack of continuous sidewalks to walk on and drivers that rarely slowed down for you. Pedestrians have the right of way in name only. Not to mention... distance. In the small town, I tried walking everywhere for a while. I could not buy clothes outside of dollar general. Lots of things weren't possible to find in town. I was lucky enough to have a grocery store: Good thing, too, because there was a 20 minute drive to the towns with larger ones. IN the larger cities, most residential areas were kept away from the areas with commerce. Wal-mart did not have sidewalks leading to it in one town. IF you do it despite all of this, you still have to have the right job. Retail is going to expect you to be clean and dry when you get to work. SO will a restaurant. Some of these places have little to zero break room and no safe place to keep a bicycle or your helmet. Oh, yeah: In almost all of these places, you were expected to only walk during "normal" hours. IF you walked to a 24-hour store at 2am or home after getting off work at 3am, you drew police suspicion, doubly so if you are young, look poor, a minority. Some jobs won't hire you if you don't have a car or steady transportation. Walking and cycling did not count. And sure, all this is still technically a choice, but not much of one. You have to reach a level of privilege before you can do this stuff safely and reasonably - at least in the states.