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> we can't feasibly just remove cars workout replacing them with something This isn't really true though. Firstly just as "banning smoking" hasn't really mean

> we can't feasibly just remove cars workout replacing them with something This isn't really true though. Firstly just as "banning smoking" hasn't really meant banning smoking—people still smoke—being anti-car doesn't mean eliminating car ownership. In a pro-car world, if I'm a developer building a shopping centre one of my primary considerations is parking. Immediately I need maybe over triple the area of land to build, or significant increase in investment if I'm going underground. Both of these options limit me severely in where I can build: I'll go for an area with cheaper land value, and larger land areas available. Access is further down my list of concerns. In an anti-car world, I build my shopping centre where people live. Many can walk there. There's a greater array of existing public transport already servicing it (and density means such services are likely to be improved w/out the need for lobbying). Some cycle there. Proximity means visits are more likely to be shorter & more frequent: this increases turnover of parking spaces for the much-smaller number of people who do still need to drive. There are countless other similar examples of problems that solve themselves when car infrastructure is removed from the equation. Yes we need other solutions in some cases, but just removing cars is enough of a "solution" in itself in many cases. What people don't realise about cars is that car infrastructure already causes so many problems we've just internalised and accepted as norms. An anti-car approach benefits from those problems being solved implicitly.

etripe 5y ago
While you largely have a point, I think you're perhaps a little too optimistic about the big picture, especially when factoring in timelines. Simply saying no to cars doesn't solve the problem of transporting goods of any kind, e.g. a family load of food shopping for the week, furniture or building materials when doing a house renovation. And while covid has nudged employment towards a more decentralised model, some countries (the US comes to mind, especially in rural areas or AFAIK cities like LA) don't really have a public transport alternative, for instance.
- ArekDymalski 5y ago
  >family load of food shopping for the week I think that shopping for the week is a result of car ownership, not the other way. I grew up in a family without a car and buying fresh stuff from the local shop everyday was normal. I think I developed the habit of weekly shopping when I turned 25 and started more demanding job. In case of furniture/moving - that's something that could be done be services. Etc.
- lucideer 5y ago
  I think you're perhaps being slightly too absolutist about what opposing cars would mean: we will always need cars. We just don't need them for 90%+ of current personal journeys. Even if we were wildly successful in opposing cars & reversing much of the car-focused infrastructure we have in place, many would still use cars for large weekly shops, furniture & building material movement... But: - building materials is hardly "personal" & unlikely to be a regular need for most households. Car rental or professional builders' work vehicles fill most of the needs here. - same goes for a lot of furniture movements: shop delivery services or moving company vehicles - less road infrastructure and more localised urban planning drastically reduce the time-cost of low-volume grocery shopping. Couple that with the moves we're already seeing toward online grocery delivery and you get a massive reduction in the need for large weekly car-journey shopping We'll always need cars: opposing isn't eliminating completely, it's just eliminating unnecessary use.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    > opposing isn't eliminating completely, it's just eliminating unnecessary use. Some opposing is for eliminating it completely on a long enough timescale. We've gotten extremely bad at talking about longterm goals and longterm outcomes in politics. If I say "Ban cars. Reforest Parking Lots." as my political slogan the opposition comes out in droves acting like I said "if elected King-Mayor with magic powers to actually enact legislation on day one, I will sign into law a ban on all cars and no one can legally drive them and everyone will be stuck with no transit options, good day" whether that is what I believe and whether or not any of them realize that "Reforest Parking Lots" is an ecologically slow process and don't expect that to happen overnight. This lack of an ability to sell long term vision, because so many are willfully and obtusely taking the shortest term views on the world, on bumper stickers and in political slogans is just crippling to so many of our political narratives right now. It's especially crippling in our ability to truly compromise on a lot of issues. Instead of starting from a long term vision of "We believe we should ban cars because that could lead to a better society at some point in the future" we have to do all of this leg work to start with a "pre-compromise" of our vision, the smaller/simpler "pragmatic" option we think will "sell" to the public such as "let's build shops closer to people's homes" (which is great, but doesn't address the root problem it addresses a symptom/co-factor), and in so doing opponents don't have to meet us in the true middle ("well, let's not ban cars just yet, but what if we…") and instead arrive at an even weaker compromise of the compromise ("well moving shops closer to people's homes is an admirable goal, but it's a free market so let's just lazily incentivize that with tax write-offs and see if they take the bait" doesn't get us any closer to "let's get people to drive less", it's still a good idea, but it's definitely not anywhere on the radar of "meet me halfway on banning cars here").
- chucksta 5y ago
  Most major US cities did not start out as car centric locations (even the south and west), but we made them all so within the span of 100 years. Doesn't seem unreasonable it could be undone as quickly
- addicted 5y ago
  If you don't have car centric living then the way you buy groceries changes, for example. You don't load up on weekly groceries. You buy smaller amounts every few days on your way back from work. For one thing, grocery stores, etc. now locate themselves near public transport, as opposed to a 20-30 minute drive away from the closest place anyone lives. And when it comes to moving furniture, etc. you rent a car. Or even better, since you don't have to buy a single car to use over many years to justify its expense, when you want to move furniture you can rent a van. When you want to take your kids for a camping adventure requiring offroading you can rent an AWD. If you need to go a 100 miles all on proper roads you can rent an EV and save on gas.
xyzzy21 5y ago
This is not as easy as YOU imagine. It's at the level of deciding: "Hey, silicon is just like carbon so let's replace carbon in everything: living things, etc. with silicon!" There are myriad of details that can't be ignored but always get brushed aside in ideological fervor and the network of interconnected things that gets disrupted will "fight back" because it's already in the lowest energy state - it's already optimal and the new big thing is not and will not be.

etripe 5y ago

While you largely have a point, I think you're perhaps a little too optimistic about the big picture, especially when factoring in timelines. Simply saying no to cars doesn't solve the problem of transporting goods of any kind, e.g. a family load of food shopping for the week, furniture or building materials when doing a house renovation. And while covid has nudged employment towards a more decentralised model, some countries (the US comes to mind, especially in rural areas or AFAIK cities like LA) don't really have a public transport alternative, for instance.

ArekDymalski 5y ago
>family load of food shopping for the week I think that shopping for the week is a result of car ownership, not the other way. I grew up in a family without a car and buying fresh stuff from the local shop everyday was normal. I think I developed the habit of weekly shopping when I turned 25 and started more demanding job. In case of furniture/moving - that's something that could be done be services. Etc.
lucideer 5y ago
I think you're perhaps being slightly too absolutist about what opposing cars would mean: we will always need cars. We just don't need them for 90%+ of current personal journeys. Even if we were wildly successful in opposing cars & reversing much of the car-focused infrastructure we have in place, many would still use cars for large weekly shops, furniture & building material movement... But: - building materials is hardly "personal" & unlikely to be a regular need for most households. Car rental or professional builders' work vehicles fill most of the needs here. - same goes for a lot of furniture movements: shop delivery services or moving company vehicles - less road infrastructure and more localised urban planning drastically reduce the time-cost of low-volume grocery shopping. Couple that with the moves we're already seeing toward online grocery delivery and you get a massive reduction in the need for large weekly car-journey shopping We'll always need cars: opposing isn't eliminating completely, it's just eliminating unnecessary use.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  > opposing isn't eliminating completely, it's just eliminating unnecessary use. Some opposing is for eliminating it completely on a long enough timescale. We've gotten extremely bad at talking about longterm goals and longterm outcomes in politics. If I say "Ban cars. Reforest Parking Lots." as my political slogan the opposition comes out in droves acting like I said "if elected King-Mayor with magic powers to actually enact legislation on day one, I will sign into law a ban on all cars and no one can legally drive them and everyone will be stuck with no transit options, good day" whether that is what I believe and whether or not any of them realize that "Reforest Parking Lots" is an ecologically slow process and don't expect that to happen overnight. This lack of an ability to sell long term vision, because so many are willfully and obtusely taking the shortest term views on the world, on bumper stickers and in political slogans is just crippling to so many of our political narratives right now. It's especially crippling in our ability to truly compromise on a lot of issues. Instead of starting from a long term vision of "We believe we should ban cars because that could lead to a better society at some point in the future" we have to do all of this leg work to start with a "pre-compromise" of our vision, the smaller/simpler "pragmatic" option we think will "sell" to the public such as "let's build shops closer to people's homes" (which is great, but doesn't address the root problem it addresses a symptom/co-factor), and in so doing opponents don't have to meet us in the true middle ("well, let's not ban cars just yet, but what if we…") and instead arrive at an even weaker compromise of the compromise ("well moving shops closer to people's homes is an admirable goal, but it's a free market so let's just lazily incentivize that with tax write-offs and see if they take the bait" doesn't get us any closer to "let's get people to drive less", it's still a good idea, but it's definitely not anywhere on the radar of "meet me halfway on banning cars here").
chucksta 5y ago
Most major US cities did not start out as car centric locations (even the south and west), but we made them all so within the span of 100 years. Doesn't seem unreasonable it could be undone as quickly
addicted 5y ago
If you don't have car centric living then the way you buy groceries changes, for example. You don't load up on weekly groceries. You buy smaller amounts every few days on your way back from work. For one thing, grocery stores, etc. now locate themselves near public transport, as opposed to a 20-30 minute drive away from the closest place anyone lives. And when it comes to moving furniture, etc. you rent a car. Or even better, since you don't have to buy a single car to use over many years to justify its expense, when you want to move furniture you can rent a van. When you want to take your kids for a camping adventure requiring offroading you can rent an AWD. If you need to go a 100 miles all on proper roads you can rent an EV and save on gas.

xyzzy21 5y ago

This is not as easy as YOU imagine. It's at the level of deciding: "Hey, silicon is just like carbon so let's replace carbon in everything: living things, etc. with silicon!" There are myriad of details that can't be ignored but always get brushed aside in ideological fervor and the network of interconnected things that gets disrupted will "fight back" because it's already in the lowest energy state - it's already optimal and the new big thing is not and will not be.