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There is a big difference between buying a car and doing literally every trip in a car because the only connection from the place you sleep to anywhere is six l

There is a big difference between buying a car and doing literally every trip in a car because the only connection from the place you sleep to anywhere is six lane road with speeds exceeding 40mph. Of course cars are convenient for some things. I live in a city where the majority of households has access to a car, but only a quarter of the trips (accounting for 40% of the traveled distance) are made by car. I still consider the city to be built very car-centric, but it's a wholly different world from what I experienced when visiting the US.

refurb 5y ago
Sure, but in the Strongtowns models there is not space for cars - at least everyone owning a car they only use for weekends. Only the rich own cars. Or those that live outside the urban core. Welcome to our future if Strongtowns has a say.
- adrianN 5y ago
  There is plenty of space for cars if you stack them. That's a rather successful model in Japanese cities. Free surface parking has an outsized negative impact on cities. BTW, it's already kind of true that only the rich own cars, car ownership correlates very strongly with household income.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >BTW, it's already kind of true that only the rich own cars, car ownership correlates very strongly with household income. Of course it correlates. Rich households can afford more cars per person and can indulge in specialized vehicles (e.g commuter car). Rich families have a sedan for each commuting parent and maybe another less specialized car (e.g. minivan or 3-row SUV) that only sees weekend use. Poor families pile into a Saturn. That the ability of the poor family to own and operate that Saturn confers a far greater standard of living jump than cars 2-N do for the rich family. It also has a much greater impact on the health of the broader economy. To intentionally place monetary constraints on vehicle ownership would be unwise because you have to price out all the poor before you start making meaningful dents in the (relatively) wealthy professionals who commute across the inner suburbs and into urban environments.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>There is a big difference between buying a car and doing literally every trip in a car because the only connection from the place you sleep to anywhere is six lane road with speeds exceeding 40mph. This is a massive over-generalization that pretty much only applies to the suburbs that were built out in the 1950s and 1960s mostly in the southern half of the country. As those suburbs have densified over the decades (where allowed by law, so not the southwest) some of them have become pretty darn walk-able.

refurb 5y ago

Sure, but in the Strongtowns models there is not space for cars - at least everyone owning a car they only use for weekends. Only the rich own cars. Or those that live outside the urban core. Welcome to our future if Strongtowns has a say.

adrianN 5y ago
There is plenty of space for cars if you stack them. That's a rather successful model in Japanese cities. Free surface parking has an outsized negative impact on cities. BTW, it's already kind of true that only the rich own cars, car ownership correlates very strongly with household income.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >BTW, it's already kind of true that only the rich own cars, car ownership correlates very strongly with household income. Of course it correlates. Rich households can afford more cars per person and can indulge in specialized vehicles (e.g commuter car). Rich families have a sedan for each commuting parent and maybe another less specialized car (e.g. minivan or 3-row SUV) that only sees weekend use. Poor families pile into a Saturn. That the ability of the poor family to own and operate that Saturn confers a far greater standard of living jump than cars 2-N do for the rich family. It also has a much greater impact on the health of the broader economy. To intentionally place monetary constraints on vehicle ownership would be unwise because you have to price out all the poor before you start making meaningful dents in the (relatively) wealthy professionals who commute across the inner suburbs and into urban environments.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>There is a big difference between buying a car and doing literally every trip in a car because the only connection from the place you sleep to anywhere is six lane road with speeds exceeding 40mph. This is a massive over-generalization that pretty much only applies to the suburbs that were built out in the 1950s and 1960s mostly in the southern half of the country. As those suburbs have densified over the decades (where allowed by law, so not the southwest) some of them have become pretty darn walk-able.