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> So I think we will see a shift in where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives around owning multiple cars. Magical thinking will not make

> So I think we will see a shift in where people settle, where they will no longer base their lives around owning multiple cars. Magical thinking will not make it so. My partner and I moved further away from the city where she works because we wanted to move in together and we can't afford rent or property where either of us used to live. I work from home so most the time my car sits charging the driveway. However, all of my doctors are at least a half-hour drive away, my dental clinic is a 50 minute drive, my hobbies are anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour half drive away. The rest of my family is an hour away so no amount of moving will change these things without making the rest of them worse. But bicycles will work fine for 10% of my travel except for there being no infrastructure supporting bicycling.

fho 4y ago
You might consider getting a velomobile. Slower than a car, but a lot faster than a regular bike. Eg I am currently considering a job that is about 50km away from here, one way times are: public transport 1h50m, car 50m, velomobile 1h to 1h30m depending on effort.
velocity23 4y ago
There is the 'extra 300 euro/month' bit. Which can be even more in the long run with not paying for car maintenance, insurance etc.
CydeWeys 4y ago
It sounds like your underarching problem here is housing costs.
- gambiting 4y ago
  Sure but like.........people always say that (for example) in London you can't live closer to work because houses/flats are too expensive. Ok, I mean that's true, but how are you going to solve that? It's a gigantic city which is already full to the brim, with literally 1000+ years of building on top of every single square inch of land available. You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen. What other options are there? Maybe the only inevitable conclusion is that not everyone can live in London(or any other major city). You can't fix expensive housing in them by just wishing they were cheaper, or with regulations(or I'd love to hear how any regulations would help, beyond banning things like AirBnb).
  - mrcartmeneses 4y ago
    40-year Londoner here. The truth is that commuting costs compensate for cheaper rents. And where there is a difference you can also factor in the extra “work” time from spending 3 hours commuting every day. This changes when you work from home, but even then there are few places in suburban England where a decent cargo bike can’t replace a car. England isn’t like America where the towns were built around cars. Our towns pre-date them . (Except Milton Keynes) Also, re-property costs. It’s mostly speculative. If we banned foreign non-resident buyers and disincentivised buy-to-let landlords then prices would be much lower.
    - coderenegade 4y ago
      You probably aren't renting further out. Owning a place versus just renting it changes the calculus quite a bit, and you are coming out ahead compared to paying 25% more to live closer in. Working from home also makes a huge difference. A longer commute is tolerable if you only have to do it a few times a week. The days where you don't commute add up to pay rise.
      - Tanjreeve 4y ago
        The problem is everyone else realises this too. Pricing in the south east of England is based around proximity to London commuter lines. You can go a huge distance to Southampton and you're still paying a large premium on housing because it's on an express line to London. Or the tiny town of Fleet which is in Hartley Whitney but has some of the highest prices and desirability in the country, again it's on an express train route to London. Ticket pricing works by marking up prices on these commuter routes to London and using those to subsidise the rest of the customers. The model somewhat falls apart as the wealthier commuters were far more likely to be in jobs that moved to flexitime/remote hence the scramble for revenue now post pandemic. To answer your point to "live further out" as in actually pay enough for housing that it covers the ticket costs you're talking about Birmingham and beyond hour commutes.
  - throw8383833jj 4y ago
    It always comes down to two things: Land cost, and building cost. You get those two down and you'll see housing costs come down. Land cost can be brought down by building furthere away from the center or in the countryside -> have smaller villages or towns outside of london. As for building costs. How about we talk to developers and ask them what the biggest building costs are? Often times, it's regulation, regulation regulations. Get rid of all the ones that are causing high prices: at least this should be done in certain areas to allow those who want low cost housing some options. 200 years ago, Henry david thoreagh built a cabin for 28$. That's about 3000 dollars in today's cost. and back then the average person was able to pay off their house in just 10 years! The average house cost about 800$ which was about 800 days of unskilled labor (1/5th of what it is today if you include prop taxes) If it could be done then, then why can't it be done now? why has our standard of living dropped so much, that it's actually considerably lower than it was 200 years ago?
nomel 4y ago
> we can't afford rent or property where either of us used to live. I’ve never seen this not be the case. Are European cities organized differently or something? I’ve never see affordable living within biking distance of a business district, in the US. Prices are usually double.
- glacials 4y ago
  Yes. European cities were, in general, well-developed before the car was invented. US cities are built around the car. This means more space dedicated to parking, which means less space for homes and businesses, which means things are farther apart, which means people need cars. It’s a negative feedback loop.
  - germinalphrase 4y ago
    Wouldn’t that be a positive feedback loop that we feel negative about?
  - carschno 4y ago
    You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed. Nowadays, the latter are typically those cities popular with tourists and inhabitants due to their lively and walkable city centers, while city centers of the further category are oftentimes abandoned and avoided areas during the evenings and weekends. Impressive to see how the car-based city concept has failed for the inhabitants, and how hard it is for those cities to adapt to the post-industrial era. Of course, failure is subjective: car-based cities have been essential for the car industry because many inhabitants are completely dependent on having a car.
    - Someone 4y ago
      > You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed. I think that’s more likely “and rebuilt according to the old plan”. Very few German cities escaped with limited bombing damage. https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/air-war-germany-map/ https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/air-war-germany-map/: “Of the 54 largest cities (>100,000 inhabitants) in Germany, only four survived without significant damage: Lübeck, Wiesbaden, Halle and Erfurt.”

fho 4y ago

You might consider getting a velomobile. Slower than a car, but a lot faster than a regular bike. Eg I am currently considering a job that is about 50km away from here, one way times are: public transport 1h50m, car 50m, velomobile 1h to 1h30m depending on effort.

velocity23 4y ago

There is the 'extra 300 euro/month' bit. Which can be even more in the long run with not paying for car maintenance, insurance etc.

CydeWeys 4y ago

It sounds like your underarching problem here is housing costs.

gambiting 4y ago
Sure but like.........people always say that (for example) in London you can't live closer to work because houses/flats are too expensive. Ok, I mean that's true, but how are you going to solve that? It's a gigantic city which is already full to the brim, with literally 1000+ years of building on top of every single square inch of land available. You would probably have to demolish large areas of London and replace them with high-density housing to match demand - but obviously that's never going to happen. What other options are there? Maybe the only inevitable conclusion is that not everyone can live in London(or any other major city). You can't fix expensive housing in them by just wishing they were cheaper, or with regulations(or I'd love to hear how any regulations would help, beyond banning things like AirBnb).
- mrcartmeneses 4y ago
  40-year Londoner here. The truth is that commuting costs compensate for cheaper rents. And where there is a difference you can also factor in the extra “work” time from spending 3 hours commuting every day. This changes when you work from home, but even then there are few places in suburban England where a decent cargo bike can’t replace a car. England isn’t like America where the towns were built around cars. Our towns pre-date them . (Except Milton Keynes) Also, re-property costs. It’s mostly speculative. If we banned foreign non-resident buyers and disincentivised buy-to-let landlords then prices would be much lower.
  - coderenegade 4y ago
    You probably aren't renting further out. Owning a place versus just renting it changes the calculus quite a bit, and you are coming out ahead compared to paying 25% more to live closer in. Working from home also makes a huge difference. A longer commute is tolerable if you only have to do it a few times a week. The days where you don't commute add up to pay rise.
    - Tanjreeve 4y ago
      The problem is everyone else realises this too. Pricing in the south east of England is based around proximity to London commuter lines. You can go a huge distance to Southampton and you're still paying a large premium on housing because it's on an express line to London. Or the tiny town of Fleet which is in Hartley Whitney but has some of the highest prices and desirability in the country, again it's on an express train route to London. Ticket pricing works by marking up prices on these commuter routes to London and using those to subsidise the rest of the customers. The model somewhat falls apart as the wealthier commuters were far more likely to be in jobs that moved to flexitime/remote hence the scramble for revenue now post pandemic. To answer your point to "live further out" as in actually pay enough for housing that it covers the ticket costs you're talking about Birmingham and beyond hour commutes.
- throw8383833jj 4y ago
  It always comes down to two things: Land cost, and building cost. You get those two down and you'll see housing costs come down. Land cost can be brought down by building furthere away from the center or in the countryside -> have smaller villages or towns outside of london. As for building costs. How about we talk to developers and ask them what the biggest building costs are? Often times, it's regulation, regulation regulations. Get rid of all the ones that are causing high prices: at least this should be done in certain areas to allow those who want low cost housing some options. 200 years ago, Henry david thoreagh built a cabin for 28$. That's about 3000 dollars in today's cost. and back then the average person was able to pay off their house in just 10 years! The average house cost about 800$ which was about 800 days of unskilled labor (1/5th of what it is today if you include prop taxes) If it could be done then, then why can't it be done now? why has our standard of living dropped so much, that it's actually considerably lower than it was 200 years ago?

nomel 4y ago

> we can't afford rent or property where either of us used to live. I’ve never seen this not be the case. Are European cities organized differently or something? I’ve never see affordable living within biking distance of a business district, in the US. Prices are usually double.

glacials 4y ago
Yes. European cities were, in general, well-developed before the car was invented. US cities are built around the car. This means more space dedicated to parking, which means less space for homes and businesses, which means things are farther apart, which means people need cars. It’s a negative feedback loop.
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  Wouldn’t that be a positive feedback loop that we feel negative about?
- carschno 4y ago
  You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed. Nowadays, the latter are typically those cities popular with tourists and inhabitants due to their lively and walkable city centers, while city centers of the further category are oftentimes abandoned and avoided areas during the evenings and weekends. Impressive to see how the car-based city concept has failed for the inhabitants, and how hard it is for those cities to adapt to the post-industrial era. Of course, failure is subjective: car-based cities have been essential for the car industry because many inhabitants are completely dependent on having a car.
  - Someone 4y ago
    > You can observe this very well in Germany. You have many cities that were destroyed during World War 2, and rebuilt around the car. You can compare them to the cities that were built before, and not destroyed. I think that’s more likely “and rebuilt according to the old plan”. Very few German cities escaped with limited bombing damage. https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/air-war-germany-map/ https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/air-war-germany-map/: “Of the 54 largest cities (>100,000 inhabitants) in Germany, only four survived without significant damage: Lübeck, Wiesbaden, Halle and Erfurt.”