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And it's one of the biggest promoters of inequality. I am an European who studied at OSU in Columbus for a semester and it was absurd to me how on one side the

And it's one of the biggest promoters of inequality. I am an European who studied at OSU in Columbus for a semester and it was absurd to me how on one side there was lots of work downtown, yet you could live 20 miles of it and it would take you two hours by public transport to get there, an odyssey. People without a car, insurance, poorer parts of the society were cut off from the job market for not having a way to connect. Suburbs are cute, but they are a tragedy of city planning, let alone the tragedy they are on a social level, where people will put everything in their houses including movie rooms, entertainment rooms, anything to avoid having to go out and socialize. Terrible.

bslalwn 2y ago
[flagged]
- const_cast 2y ago
  The prices of cars have “skyrocketed” because the price is now closer to what they actually cost. Meaning, less is being externalized. Cars are inequality-creators because the drivers offload the cost to everyone, including those who don’t drive. Car centric decisions, air pollution, interstates and freeways, parking lots. It’s very much akin to tobacco. Tobacco used to be cheap - when the tobacco wouldn’t pay for your addiction, or your COPD, or your eventual death. Now they do - a tiny bit - and tobacco is expensive.
  - bslalwn 2y ago
    >The prices of cars have “skyrocketed” because the price is now closer to what they actually cost. Meaning, less is being externalized. This is false. There are no “externalities” that are now getting paid. You don’t pay for the right to drive upfront, you already have a permit for that, and that permit is what pays for road maintenance, etc. Maybe the current price is not fair, but that permit hasn’t increased in price. The reality is that Europe let all manufacturers buy one another so they don't have to compete anymore. So they can do whatever they want with prices. >Cars are inequality-creators because the drivers offload the cost to everyone, including those who don’t drive. Which wasn't a problem when everybody could afford to drive before Europe ruined everything.
    - const_cast 2y ago
      > Which wasn't a problem when everybody could afford to drive before Europe ruined everything. It was still a problem, because a lot of those people died or had reduced quality of life. The reality is driving is very dangerous. In the US, it's the primary cause of death for many age groups. And the pollution kills. And it kills pedestrians. And car-dependence is a lot like heroin. You depend on cars, so you build things further, so you must drive more. It's a self-eating beast. Once cars started becoming less polluting and less deadly, i.e. _less cost was externalized_, they got more expensive. If you truly think Europe is "ruined" because morbidly-obese people aren't puttering around in stinky automobiles for 2-3 hours a day, then I don't know what to tell you. To me, it's nice to have beautiful cities were people can walk. It's nice to go to work and not have a sudden urge to kill yourself. These people can always move to the Land of the Free, of course. Suburban concrete hellscape after suburban concrete hellscape. I'm referring to the US, of course. The land of varicose veins, fatty liver disease, suicide and smog. Ah, beautiful.
      - bslalwn 2y ago
        There isn’t a single sentence in your comment that isn’t hyperbolic.
        const_cast 2y ago
        It's only hyperbole because you have a car-centric point of view. From an objective point of view, there are A LOT of problems with cars. It's not hyperbolic to say that cars kill people on the scale of tobacco and alcohol. It's literally true. Again, the primary cause of death for a lot of demographics in the US is driving. You would, literally, have a lower mortality if you walked to work and smoked a Capri methanol on the way. We just don't view driving in this way because, unlike tobacco, it is a necessary evil. As soon as you dismantle the assumption that it's necessary the rest falls into place. There is a direct link between car-centric infrastructure and most things that are killing you and making your life worse. The fact you choose to ignore it does not mean it doesn't exist. And, to be fair, ignoring it is good practice. If I had to come to terms with my own mortality before every commute I'd probably kill myself. Ignorance is bliss. If you simply look at the places world-wide associated with higher quality of life you'll notice a common denominator. More greenery, more walking, fresher food, more public transit, and less cars. It's not a coincidence, it's pretty obvious when you sit down and put the pieces together.
EasyMark 2y ago
Suburbs are fine. We are in 2025, not 1925, there is no reason why work from home isn't an option for information workers and others who don't need to be physically on premises. You are completely ignoring how much that cuts down on traffic and would lower the cost of real estate, so more people who aren't millionaires could live downtown. We also have electric cars that have basically zero emissions, there is a technical solution for this; not everyone wants to ride a bus or train.
- clayhacks 2y ago
  Work from home is great, but there’s more to life than work. Being walking distance or public transport distance to the rest of life’s activities is also great. And EVs aren’t saving the planet they are saving the car industry. They still cause tire particulate pollution, noise pollution, light pollution, and need tons of rare earth minerals
  - bluecalm 2y ago
    Don't forget the most important scarce resource they require: space. We waste so much space for parking and other car friendly infrastructure there often is not enough left for a a bike line or even a sidewalk let alone some actually pleasant peaceful passage people could use.
- afthonos 2y ago
  I understand a large amount of car pollution these days is due to the tires.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  I drive an EV. I am not under the mistaken impression that it’s zero emission (or even close). It emits particulates locally and power-generation-related emissions at the fossil fuel plant that provides the majority of my grid power. Is it better than an ICE? Probably. Is it “basically zero emission”? Nope.
- Zigurd 2y ago
  Private cars are an economic sinkhole. They make no financial sense. My town in the exurbs used to have rail service and stagecoaches. The necessity of private cars is a marketing triumph. Not a choice.
newZWhoDis 2y ago
Posts like these reverse cause and effect.
andrepd 2y ago
Suburbs are also financially subsidised by the city centres. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0
flomo 2y ago
In the USA, the working poor generally don't work downtown, and it's really the industrial areas where there is awful transit service. So cheapo used cars are a must for these folks. There is some awful HN bias here where young healthy well-paid tech workers live in some boogie part of SF/NYC/Boston/etc and enjoy the "car-free lifestyle" (and I've been there), without any idea how the other half lives.
- skort 2y ago
  I've seen this "car free utopia" idea dismissed as an idea by and for "elites" (see Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's comments on people who ride the subway in NYC) plenty of times as a tactic to avoid doing anything about reducing dependence on cars. It's quite a counterproductive argument in my opinion. Even if there are well paid tech workers who are able to enjoy a "car-free lifestyle", why should it end there? Just because the system we created means that currently the only affordable place for the working poor is in suburbs where they must rely on cars doesn't mean that it needs to continue to be that way. You can support building infill housing and adding transit to eventually reduce the need for so many people to have cars. It's one thing to call it "bias" and use that as an argument to not make things better instead of coming up with ways to help make car independence available to everyone across classes.
  - flomo 2y ago
    Because the truth is nobody has any real idea how to retrofit the last 70 years of American suburbia so that mass transit is actually effective and useful for people. "Transit-oriented development" really only helps downtown workers and doesn't get you to the grocery store or daycare. (And even in NYC, the subway is not great out in Queens/etc, so people own cars.) But it is nice to live in the Mission and take the techbus to Mountain View and handwave all the hard trillion dollar problems and say let the poors eat cake. Which is effectively how these discussions seem to go.
    - cycomanic 2y ago
      I find it fascinating how the debate around cars in cities evolves. Initially counter arguments always are that reducing cars is not desirable "nobody wants less cars in cities, people need to do their weekly groceries, nobody wants to bike in bad weather...". Once these points are refuted it always evolves into "yes it would be great, but it can't be done, because it's too expensive, politically controversial...". It's almost like there is an irrational fear of less cars in cities. Regarding it can't be done I encourage anyone to read up on how the investment into public transport transformed Bogota. Which is both much poorer and in a much more challenging geographical environment than most US cities. So if they can do it, why can't US cities?
itsmartapuntocm 2y ago
It’s all by design. Car dependent suburbs with no transit access make it easier to keep “undesirables” out of your neck of the woods. Robert Moses infamously made great use of infrastructure and urban planning to reinforce redlining.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Just one example. He required bridges be built too low for buses to pass, limiting access to parks and beaches to those who owned cars… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-moses-and-his-racist-parkway-explained https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-mo...
  - rufus_foreman 2y ago
    Here's the sub-heading from the article you linked to: "The story: Robert Moses ordered engineers to build the Southern State Parkway’s bridges extra-low, to prevent poor people in buses from using the highway. The truth? It’s a little more complex"
    - dghlsakjg 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - rufus_foreman 2y ago
        "to prevent poor people in buses from using the highway" No evidence whatsoever for that motivation. You could take the bus to the beach.
        dghlsakjg 2y ago
        You are quoting yourself not the article or me? No evidence besides the direct testimony of a person that worked on the project given to one of the best biographers in a piece of work that won a Pulitzer Prize. Also, the physical evidence of the bridges. Circumstantially, the man was openly racist, and openly used design to segregate. The assertion isn’t that you couldn’t take a bus to the beach. The assertion is that you couldn’t take a bus from the inner city neighborhoods to Jones Beach, which was true.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

bslalwn 2y ago

[flagged]

const_cast 2y ago
The prices of cars have “skyrocketed” because the price is now closer to what they actually cost. Meaning, less is being externalized. Cars are inequality-creators because the drivers offload the cost to everyone, including those who don’t drive. Car centric decisions, air pollution, interstates and freeways, parking lots. It’s very much akin to tobacco. Tobacco used to be cheap - when the tobacco wouldn’t pay for your addiction, or your COPD, or your eventual death. Now they do - a tiny bit - and tobacco is expensive.
- bslalwn 2y ago
  >The prices of cars have “skyrocketed” because the price is now closer to what they actually cost. Meaning, less is being externalized. This is false. There are no “externalities” that are now getting paid. You don’t pay for the right to drive upfront, you already have a permit for that, and that permit is what pays for road maintenance, etc. Maybe the current price is not fair, but that permit hasn’t increased in price. The reality is that Europe let all manufacturers buy one another so they don't have to compete anymore. So they can do whatever they want with prices. >Cars are inequality-creators because the drivers offload the cost to everyone, including those who don’t drive. Which wasn't a problem when everybody could afford to drive before Europe ruined everything.
  - const_cast 2y ago
    > Which wasn't a problem when everybody could afford to drive before Europe ruined everything. It was still a problem, because a lot of those people died or had reduced quality of life. The reality is driving is very dangerous. In the US, it's the primary cause of death for many age groups. And the pollution kills. And it kills pedestrians. And car-dependence is a lot like heroin. You depend on cars, so you build things further, so you must drive more. It's a self-eating beast. Once cars started becoming less polluting and less deadly, i.e. _less cost was externalized_, they got more expensive. If you truly think Europe is "ruined" because morbidly-obese people aren't puttering around in stinky automobiles for 2-3 hours a day, then I don't know what to tell you. To me, it's nice to have beautiful cities were people can walk. It's nice to go to work and not have a sudden urge to kill yourself. These people can always move to the Land of the Free, of course. Suburban concrete hellscape after suburban concrete hellscape. I'm referring to the US, of course. The land of varicose veins, fatty liver disease, suicide and smog. Ah, beautiful.
    - bslalwn 2y ago
      There isn’t a single sentence in your comment that isn’t hyperbolic.
      - const_cast 2y ago
        It's only hyperbole because you have a car-centric point of view. From an objective point of view, there are A LOT of problems with cars. It's not hyperbolic to say that cars kill people on the scale of tobacco and alcohol. It's literally true. Again, the primary cause of death for a lot of demographics in the US is driving. You would, literally, have a lower mortality if you walked to work and smoked a Capri methanol on the way. We just don't view driving in this way because, unlike tobacco, it is a necessary evil. As soon as you dismantle the assumption that it's necessary the rest falls into place. There is a direct link between car-centric infrastructure and most things that are killing you and making your life worse. The fact you choose to ignore it does not mean it doesn't exist. And, to be fair, ignoring it is good practice. If I had to come to terms with my own mortality before every commute I'd probably kill myself. Ignorance is bliss. If you simply look at the places world-wide associated with higher quality of life you'll notice a common denominator. More greenery, more walking, fresher food, more public transit, and less cars. It's not a coincidence, it's pretty obvious when you sit down and put the pieces together.

EasyMark 2y ago

Suburbs are fine. We are in 2025, not 1925, there is no reason why work from home isn't an option for information workers and others who don't need to be physically on premises. You are completely ignoring how much that cuts down on traffic and would lower the cost of real estate, so more people who aren't millionaires could live downtown. We also have electric cars that have basically zero emissions, there is a technical solution for this; not everyone wants to ride a bus or train.

clayhacks 2y ago
Work from home is great, but there’s more to life than work. Being walking distance or public transport distance to the rest of life’s activities is also great. And EVs aren’t saving the planet they are saving the car industry. They still cause tire particulate pollution, noise pollution, light pollution, and need tons of rare earth minerals
- bluecalm 2y ago
  Don't forget the most important scarce resource they require: space. We waste so much space for parking and other car friendly infrastructure there often is not enough left for a a bike line or even a sidewalk let alone some actually pleasant peaceful passage people could use.
afthonos 2y ago
I understand a large amount of car pollution these days is due to the tires.
sokoloff 2y ago
I drive an EV. I am not under the mistaken impression that it’s zero emission (or even close). It emits particulates locally and power-generation-related emissions at the fossil fuel plant that provides the majority of my grid power. Is it better than an ICE? Probably. Is it “basically zero emission”? Nope.
Zigurd 2y ago
Private cars are an economic sinkhole. They make no financial sense. My town in the exurbs used to have rail service and stagecoaches. The necessity of private cars is a marketing triumph. Not a choice.

newZWhoDis 2y ago

Posts like these reverse cause and effect.

andrepd 2y ago

Suburbs are also financially subsidised by the city centres. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0

flomo 2y ago

In the USA, the working poor generally don't work downtown, and it's really the industrial areas where there is awful transit service. So cheapo used cars are a must for these folks. There is some awful HN bias here where young healthy well-paid tech workers live in some boogie part of SF/NYC/Boston/etc and enjoy the "car-free lifestyle" (and I've been there), without any idea how the other half lives.

skort 2y ago
I've seen this "car free utopia" idea dismissed as an idea by and for "elites" (see Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's comments on people who ride the subway in NYC) plenty of times as a tactic to avoid doing anything about reducing dependence on cars. It's quite a counterproductive argument in my opinion. Even if there are well paid tech workers who are able to enjoy a "car-free lifestyle", why should it end there? Just because the system we created means that currently the only affordable place for the working poor is in suburbs where they must rely on cars doesn't mean that it needs to continue to be that way. You can support building infill housing and adding transit to eventually reduce the need for so many people to have cars. It's one thing to call it "bias" and use that as an argument to not make things better instead of coming up with ways to help make car independence available to everyone across classes.
- flomo 2y ago
  Because the truth is nobody has any real idea how to retrofit the last 70 years of American suburbia so that mass transit is actually effective and useful for people. "Transit-oriented development" really only helps downtown workers and doesn't get you to the grocery store or daycare. (And even in NYC, the subway is not great out in Queens/etc, so people own cars.) But it is nice to live in the Mission and take the techbus to Mountain View and handwave all the hard trillion dollar problems and say let the poors eat cake. Which is effectively how these discussions seem to go.
  - cycomanic 2y ago
    I find it fascinating how the debate around cars in cities evolves. Initially counter arguments always are that reducing cars is not desirable "nobody wants less cars in cities, people need to do their weekly groceries, nobody wants to bike in bad weather...". Once these points are refuted it always evolves into "yes it would be great, but it can't be done, because it's too expensive, politically controversial...". It's almost like there is an irrational fear of less cars in cities. Regarding it can't be done I encourage anyone to read up on how the investment into public transport transformed Bogota. Which is both much poorer and in a much more challenging geographical environment than most US cities. So if they can do it, why can't US cities?

itsmartapuntocm 2y ago

It’s all by design. Car dependent suburbs with no transit access make it easier to keep “undesirables” out of your neck of the woods. Robert Moses infamously made great use of infrastructure and urban planning to reinforce redlining.

alistairSH 2y ago
Just one example. He required bridges be built too low for buses to pass, limiting access to parks and beaches to those who owned cars… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-moses-and-his-racist-parkway-explained https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-mo...
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  Here's the sub-heading from the article you linked to: "The story: Robert Moses ordered engineers to build the Southern State Parkway’s bridges extra-low, to prevent poor people in buses from using the highway. The truth? It’s a little more complex"
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - rufus_foreman 2y ago
      "to prevent poor people in buses from using the highway" No evidence whatsoever for that motivation. You could take the bus to the beach.
      - dghlsakjg 2y ago
        You are quoting yourself not the article or me? No evidence besides the direct testimony of a person that worked on the project given to one of the best biographers in a piece of work that won a Pulitzer Prize. Also, the physical evidence of the bridges. Circumstantially, the man was openly racist, and openly used design to segregate. The assertion isn’t that you couldn’t take a bus to the beach. The assertion is that you couldn’t take a bus from the inner city neighborhoods to Jones Beach, which was true.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]