13 ms·

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

by 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?
    - flomo 2y ago
      You are putting a lot of pointless words in my mouth. As I said, I have actually lived the San Francisco car-free bike and streetcar lifestyle, and quite enjoyed it. So I have the perspective of why it does or does not work (for Americans). I would love to see some concrete solutions proposed here other than just the usual Cars Bad/Cars Good handwaving and downvoting. (I just looked at Bodega in Google Maps, and it is significantly more dense than all but the most "boogie" American cities. Compare it to say Chicago.)
      - im3w1l 2y ago
        Self driving cars will make it much more viable to use cars for last mile on either side of a public transport trip.
      - cycomanic 2y ago
        Chicago has a density of 4500 people per sq km compared to Bogota at 4100 so Chicago is denser? That said I actually meant Medellin not Bogota which is significantly denser. However Medellin topology makes it extremely challenging to build infrastructure, the central valley floor is more than 1000m lower than most of the suburbs. Moreover the GDP of Medellin is 70 billion compared to a GDP of Chicago of 800 billion and Chicago can't build public transport infrastructure because it's 1.5 less dense? That doesn't make any sense.
- 7speter 2y ago
  Poor people live in the parts of cities you avoid until your rent gets expensive, too.
Zigurd 2y ago
A friend of mine is writing a history of the Massachusetts Hill towns. The Strathmore paper company plays a big part in that history the mill owners built housing for their workers within walking distance of the mills. I also know of a tourism industry company that is buying up older hotels that are no longer competitive in the local market to use as seasonal worker housing. There are solutions other than having someone drive a beater for 45 minutes to get to a low paying job.
- flomo 2y ago
  Yeah, "company towns" were another issue that cars solved.
  - KennyBlanken 2y ago
    On what planet do you think that people living in company housing could afford cars? People living in company housing were the poorest of the poor. Please just....stop. Stop trying to talk about how poor people lived or live.
    - flomo 2y ago
      Correct, it was a terrible situation despite the lack of cars.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
Speaking as "the other half": this is wildly condescending, ignorant, and ironic. The irony of declaring that HN doesn't understand "how the other half lives"... ...while also declaring that "used cars are a must" for poor people (if you can afford a car in a city, you're substantially above a huge number of people, and car ownership rate goes up dramatically with wealth. It rises higher than 1 car/person once you start hitting the single digits. A huge number of service industry people, not to mention students, get around on foot or bicycle. They just don't commute 9-5, and they don't live in your neighborhoods, so you don't see them) ...while also making wildly sweeping generalization about where transit does and doesn't go (in my city, poor people get busses, rich people get trolleys and light rail and commuter rail, and it's pretty clearly purposeful that it is very difficult to get to the rich residential parts from the poor residential parts) ...while also making wildly sweeping generalizations that working poor don't work downtown, and only work in "industrial" areas in cities. It really goes to show how invisible we all are to you....even when you're wagging your finger at the rest of HN for not understanding people like us, lol. Downtown, who exactly do you think handles all the cleaning, maintenance, repair, delivery, food service, retail, etc in the "downtown" area of a city? Who do you think delivers the paper towels and bottled water and k-cups? Everything around you in your office - every single fucking thing down to the carpet you're standing on - is there because a poor person put it there. Who do you think is driving the busses and taxis and trucks and vans? Who do you think works the "gig" "jobs" delivering everything from dry cleaning to laundry to a fancy lunch for to those "young healthy well-paid tech workers"? (and FYI, your boss/admin assistant/office manager, when they order that big lunch from the fancy place across town? They're shit tippers. And bad communicators. And take forever to show up to grab the order.) Do you realize that even in the "boogie" (sic) part of the city, the guy running the cash register at that hip coffee joint is making as close to minimum wage as the company thinks they can get away with, which is likely, at best, a buck or two an hour more than average? Who exactly do you think fills all the entry-level jobs, including in tech companies? What do you think the front desk receptionist is paid? The desktop support person? I feel like you all think that someone who cleans the offices for the big dot-com or white-shoe law office...or someone who dishwashes or busses or does prep work for a fancy restaurant where a plate costs $50, is getting paid anything remotely proportional to the difference in cost from a restaurant a plate for $18 or the hourly rate of that law firm. It's the opposite - the fanciest places and the biggest name corps squeeze people the hardest. That's how they got to where they are.
mtalantikite 2y ago
When I look around on the subway here in NYC I see every type of person imaginable. There are wealthy people going to work and unhoused people and everyone in between. There are certainly transit deserts and I have friends that live in them who do have cars -- largely out in Queens, East New York, etc -- but many of the people I know in the city with cars are financially doing just fine. It's also important to note that the extreme cost of living in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn is relatively recent. My friends that grew up here in the 80s, taking the subway to school, were far from bougie. They were living a car free lifestyle then and now just because that's how the environment of many parts of NYC is built. It's not like NYC was constructed as a walking paradise only for wealthy people in the 19th century.
- flomo 2y ago
  True, I'm an old urbanite/suburb-hater. But because of ppl like me, I don't think there's any place left in the USA which has 'good' transit and isn't expensive. (And solutions like congestion tolls only work because of the boogieness.) What's done is done.
  - mtalantikite 2y ago
    Yeah, agreed. We built the country for the car and there’s no easy path out of that. Every time I’m in LA I think “man we could have had a city like Barcelona” and get bummed it’s just a sprawling car dependent amalgamation of suburbs. There’s clearly demand for more cities like NYC in the US, but we’re not going to get it.
    - flomo 2y ago
      Yeah, some local billionaires want to build "San Francisco by the Sacramento Delta", and it's been nothing but NIMBY opposition. My guess it will be McMansions in 20 years instead. Politically, we can't even build one high-density suburb.
epolanski 2y ago
The working poor struggles to find work and stays poor also because mobility. By the way that's not something I'm making up, it was literally told me by several people in struggling neighborhoods, lacking a car can be easily make a difference for many between being able or not to have different opportunities in life. Might be different elsewhere but it made sense to me.
- flomo 2y ago
  I've heard the same thing, because there's a lot of jobs out in suburban industrial parks and etc. (Some local transit agencies have tried to solve this, but the situation still isn't good.)
Vinnl 2y ago
Wasn't GP specifically complaining about the other half not being able to enjoy the "car-free lifestyle"? (/not be forced to use the car to live their life.)
- flomo 2y ago
  I'm not unsympathetic, but I don't think a "European who studied at OSU for a semester" really knows what they are talking about.
  - epolanski 2y ago
    You might be right, I was just sharing my experience and what I've heard from locals. Anyway, there's an abundant literature that links inequality with transport opportunities. But those topics are so touchy for you Americans tbh, it's like arguing about weapons, it's too heated of an argument for rational discourse.
    - flomo 2y ago
      Yeah, "mobility opportunities". I recognize the issues, and the lack of easy answers, so I think I'm only "touchy" about is simplistic solutions. European car commuter rates are almost identical to USA's. But I know little about the details, so don't really have any commentary, other than not all of Europe some glorious bike/transit boogie utopia. (And some ppl get "touchy" about that.)
      - timeon 2y ago
        > European car commuter rates are almost identical to USA's. Do you have source for this? I believe this could be true now but I find this kind of arguing dismissive and missing the point. I'm not from environment you have described. Still remmeber people in my East European corner were able to easily commute to work by bus/train without car. However since they got richer they adopted American commuter patterns more and this led to deterioration of public transport outside of urban areas. No wonder people get "touchy" because you are not really arguing for those who are not "young healthy well-paid tech workers". But against them. It is not about just ditching the cars but changing whole design of living around the need of cars - which is the point that actually started this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43666410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43666410
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
7speter 2y ago
Thank you for saying this. My household is smack dab in the middle of a food dessert. We have a 25 year old car we got 10 years ago for $2000, and we use it primarily to go to the nice supermarket because you can get fresh, non moldy food at prices better than you can at the sketchy “supermarkets” and bodegas that always have rotting, moldy and non rotated food products on shelves. I do most of the shopping and I keep the freezer full of meat we can get on sale (just got 7 pounds of chicken wings for 2.49 a pound this week) and cook through that. A lot of the types in spaces like these don’t know how to cook and just use services like grubhub, and thinks everyone should too, or they buy 8 dollar a pound organic chicken thighs from Whole foods the day of. Everybody doesn’t live this way. Also, I use the bus and train to go downtown and places where it would take an hour to find a parking spot. I even lug big bags of food from Aldi on the crowded bus at rush hour weekly. I don’t know why it has to be either you drive everywhere or never need a car in these discussions. Use what you need to use given the situation.
saltysalt 2y ago
You are completely correct about the bias on HN against cars: that will change when they get older and have kids. Not everyone is a young single urbanite working remotely or downtown.
- sensanaty 2y ago
  I don't have kids but I do have 4 nephews. They all take their bikes or if not possible for whatever reason, buses/trains/trams/metro to school and elsewhere. My 1 sister lives in the countryside and her kids still take the bike to school, which is ~10km away from their house, and if they go to another city they can take their bikes on the train. Why wouldn't you want your kid to be independent like this? Why force them to have to rely on you and your car if they want to go out and see their friends? It inconveniences you and makes their life much more dull and restricted, not to mention the health benefits of taking the bike vs sitting in a car for a kid.
  - saltysalt 2y ago
    Why judge others for how they live, when you don't even know their circumstances?
    - sensanaty 2y ago
      Didn't really intend to be judgy, but are you not doing the same when calling out the "Young single urbanites who work from home/downtown"?
      - saltysalt 2y ago
        I'm not judging them for choosing to use public transport or bicycles, that's their right. They should not judge car drivers, but they often do and want them banned. The secret to successful urban living is tolerance, but sadly that is in short supply.

by flomo 2y ago

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?
  - flomo 2y ago
    You are putting a lot of pointless words in my mouth. As I said, I have actually lived the San Francisco car-free bike and streetcar lifestyle, and quite enjoyed it. So I have the perspective of why it does or does not work (for Americans). I would love to see some concrete solutions proposed here other than just the usual Cars Bad/Cars Good handwaving and downvoting. (I just looked at Bodega in Google Maps, and it is significantly more dense than all but the most "boogie" American cities. Compare it to say Chicago.)
    - im3w1l 2y ago
      Self driving cars will make it much more viable to use cars for last mile on either side of a public transport trip.
    - cycomanic 2y ago
      Chicago has a density of 4500 people per sq km compared to Bogota at 4100 so Chicago is denser? That said I actually meant Medellin not Bogota which is significantly denser. However Medellin topology makes it extremely challenging to build infrastructure, the central valley floor is more than 1000m lower than most of the suburbs. Moreover the GDP of Medellin is 70 billion compared to a GDP of Chicago of 800 billion and Chicago can't build public transport infrastructure because it's 1.5 less dense? That doesn't make any sense.
7speter 2y ago
Poor people live in the parts of cities you avoid until your rent gets expensive, too.

Zigurd 2y ago

A friend of mine is writing a history of the Massachusetts Hill towns. The Strathmore paper company plays a big part in that history the mill owners built housing for their workers within walking distance of the mills. I also know of a tourism industry company that is buying up older hotels that are no longer competitive in the local market to use as seasonal worker housing. There are solutions other than having someone drive a beater for 45 minutes to get to a low paying job.

flomo 2y ago
Yeah, "company towns" were another issue that cars solved.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  On what planet do you think that people living in company housing could afford cars? People living in company housing were the poorest of the poor. Please just....stop. Stop trying to talk about how poor people lived or live.
  - flomo 2y ago
    Correct, it was a terrible situation despite the lack of cars.

KennyBlanken 2y ago

Speaking as "the other half": this is wildly condescending, ignorant, and ironic. The irony of declaring that HN doesn't understand "how the other half lives"... ...while also declaring that "used cars are a must" for poor people (if you can afford a car in a city, you're substantially above a huge number of people, and car ownership rate goes up dramatically with wealth. It rises higher than 1 car/person once you start hitting the single digits. A huge number of service industry people, not to mention students, get around on foot or bicycle. They just don't commute 9-5, and they don't live in your neighborhoods, so you don't see them) ...while also making wildly sweeping generalization about where transit does and doesn't go (in my city, poor people get busses, rich people get trolleys and light rail and commuter rail, and it's pretty clearly purposeful that it is very difficult to get to the rich residential parts from the poor residential parts) ...while also making wildly sweeping generalizations that working poor don't work downtown, and only work in "industrial" areas in cities. It really goes to show how invisible we all are to you....even when you're wagging your finger at the rest of HN for not understanding people like us, lol. Downtown, who exactly do you think handles all the cleaning, maintenance, repair, delivery, food service, retail, etc in the "downtown" area of a city? Who do you think delivers the paper towels and bottled water and k-cups? Everything around you in your office - every single fucking thing down to the carpet you're standing on - is there because a poor person put it there. Who do you think is driving the busses and taxis and trucks and vans? Who do you think works the "gig" "jobs" delivering everything from dry cleaning to laundry to a fancy lunch for to those "young healthy well-paid tech workers"? (and FYI, your boss/admin assistant/office manager, when they order that big lunch from the fancy place across town? They're shit tippers. And bad communicators. And take forever to show up to grab the order.) Do you realize that even in the "boogie" (sic) part of the city, the guy running the cash register at that hip coffee joint is making as close to minimum wage as the company thinks they can get away with, which is likely, at best, a buck or two an hour more than average? Who exactly do you think fills all the entry-level jobs, including in tech companies? What do you think the front desk receptionist is paid? The desktop support person? I feel like you all think that someone who cleans the offices for the big dot-com or white-shoe law office...or someone who dishwashes or busses or does prep work for a fancy restaurant where a plate costs $50, is getting paid anything remotely proportional to the difference in cost from a restaurant a plate for $18 or the hourly rate of that law firm. It's the opposite - the fanciest places and the biggest name corps squeeze people the hardest. That's how they got to where they are.

mtalantikite 2y ago

When I look around on the subway here in NYC I see every type of person imaginable. There are wealthy people going to work and unhoused people and everyone in between. There are certainly transit deserts and I have friends that live in them who do have cars -- largely out in Queens, East New York, etc -- but many of the people I know in the city with cars are financially doing just fine. It's also important to note that the extreme cost of living in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn is relatively recent. My friends that grew up here in the 80s, taking the subway to school, were far from bougie. They were living a car free lifestyle then and now just because that's how the environment of many parts of NYC is built. It's not like NYC was constructed as a walking paradise only for wealthy people in the 19th century.

flomo 2y ago
True, I'm an old urbanite/suburb-hater. But because of ppl like me, I don't think there's any place left in the USA which has 'good' transit and isn't expensive. (And solutions like congestion tolls only work because of the boogieness.) What's done is done.
- mtalantikite 2y ago
  Yeah, agreed. We built the country for the car and there’s no easy path out of that. Every time I’m in LA I think “man we could have had a city like Barcelona” and get bummed it’s just a sprawling car dependent amalgamation of suburbs. There’s clearly demand for more cities like NYC in the US, but we’re not going to get it.
  - flomo 2y ago
    Yeah, some local billionaires want to build "San Francisco by the Sacramento Delta", and it's been nothing but NIMBY opposition. My guess it will be McMansions in 20 years instead. Politically, we can't even build one high-density suburb.

epolanski 2y ago

The working poor struggles to find work and stays poor also because mobility. By the way that's not something I'm making up, it was literally told me by several people in struggling neighborhoods, lacking a car can be easily make a difference for many between being able or not to have different opportunities in life. Might be different elsewhere but it made sense to me.

flomo 2y ago
I've heard the same thing, because there's a lot of jobs out in suburban industrial parks and etc. (Some local transit agencies have tried to solve this, but the situation still isn't good.)

Vinnl 2y ago

Wasn't GP specifically complaining about the other half not being able to enjoy the "car-free lifestyle"? (/not be forced to use the car to live their life.)

flomo 2y ago
I'm not unsympathetic, but I don't think a "European who studied at OSU for a semester" really knows what they are talking about.
- epolanski 2y ago
  You might be right, I was just sharing my experience and what I've heard from locals. Anyway, there's an abundant literature that links inequality with transport opportunities. But those topics are so touchy for you Americans tbh, it's like arguing about weapons, it's too heated of an argument for rational discourse.
  - flomo 2y ago
    Yeah, "mobility opportunities". I recognize the issues, and the lack of easy answers, so I think I'm only "touchy" about is simplistic solutions. European car commuter rates are almost identical to USA's. But I know little about the details, so don't really have any commentary, other than not all of Europe some glorious bike/transit boogie utopia. (And some ppl get "touchy" about that.)
    - timeon 2y ago
      > European car commuter rates are almost identical to USA's. Do you have source for this? I believe this could be true now but I find this kind of arguing dismissive and missing the point. I'm not from environment you have described. Still remmeber people in my East European corner were able to easily commute to work by bus/train without car. However since they got richer they adopted American commuter patterns more and this led to deterioration of public transport outside of urban areas. No wonder people get "touchy" because you are not really arguing for those who are not "young healthy well-paid tech workers". But against them. It is not about just ditching the cars but changing whole design of living around the need of cars - which is the point that actually started this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43666410 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43666410

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

7speter 2y ago

Thank you for saying this. My household is smack dab in the middle of a food dessert. We have a 25 year old car we got 10 years ago for $2000, and we use it primarily to go to the nice supermarket because you can get fresh, non moldy food at prices better than you can at the sketchy “supermarkets” and bodegas that always have rotting, moldy and non rotated food products on shelves. I do most of the shopping and I keep the freezer full of meat we can get on sale (just got 7 pounds of chicken wings for 2.49 a pound this week) and cook through that. A lot of the types in spaces like these don’t know how to cook and just use services like grubhub, and thinks everyone should too, or they buy 8 dollar a pound organic chicken thighs from Whole foods the day of. Everybody doesn’t live this way. Also, I use the bus and train to go downtown and places where it would take an hour to find a parking spot. I even lug big bags of food from Aldi on the crowded bus at rush hour weekly. I don’t know why it has to be either you drive everywhere or never need a car in these discussions. Use what you need to use given the situation.

saltysalt 2y ago

You are completely correct about the bias on HN against cars: that will change when they get older and have kids. Not everyone is a young single urbanite working remotely or downtown.

sensanaty 2y ago
I don't have kids but I do have 4 nephews. They all take their bikes or if not possible for whatever reason, buses/trains/trams/metro to school and elsewhere. My 1 sister lives in the countryside and her kids still take the bike to school, which is ~10km away from their house, and if they go to another city they can take their bikes on the train. Why wouldn't you want your kid to be independent like this? Why force them to have to rely on you and your car if they want to go out and see their friends? It inconveniences you and makes their life much more dull and restricted, not to mention the health benefits of taking the bike vs sitting in a car for a kid.
- saltysalt 2y ago
  Why judge others for how they live, when you don't even know their circumstances?
  - sensanaty 2y ago
    Didn't really intend to be judgy, but are you not doing the same when calling out the "Young single urbanites who work from home/downtown"?
    - saltysalt 2y ago
      I'm not judging them for choosing to use public transport or bicycles, that's their right. They should not judge car drivers, but they often do and want them banned. The secret to successful urban living is tolerance, but sadly that is in short supply.