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Whether a car is a luxury or not, really depends on where you live. European cities started on a scale designed around the limitations of human walking. Even b

by btilly 1y ago

Whether a car is a luxury or not, really depends on where you live. European cities started on a scale designed around the limitations of human walking. Even before they built out mass transit systems, living without a car was doable. Adding mass transit is icing on the cake. If you live in such an environment, it is easy to make the case that cars are a luxury. That's because other people's daily experience is that it is a luxury. As your mother discovered when she visited you. Most American cities are built on a scale designed around human driving. Even where they built out mass transit systems, between scale and density they can't work as well as European ones. (Fun fact. Across the USA, busses are on average so underutilized that we'd save gas by making everyone drive instead.) Underinvestment in mass transit is icing on the cake. This was your mother's daily experience in suburban Massachusetts. And even though she sees how you can live without a car, it's pretty safe to bet that she doesn't think that she can live where she does without a car. Which means that, in America, saying that cars are luxuries is a poor argument. It directly contradicts everyone's personal experience. Yes, this is fixable. But fixing it literally requires tearing cities down, then rebuilding them on a scale where walking makes sense as a major mode of transportation. We can't even manage the political will to build enough housing to keep people off the streets. Any lifestyle change requiring this level of rebuilding is a nonstarter. No matter how many lectures we get from Europeans.

rglullis 1y ago
> Most American cities are built on a scale designed around human driving. That's absolutely not true. It only became true in the post-war when there was a push for suburban sprawl, lobbied by GM and all the auto industry [0] > it's pretty safe to bet that she doesn't think that she can live where she does without a car. "Where there is a will, there is a way", right? The discussion is not even if she can go by without a car, but whether she would want it. > We can't even manage the political will to build enough housing to keep people off the streets. Ok, but then don't go around trying to rationalize your bad choices and poor capacity for civic organization. [1] Don't go around saying "I lived in NYC and I thought I could live without a car, but after I had kids I realized they are not so bad", and please don't go around saying "it can't be done". Amsterdam and Rotterdam were once also car-centric cities which managed to turn themselves around in less than a generation. There is no inherit limitation in the US that forbids this change to happen. There is no amount of American Exceptionalism that can prevent people from clamoring change. Maybe it won't be done in the US, because people are lazy and not willing to sacrifice their own convenience for some communal benefit, but it's super annoying to always get in these discussions when people try to hide their preferences on external circumstances. North American cities are they way they are by choice. [0]: How The Auto Industry Carjacked The American Dream (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOttvpjJvAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOttvpjJvAo) [1]: The Dumbest Excuse for Bad Cities (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ)
- btilly 1y ago
  You seem rather less informed on the topic than you think. To start, as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_city will verify, the switch in the USA to car-centric cities began in the 1920s. By the 1930s, about half of American households had cars. And American cities were being reshaped by this. After the war, the automobile industry did conspire to remove public transit to improve profits. However this was on top of a giant car-centric housing boom, and already wide existing infrastructure changes. Which all contributed. The American experience stands in stark contrast to Europe. In pre-war Europe, cars were only a luxury item for the rich. Germany's early success came in part because it was more mechanized than the rest of Europe. But even so, about 80% of all of Nazi German logistics was by horse. They were absolutely unprepared for what happened after the USA converted car manufacture over to tanks and airplanes. With the result that the USA quickly outproduced the rest of the planet combined. (Though, to correct a common American misconception, the most important military use of American equipment was by Soviet soldiers.) After WW 2, Europe's manufacturing increased rapidly. And yes, cities did become more "car centric". Including Amsterdam. But even "car centric" Amsterdam was nowhere comparable to the average US city. By the time the 70s rolled around, car ownership was still well behind the USA. Yes, new construction was planned for cars, but there was a lot less of that than in the USA. And the core of various cities, including Amsterdam, was still built to the old scale. The scale that the core of a city is built at, matters. Even in the USA it matters. The USA has many cities that were highly populated before cars. Particularly Manhattan. By and large, they remain walkable today. But cities that were constructed almost entirely after cars, such as Los Angeles, are car-centric to an extent that simply never has existed anywhere in Europe. No, not even in the bad old days of "car centric" Amsterdam. And so, I stand by my point. I'm someone who has visited multiple countries, and has lived in a variety of cities. I've lived both with and without a car for various stretches of my life. Take any city in the world that is an example of a good place for living by mass transit and bicycling. At no point in its history was it anywhere near as car centric as the average US city. And that is true whether you compare to how car centric the US city is today, or to how car centric it was back when the other city had more cars. So lay off on "car centric Amsterdam". It's an argument based on comparing apples and oranges. It was never even remotely comparable to the average US city.

by btilly 1y ago

rglullis 1y ago

> Most American cities are built on a scale designed around human driving. That's absolutely not true. It only became true in the post-war when there was a push for suburban sprawl, lobbied by GM and all the auto industry [0] > it's pretty safe to bet that she doesn't think that she can live where she does without a car. "Where there is a will, there is a way", right? The discussion is not even if she can go by without a car, but whether she would want it. > We can't even manage the political will to build enough housing to keep people off the streets. Ok, but then don't go around trying to rationalize your bad choices and poor capacity for civic organization. [1] Don't go around saying "I lived in NYC and I thought I could live without a car, but after I had kids I realized they are not so bad", and please don't go around saying "it can't be done". Amsterdam and Rotterdam were once also car-centric cities which managed to turn themselves around in less than a generation. There is no inherit limitation in the US that forbids this change to happen. There is no amount of American Exceptionalism that can prevent people from clamoring change. Maybe it won't be done in the US, because people are lazy and not willing to sacrifice their own convenience for some communal benefit, but it's super annoying to always get in these discussions when people try to hide their preferences on external circumstances. North American cities are they way they are by choice. [0]: How The Auto Industry Carjacked The American Dream (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOttvpjJvAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOttvpjJvAo) [1]: The Dumbest Excuse for Bad Cities (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ)

btilly 1y ago
You seem rather less informed on the topic than you think. To start, as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_city will verify, the switch in the USA to car-centric cities began in the 1920s. By the 1930s, about half of American households had cars. And American cities were being reshaped by this. After the war, the automobile industry did conspire to remove public transit to improve profits. However this was on top of a giant car-centric housing boom, and already wide existing infrastructure changes. Which all contributed. The American experience stands in stark contrast to Europe. In pre-war Europe, cars were only a luxury item for the rich. Germany's early success came in part because it was more mechanized than the rest of Europe. But even so, about 80% of all of Nazi German logistics was by horse. They were absolutely unprepared for what happened after the USA converted car manufacture over to tanks and airplanes. With the result that the USA quickly outproduced the rest of the planet combined. (Though, to correct a common American misconception, the most important military use of American equipment was by Soviet soldiers.) After WW 2, Europe's manufacturing increased rapidly. And yes, cities did become more "car centric". Including Amsterdam. But even "car centric" Amsterdam was nowhere comparable to the average US city. By the time the 70s rolled around, car ownership was still well behind the USA. Yes, new construction was planned for cars, but there was a lot less of that than in the USA. And the core of various cities, including Amsterdam, was still built to the old scale. The scale that the core of a city is built at, matters. Even in the USA it matters. The USA has many cities that were highly populated before cars. Particularly Manhattan. By and large, they remain walkable today. But cities that were constructed almost entirely after cars, such as Los Angeles, are car-centric to an extent that simply never has existed anywhere in Europe. No, not even in the bad old days of "car centric" Amsterdam. And so, I stand by my point. I'm someone who has visited multiple countries, and has lived in a variety of cities. I've lived both with and without a car for various stretches of my life. Take any city in the world that is an example of a good place for living by mass transit and bicycling. At no point in its history was it anywhere near as car centric as the average US city. And that is true whether you compare to how car centric the US city is today, or to how car centric it was back when the other city had more cars. So lay off on "car centric Amsterdam". It's an argument based on comparing apples and oranges. It was never even remotely comparable to the average US city.