I used to be part of this phenomenon. First, I lived in the city center where owning/using a car is just a drag. Then I moved to the suburbs and still resisted

I used to be part of this phenomenon. First, I lived in the city center where owning/using a car is just a drag. Then I moved to the suburbs and still resisted buying one as a matter of principle. But a little less than two years ago, I made the transition and now I happily own a car. The reason? 1) Public transport in my city sucks. 2) The shopping infrastructure has moved out of the center of my community to the edges. And it's not like I didn't try. As I said above, for quite a number of years I refused to use a car even after I moved out of the city center because I was convinced that individual car usage just isn't sustainable. But as I get older, I feel my spare time becoming more and more valuable. And in my particular case, going to and from work takes >1h each way, while with the car it's a good 20 minutes drive, saving me about 1h20 per day. This is because my work is in another suburb which by public transport you can only get to by first going into the city center and then out again. With the car, you can circumvent the city completely. (Unfortunately, the part of town where my work is is not a very nice place to live, or else I could probably bike.) The second part is shopping. When I was younger, I would just walk to the next store and buy the few items I would need that day. But I was single back then. Now, there aren't any stores in walking distance any more, but my partner and I also require more stuff than when I lived alone. I still believe it's a bad idea that every household owns more than one car on average. And I've always wondered: of all of the privately owned cars in this country, how many are actually moving at any given point in versus how many are parked? But I have kind of given up hope that broad acceptance of public transport would become the norm "automatically", simply because people should realize that individual traffic is unsustainable. Now I think the only way this will ever become a reality is through force -- namely, governmental regulation. Of course, this is not on anybody's agenda at this point (anybody in power, I mean) and will not be in any foreseeable time. I don't believe individual car use will experience a measurable reduction in my life time, sadly.