Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it

Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by monodeldiablo on Friday February 17, 2017 @04:02AM (#13666927)

> I think we should address the reasons people live far from their destinations

That's the point: It's artificially cheap to do so, because driving is heavily subsidized in the US. What you interpret as the deliberate sabotage of the time/money cost to driving is, in fact, an attempt to make driving reflect more of its true cost. As things stand, those costs -- in terms of poorer physical and mental health, environmental degradation, maintenance, material, space, etc -- are socialized, borne disproportionately by people who would, in fact, benefit from more density and fewer cars.

In places where people have to pay even a fraction of the true costs of rural/suburban living, they overwhelmingly vote with their feet.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by stinkytaco on Friday February 17, 2017 @09:51AM (#13668572)

> It's artificially cheap to do so, because driving is heavily subsidized in the US.

That's part of it. But it's also just cheaper to live outside of cities. If you live in a place where land is plentiful, you can have a big house, a garage and a big box store a few miles away. You can get to places on interstate highways (which are not going away because of their economic necessity). This is, for many people, an appealing way to live and a way that requires a car. Where I live it wasn't until mandatory parking in the city that people started to drift back downtown to live.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by monodeldiablo on Friday February 17, 2017 @10:33AM (#13668861)

Unless the interstate highway goes right to your door, you're still using roads overwhelmingly funded by urbanites. And the gas in your car? Subsidized at all levels. Hell, we even bailed out a terrible automobile company with federal funds, subsidizing the losses on the manufacture of a generation of shitty cars!

But it goes beyond just subsidizing roads and fuel and SUVs. The federal and state governments subsidize rural and suburban power networks, water distribution, waste disposal, schools, police, firefighters, doctors, telecommunications... a whole host of things that drive down living costs in rural and suburban areas.

Yes, it's cheap to live outside of cities (in the US). Nobody's debating that. Nobody's saying it's not an appealing lifestyle for lots of people. We're saying that the reason it's cheap is because it's subsidized. It's basic economics. There are precious few places in the world where "it's just cheaper to live outside of cities" without strenuous government intervention.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by LordKano on Friday February 17, 2017 @11:48AM (#13669623)

The federal and state governments subsidize rural and suburban power networks, water distribution, waste disposal, schools, police, firefighters, doctors, telecommunications... a whole host of things that drive down living costs in rural and suburban areas.

Power generation, water distribution, waste disposal and the like are typically done outside of urban centers because the denizens would cry NIMBY about the effects.

Those supply networks exist to service the urban centers, it would be wasteful to not use them for the suburbs that they necessarily have to pass.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by stinkytaco on Friday February 17, 2017 @12:47PM (#13670178)

Perhaps the "car culture" is subsidized. But it's short sited to say urban living is not. Zoning laws raise the price of urban property because they push "undesirable" things out of the city (agriculture, industry, etc.). In countries where local governments do not have the power to enact strong zoning, residential, commercial and industrial will coexist. In countries where its cheaper to live in cities, that's often because of the industrial presence. That creates jobs, but also undesirable living conditions. Wealthy people will live outside of the city (this was especially true in Africa, at least in my experience). We've reversed that in the US.

Additionally, cities pull in food, power, water and other things from rural and suburban areas that exist to support cities.

I do not support commuter culture, but this is a far more complicated issue that car subsidies. There's a huge interconnected web of incentives at play. Any disassembly needs to be done carefully.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by closeparen on Friday February 17, 2017 @01:01PM (#13670271)

It's artificially cheap to live in cities because their daytime populations are not all competing for beds close to downtown. If residents of downtown condos had to pay the true cost of sharing minuscule housing stock with an entire city's worth of labor force, we'd have a lot fewer middle class people living in cities than we already do.

I'm sensing an implicit assumption that cutting out driving would result in building more density. But suburban commuters don't write land use policy for urban cores - their existing residents do, and they don't want it, because of noise, shadow, undesireables, etc. They already don't need to drive. Turning the screws on suburban commuters won't change urban NIMBYs minds on what they want their neighborhoods to look like.

[ Parent | on HN ]