Maybe you only don't feel rushed while walking because you only walk when you have time?

It goes both ways, people do less things when they can't and their lifestyle / social structures goes accordingly. Say villages with things nearby/local.

Another point, I stopped looking for parking spots where I go. I park 1-2 miles before and walk the rest. It actually saves time.

A lot of the time these discussions seem to take place in a foreign language where you recognize the words but they just don't make sense.

Personally, it's hard for me to imagine not having a car, much less not having a driver's license, because so many things I do are utterly dependent on driving even if I both worked and lived in a city (neither of which is the case). I need a car to transport my boating equipment. I just booked a getaway that is utterly dependent on a rental car when I get there. I've had jobs that I would not have been able to do were I not able to drive to job sites, etc.

But you basically adapt to what you can do if you don't have a car. You do more stuff around the city and less out in the woods. Maybe you don't take vacations that require driving. Etc. For my part, there are places that require high-clearance 4WD and knowing how to use it. I just don't do those things.

I don’t have a driver’s license. Almost none of my friends have one. I don’t understand the need to have one besides the occasional “I need to do something on holidays that requires a car” and even then I would say: rent one.

> rent one

Not without a driver's license you won't... ;-)

Of course I meant, in the extreme case where a driver license is “needed”, you still don’t need to buy a car.

It's not "needed" to rent a car, it actually is needed. Buying/leasing a car versus combining traditional rentals, hourly rentals, and Uber/Lyft/taxis/etc. (plus other forms of transportation) is mostly an economic decision. But not having a license means that you don't have a lot of those options available to you. IOW, there's a big difference between not owning a car and not having the legal ability to drive a car.

I'm kinda curious, do rental rates change for people who own their own car versus people who just have a license? I mean, you definitely have to buy the insurance coverage then, but is that coverage itself more expensive because it's assumed you're not going to be quite as good a driver as someone who does it every day?

Edit: quick google search says some companies might refuse you, but you should be able to pay $15 or so extra per day to get full liability and comprehensive coverage if you have no insurance of your own already. And check your credit card because some of them have limited built-in coverage you can leverage.

Definitely agree with you, but doing the math in my case it’s just better not to spend the time and money getting a driver’s license. Unless you live in a city where you need to drive.

For years people busted me to get my driver's license. I finally gave up and did it. I went from eww to meh to cool to meh again. It's really not in my blood, I feel bad every time I use it without having cargo in the trunk. Even some groceries .. I'd better have a backpack.

I don't really like driving and I actually do less of the drive for an hour at the end of the day for some evening activity than I used to.

But I do like being able to get away for weekends, go to national parks and wilderness areas on vacation, etc. (And I like living in at least the semi-country which wouldn't be possible without a car.)

Can’t you rent in these cases? It sounds like it would be cheaper.

I basically live in the country. I can walk in the woods from my front door but not to anywhere else.

However, knowing lots of urban folks, having to rent a car (when everyone else is also wanting to rent a car) for weekends can be a PITA, especially if said car requires special racks and the like for sport equipment.

Of course, when traveling by air for vacation, renting a car is perfectly normal which is what I do.

Until the 1950s most heavy things were moved by water.

I still can't believe how much I can pack into a canoe, probably as much as I can into a pick-up truck. Running down a lake or river, with a canoe, is even a smoother ride than a car on a regular road.

The first passenger trains were actually designed to move people from the city to the countryside. Once they achieved regular service people figured they can commute into the city, and started to live in the country.

It's not about speed it is about freedom.

I’m from Europe but I lived in Houston during my college years. I had to use my car to go almost anywhere. It was the opposite of freedom. No matter what whenever I left my apartment I had to get into my car, drive it and then park it somewhere. If it was rush hour I was at the mercy of traffic. At times (e.g. Sunday mornings) it was pleasant. But often it was suffocating.

Now I’m back in Europe and I feel free when I’m moving around a city. I might take public transportation one way and walk back to my apartment. I can get a call from my friend in the afternoon and go out for some whisky without having to drive back to my apartment and taking a cab.

I don’t know where I’ll live in the future but I’d be happy if I didn’t need to own a car.

Marketers for cigarettes [1], gogurt, lunchables, cell service, guns, etc. make similar claims. It doesn't make it true. Cars bring convenience, sure. But freedom? Not owning a car, I've never lost sleep worrying that someone was breaking into my car, I pay no car insurance, no gas, no car maintenance, never pay for toll roads, never get road rage, never sit in traffic. I feel significantly more free today than I ever did owning a car.

> One says to me, "I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to travel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg today and see the country." But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try who will get there first. The distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety cents. That is almost a day's wages. I remember when wages were sixty cents a day for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week together. You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, and arrive there some time tomorrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the day. And so, if the railroad reached round the world, I think that I should keep ahead of you.

- Henry David Thoreau in Walden

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom

> I feel significantly more free today than I ever did owning a car.

That works both ways though. I feel significantly more free today owning an EV hybrid car, then I did without a car.

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I have lost sleep worrying I would miss the only bus, or that it would be late, or that it would be full, or that it would never show, or that they could change the route without telling me, or that if the weather is bad I'll arrive soaked / freezing / dripping in sweat. Or if the other passengers are bad, I could arrived smelling bad or covered in bedbugs.

I have commuted by bus. It was a huge impact on personal freedom -- even if all conditions are ideal every trip still had to be delicately and precisely pre-planned, with exact arrival and departures, (that all stacked up, because even the shortest bus trips require one or more transfers) and they allowed travel only to specific places deemed worthy of it by other people. And of course, every trip required at least 2x to 3x longer trip times than driving.

Buses are like 70% of the stress of flying, with only 10% of the benefit.

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A car isn't limitless freedom, it comes with plenty of responsibilities and costs of it's own. But it certainly can be a form of freedom of mobility. One that currently isn't easily reproducible in any other way.

Because you live in a place where public transport is bad.

When you have to evacuate, how much freedom do you have then? Going to rely on someone like Ray Nagin to drive you in a school bus?

Constantly worrying about parking, insurance, traffic, how long you need to wait before you're sober enough to leave the pub does not seem like freedom to me.

Only being able to use a car to get around also does not seem like freedom.

Freedom is having good options - the option to use a car if that's what you have to, but also the option to bike, bus, or walk if you don't.

I've been to Houston recently - 'freedom' was about the last thing that I was feeling, as I traversed its freeway system.

That's interesting. Part of my point is that this freedom of anything anywhere blinds you from the bliss of things near you.