Big Subway systems in big cities are pretty famous for seeing executives in suits and celebrities sit in the same bus as beggars.
> ill gotten gains
That's... quite an assumption you're making there. Sure, some execs are assholes. But most true wealth is driven through cooperation.
In North America
What you are saying here is not true of Europe.
This is a cultural problem, and says a lot about American culture. Racism, excessive individualism, and status seeking.
I remember being shocked when I first visited suburban Atlanta for work. Atlanta is a lot like the greater Toronto area (where I live[d]) -- big giant sprawl. But unlike the Toronto area, people in the suburbs were actively campaigning _against_ the extension of rail into their area, because they didn't want the undesirables from downtown coming into their prosperous sprawl.
> At the heart of capitalism is a vast and scarcely examined assumption: you are entitled to as great a share of the world’s resources as your money can buy. You can purchase as much land, as much atmospheric space, as many minerals, as much meat and fish as you can afford, regardless of who might be deprived. If you can pay for them, you can own entire mountain ranges and fertile plains. You can burn as much fuel as you like. Every pound or dollar secures a certain right over the world’s natural wealth.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/15/capita...
But for the most part, we as individuals earn money to better our lives. Get a better education, live in a better part of town, raise kids safer with better food etc. Its not a game, its life. Its also a mistake to say "money shouldn't determine important things like who gets to go to a good school", because money is exactly designed for that. Its not supposed to be just a game where money only buys toys and entertainment
The obvious solution is higher taxes for the wealthy. Wealthy people have higher climate impacts across the board, from increased meat consumption to larger houses, to first class flights and private jets.
As long as the investment priority is in cars, transit will suck.
The author sees all sorts of good things about electric cars. I drive them myself. I love cars. But...
The points the article makes about cars being part of a larger flawed system of urban and rural development are spot on.
'Self-driving' cars will only make this worse.
Even just the excessive prevalence of hard-top surfaces in roads and parking lots leads to environmental catastrophe when flooding begins.
Urban sprawl leads to farmland and natural area destruction.
The car is the ultimate symbol of entitled consumerist individualism, and it is becoming more and more unsustainable.
The net effect of every household being in car(s) with a population as big as we have is really bad, even if all emissions were to be eliminated.
If all the private investment money being dumped into self-driving technology at the moment were public money being put into urban mass transit, just think of what could be accomplished...