That was not a conspiracy by the auto manufacturers, it was just what people wanted. Ask around most suburbs and you'll learn that it is still what most people want today, especially once they have kids.
I think suburbs are going to rise in status after the pandemic, especially if working from home becomes more common. People will want space, and they won't care about being located far from downtown if they don't need to commute. Plus, nobody really wants to use public transit during a pandemic and it will be a long time before people trust it again.
Do they? Or do they because of really shitty broken public transport. I know many people in Berlin who had or could have a car but dropped it because it is totally not worth it having one.
(Through yes it's not a conspiracy, just very bad investments into public transport/infrastructure and a lot of lobbying often crippling approaches to improve public transit infrastructure.)
> I think suburbs are going to rise in status after the pandemic [..]
Even more a reason to interleave "non loud" industry with homes because then the people which can't work from home don't need to travel far.
> Plus, nobody really wants to use public transit during a pandemic
Even more a reason to interleave things as with that much shorter distances to work are possible and as such can reach it their work place by food or bicycle. Not a option in some climate areas but very well an option in others like in Berlin.
> nobody really wants to use public transit during a pandemic
Actually in many EU countries where public transit is normal it's still used. A bit less but still used frequently. People just wear mask and make sure to wash their hand when arriving. Furthermore I'm not aware of any Corona hot-spot caused by public transit, even through e.g. Berlin does much less for disinfecting trains then what I have heard what is done in some US cities.
So my guess is that you might be right wrt. the US, but it's not a fundamental thing but more of a problem with cultural context, history and perspective.
Yes, they do. The reason why people don't use private cars and opt for public transit is typically related to cost of ownership and / or inadequate infrastructure for moving cars into, out of, and around the cities efficiently given current usage. A car is better than public transit in basically every way except maybe safety (although public transit users have their own safety concerns).
Cars are point to point as opposed to having to make connections; cars operate on demand as opposed to running on an arbitrary schedule; cars enable living in a greater variety of locations as opposed to proximal to a transit hub; cars enable privacy as opposed to having to deal with other people; cars are more comfortable than public transit; cars allow you to move cargo which is infeasible on public transit; cars are much more efficient for medium distance (intra-state) travel than public transit; cars keep you out of the elements which public transit frequently does not ....
In reality public transit is required to allow cities to scale efficiently, but many use it because they have to, not because they actually want to.
> it was developers and city councils who caused this mess in the first place.
I never understood why the US and some other countries have such a strict separation between normal business/work areas and many EU cities do not have such a strict separation and it just works very well.
Sure some industry which causes a lot of noise or other pollution is not allowed interleaved with housing and industries which need a lot of space tend to be outside of the city because of land cost.
But everything else can nicely interleave.
For example Berlin it's not uncommon to have small shops on the ground floor, some offices or doctors on the first floor and apartments above that. While many new buildings sadly don't have this anymore they still interleave shopping males, doctor houses and offices with apartment blocks.
And even many affordable neighborhoods of 1960's-looking-suburbs and such, have lots of dental offices / daycare centers / insurance offices / chiropractors / photography studios / private tutors / etc in them. Most people never notice, because they look like any other random ranch house. But they exist, and are permitted by zoning.
Historically, some places in the US have family-housing-only zoning laws, not to enforce a "strict separation", but to protect housing affordability or protect public transportation. If you could put 'anything' on that land, it would cost more, preventing people from being able to afford to live there. And if you could put 'anything' there, you might build a superstore or a theme park or similar (which would block other residential residents from using the public transportation network)
---
Berlin has strong renter protections, rent control (freeze + cap), more widespread alternative forms of public transit, and substantial public housing. So the threat of private equity breaking the whole town is a little bit less pressing. The vast majority of America has nothing even remotely close to that. Zoning protections like these are basically the only thing preventing housing prices and transportation availability from being even worse in the US.
Unfortunately, American city planners have a lot of bad ideas of what a city should look like. For some reason, stadiums are unreasonably popular ( http://www.hatrack.com/cgi-bin/print_friendly.cgi?page=/osc/... ).
Likewise, if your city has set you up with some amenity like parking, and you plan your property purchase around it, and they take it away to give to someone else, it's quite reasonable to get mad — even if the use of that amenity was not specifically deeded to you as private property. There may be other concerns in a city to which they must yield, but it is hardly as if they are entitled freeloaders.
- my mortgage is $2200 a month - soon to be $2600 when I refinance to a 15 year.
- we have a separate guest suite with a bathroom for when my parents visit or if they have to ever move in with us.
- a separate room that is now a study/studio for my wife’s online fitness classes
- a bedroom converted to an office now that I work from home hopefully for the rest of my career.
- a bedroom that we converted to a cardio room with a treadmill, elliptical, stationary bike and weights.
- a bedroom for my son
- a master suite for us.
- a decent size family room and kitchen.
Especially with Covid, this has been a lifesaver. I can’t imagine being stuck in an apartment right now.
Even before my recent job change to working remotely for $BigTech and was just making an average salary for a software architect locally (east coast). The house was only 2x household income. In other words, any run of the mill developer could have afforded it.
Public roads and public transit are both funded by taxes, so I don't see why it would be right to use one but wrong to use the other.
I think it's fine to enjoy public roads and driving a car as a personal activity, but I think it gets too much public funding as "the default" in North America. I'd rather my tax dollars go to a train line than a highway lane.
it was developers and city councils who caused this mess in the first place.
no one wanted to separate home and work / business / industry.
no one except developers and auto manufacturers.