I can’t wait to bike 12 miles to the nearest town in -20 degree weather to catch a train that doesn’t exist so I can get groceries.

You might as well say, “Well, if we just invented teleporters…”

I would suggest you try and see how countries that aren’t as car centered as the US operate. Trains, buses, trams all can make it very easy to lose the car addiction. And it can be done today, no teleportation required.

Those countries are usually heavily urbanized, though so is the USA. Those not living in urban areas generally have more dependence on cars (eg in Australia or New Zealand).

I’ve been to Japan (and NYC and…), so I have a pretty good idea. The system works great in Tokyo, and obviously the bullet train is amazing. In rural areas though, you’re dealing with long train rides and waiting on bus schedules. It can be done, but it seems like a lot of people in those areas just had cars.

It should be done where it’s practical, but in most of the US geographically it isn’t.

Most of the US lives in urban areas.

I don't suppose you are suggesting that nobody was able to live a decent life 12 miles out of town until we had cars, are you?

But I suppose your point is more like: we've built lots of completely car-dependent situations in which people live very far from core necessities in life with no way to get them except by car. And that's clearly true. But the answer isn't teleporters or biking in -20 to got 12 miles. The answer is to stop living so far from essential resources. And that doesn't have to mean everyone moving to crazy-dense living around existing resources like grocery stores. It could just as well (better really) mean modest density in mixed areas where we have more medium-size grocery stores so that more people are close to them.

I'm not suggesting individuals just live in car DEPENDENT contexts and then forgo the thing you DEPEND on. I'm suggesting we have drastically fewer car-dependent places.

I’m sorry, but I like that I basically don’t have neighbors and my little girl has 15 acres to play on and explore. A lot of other people feel the same way.

I don't know what you're sorry about. There's nothing wrong with that idea. It just isn't feasible to have 8 billion people all living like that. If cars were only used by a sustainably small number of people who live like you, then it's fine enough.

The problem is the "lot of other people" issue. Your way of life works well only if most people forgo it. There's nothing inherently wrong with it in and of itself.

> A lot of other people feel the same way.

As a fact, a lot of people may feel that way, but not a large percentage. That's just a small percentage of a large number is still a large number. But tell me again why I have to subsidize your lifestyle by paying for your roads and inadequate federal gas laws recapturing the costs of pollution from your cars?

Meanwhile, most people raised like your little girl will end up moving to urban areas as an adult.

Presumably because you need to eat. Farmers are in the area. My wife does accounting for the food producer they sell to. I photograph their weddings. My wife’s mom helps run the healthcare for the area. My friend sells them equipment.

People generally don’t live where it doesn’t make at least some economic sense, and those farmers would probably stop farming if they didn’t have at least some basic necessities and amenities nearby.

Accounting and heathcare management can trivially be done remotely.

But it might not really matter. Do small farms produce a noticeable amount of food in our food supply? I thought it all was giant farms with giant machinery, not family farms, that actually produced food.

(Edited to try to make it more clear that was a real question. Maybe family farms are important for the food supply?)

Family farms large are “giant farms” nowadays, at least in my area. Nobody is farming 50 acres, they all have hundreds or even thousands. You can only really be born in to it when farmland is $10,000 an acre and the equipment will run you hundreds of thousands of dollars more.

And they’re all stupidly wealthy for the amount of work they do, but that’s another matter.

Note: that’s all for crops. Raising animals seems to be another matter with plenty of smaller farms - and they do more work too.

While all large farms are family farms as well, the total number of such large farms is, what, 10,000 in the USA? By a bunch of very rich people? The exact people who don't need their lifestyle subsidized by people in urban areas to keep living in the country otherwise they'll move away and stop growing our food.

Then you would know what it looks like to live in the Alaskan bush (not many roads, so cars aren’t that useful).

Of course, where Alaska does have roads, they have a super high death rate. An uncle who I never knew being one of them (though in this case, and as usual, alcohol was also involved).

I don't own a car, neither does anyone around me. We all rely on public transport and bicycles. I live near the Artic circle and the temperature is routinely near -20º. If Aury knew what he was talking about, he'd know that weather is generally nice and sunny at that temperature and that snow and wind are more common when it's warmer.

I’m looking out my window at snow falling right now. You’re right that snow below 0 degrees in uncommon, but I’ve never noticed much of a difference in wind. That could be because where I live temperatures 20 below or worse aren’t common and are transient, so another front is probably nearby and creating wind.

I still wouldn’t want to bike in it, if only because of ice.

For the record I live in Minnesota, one of the coldest and snowiest states in the US.

You need spiked tires for your bike, just like for your car.

A larger percentage of the population lived in rural areas before mass production of cars.

Sure, and most of those people raised their own food and had a wife that could raise the children and cook all day. You could essentially live off of farming just what you needed, with maybe a little extra for spending money. That doesn’t work now unless you outlaw everything more advanced than a horse as farming equipment.

Most people don't live so far away from stores, or anything else. The vast majority of the population in any modern society is urban. And urban people can get by just fine on public transit anywhere that decides to put it in.

Most of America needs cars. Society would collapse if you just "limited and regulated car use pretty extremely". If there's a solution to that, then let's just do that, and skip the authoritarian part afterward.

You mean most of America is designed to be car-dependent. So, yes, in the current design it needs cars.

I wasn't saying we could just suddenly ban them tomorrow.

The solution is hard because of how bad we've gotten things. But the solution has little authoritarian about it. We just change our priorities for the design of public infrastructure. We don't even need to actually ban cars at all. Make it practical and enjoyable to do everything by train, bike, or walking whenever possible and most people will happily do it. The result is a huge decrease in deaths both through healthier living and less cars.

https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos describes things pretty well and accessibly. In short: the Netherlands was on track 40 years ago to be nearly as car-dependent as the U.S. and yet protesters blocked some highway proposals and the country went in a different direction. Today, it's the best designed place in the world, and its even better for drivers too.

> But the solution has little authoritarian about it.

The authoritarian part was limiting/regulating car use pretty extremely. I'm perfectly fine with making alternatives to cars more practical, just not with making cars less practical.

Nothing authoritarian about that if the majority of the population agrees that’s the best way to move forward.

We already regulate where cars are allowed to go (e.g. which direction in which lane on which streets). All anyone means around "banning" cars is to have changes (reductions) in which places we allow cars. There's no increase in authoritarianism with that.

Ok here’s what we can do: pass laws significantly reducing the places cars can go. Tax automobiles. Buy up used cars and destroy them to keep prices high and ensure cars use recent environment technology.

Then create public transit districts, which operate like school districts. Real estate is taxed, and the proceeds go to busses.

Areas with high real estate values will have excellent public transit. Those with lower real estate values will have worse transit.

The advantage is (1) support by middle and upper class voters, who are traditionally opposed to public transit, (2) funding sustainability, (3) money is kept in local communities.

The downside is a drastic increase in inequality.

I’m obviously joking … but do you see how discouraging cars would increase inequality unless it was combine with an extremely equitable political system? A political system America doesn’t have?

I see effort at nuance here, but the conclusion is both almost right and also not at all right.

America's deeply unequal political system WILL NOT ever get us better equality. It's *incidental*, a symptom of the political reality that discouraging cars would be done in a way that exacerbates inequality.

Almost any policy can be done in ways that exacerbate inequality. And a more equitable political system would be needed in order to have more equitable policies.

There's nothing specific to cars about this stuff. So, there's no point in focusing on discouraging cars as inherently part of this trend. Gentrification is a real issue. But don't blame yoga for gentrification just because yoga studios are in gentrified areas. Policies that encourage healthy tree canopy also exacerbate inequality because richer areas can hire urban foresters and so on. I mean, every single worthwhile thing you can think of exacerbates inequality if the policies are set up to make the worthwhile thing go along with already-wealthier places. None of the worthwhile things are themselves the cause of inequality.

I currently live in a nice wealthy suburb. The folks who run the place go through great effort to ensure we do *not* have access to public transit.

Public transit attracts people who can’t afford cars. It also allows the “wrong element” to pass through our neighborhood.

Politically, how do you propose forcing public transit into communities that actively campaign against it?