You’ll own nothing and be happy.

You’ll be forced to buy an expensive car, pay for insurance, maintain it, get in car crashes and become maimed, pay for gas, and advocate for politics that require massive amounts of death and destruction to secure your oil supply and you’ll be happy.

Most people, given the choice, do prefer to own cars.

There a few problems here.

The first problem is that we don't need to frame this discussion as "cars vs no cars". I'm not advocating for getting rid of cars because that wouldn't make sense and would be wildly impractical. Instead, what is being advocated is not having car-first infrastructure.

The second problem is that this preference, like other "decisions" is done without complete information or a feedback loop besides a monthly payment and gas prices. You don't feel the weight of the maintenance and taxes that go to paying for new highway construction. You don't really experience climate change in a feedback mechanism. You also aren't presenting equivalent options. Would someone prefer to walk over to the neighborhood grocery store to get their groceries or drive 5 miles away to a big-box retailer? I bet if you actually polled people you'd get 90%+ preferring the former. Framing it as "I want a car" versus not having a car presents the person being asked a question which implies taking something away from them, which is bad practice.

The third problem is that people prefer to own cars because we intentionally design our cities such that owning a car is the only choice. There's no competition. But you can clearly see that this isn't society's actual preference, because walkable neighborhoods across the country built before cars were prevalent usually have higher property values than the suburbs in the same city. If there was a mechanism such that people could choose neighborhoods they'd vote for or buy medium-density mixed-use neighborhoods where they can have a car with street parking or in the garage behind their house for less frequent activities and then they'd walk to the local grocery store, let their kids walk themselves to school, etc.

> Would someone prefer to walk over to the neighborhood grocery store to get their groceries or drive 5 miles away to a big-box retailer? I bet if you actually polled people you'd get 90%+ preferring the former.

Would they? Because I have actually had it both ways and I much prefer driving to a huge supermarket. Prices are lower, quality is better, selection is better.

> But you can clearly see that this isn't society's actual preference, because walkable neighborhoods across the country built before cars were prevalent usually have higher property values than the suburbs in the same city.

Per acre of land, sure, because you can cram in tons of apartments in the same area that one house would take up. That doesn’t mean more people actually prefer to live that way.

It is nice to be able to walk to school or church or whatnot, but when it comes to commercial retail, my experience is that suburban car-bound freeway mayhem is pretty fucking great. From my current suburban house in Texas I can reach almost any retail or commercial business I need within 5-15 minutes, and those are full size, full service retailers. Instead of a “neighborhood grocery store” that’s barely one step above a convenience store, I can go to H-E-B and get almost any kind of food I can imagine for extremely reasonable prices. Instead of a neighborhood hardware store I can go to Home Depot or Lowe’s. Either one. I used to live in an apartment in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, close to an actual supermarket (which kind of sucked), and even then I had nowhere close to the same access to retail. Maybe the biggest point in favor of walkable neighborhoods was that it was relatively cheap and easy to go to bars, but at some point I realized I could save money and drink with my wife at home (especially if we can drive to a cheap big-box liquor store!)

I do understand the appeal when it comes to things that are more community oriented than commercial. For instance, I understand that Orthodox Jews tend to live within walking distance of their synagogue because they can’t drive on the Sabbath, which means they live within walking distance of everyone else who goes to their synagogue, which means they can have physical communities. And that sounds really nice. But for the typical secularized, atomized American, what’s the point? Living cheek to jowl with total strangers and learning to ignore homeless people fucking sucked and I’m glad that part of my life is behind me. And the reason most of this country is built out the way it is, is that most people actually feel the same way.

I go grocery shopping once a week for my family. I'm not carrying home all of those groceries. You can count me in the < 10% preferring the latter. Our very good grocery store is about a half mile away. I drive about 5 miles to get a majority of our stuff at Costco, and on the way home I stop at the grocery store for the very few items that make sense to get there.

Ok so why would we design all cities and all infrastructure to cater to a small minority of people and use cases to the exclusion of all others? And the worst part is that if we designed for the 90% you’d still be able to do the thing you want to do, and it would be cheaper and faster for you. Instead we all have to drive to Costco.

I'd greatly question your 90% figure. I live close enough to live like you want. You could easily move within walking distance of a store, which is next door to a pharmacy, a couple of local restaurants, a barber, and a laundry mat. The reality is that people that live nearby still don't predominately walk to these places. Occasionally, sure. I'll go for a stroll.

The reason for that is because the infrastructure is still designed for cars. Roads are hostile to walk next to, people literally throw things at you. You can't ride a bike half a mile because there's either no sidewalk, or if there is you're supposed to use a painted bike lane and ride alongside traffic going 40-60 MPH. At least that's what keeps people in our current suburban area (and pretty much every one that I've ever seen or visited) from walking anywhere. It just comes down to infrastructure, which is extremely weak and fragile in America by design. You can't protest what your government does when you have to find parking first. You can't boycott Russia when you depend on them for your livelihood.

You can see that this is true because when you visit an actual neighborhood there are lots of people walking around and bikes and greater levels of economic activity. I'm not sure what metro area you live in but if you live in one I bet you have an area like I'm describing. It's probably where you and your friends or significant other go out for a nice dinner. Most of the country could be like that and you could still drive your car to Costco once/week.

You're literally inventing problems to explain why people in my town don't walk to a grocery store. We have quite a few grocery store spread out. Most of the city is easily within walking distance to one. It is not hostile to ride bikes here, we have sidewalks on every street, and I've never had anyone throw anything at me. The streets aren't clogged with traffic. I even see plenty of people walking and riding bikes, they just look like they're doing it for recreation.

Well I can't speak specifically to your town without knowing where it is, but it sounds like you live somewhere similar to where I currently live, and both areas are pretty hostile to anything but driving to participate in society. One of the red flags to spot is walking for recreation and only seeing people ride bikes for exercise versus day-to-day activities.

Even if you disagreed with some or all of the things I've said, dismissing them as an "invented problem" is pretty unfair.

> Ok so why would we design all cities and all infrastructure to cater to a small minority of people and use cases to the exclusion of all others?

In this case, the people who don’t want to own cars are the small minority. And I was one of those people for about a decade.

For most people a car is the best compromise. There are cost is worth it, but the car is just a tool for getting around. There are a few collectors who own a car for other reasons, but most it is transportation. If they lived someplace where public transit was enough better they wouldn't own a car.

Enough better for transit is complex. It is a factor of cost, how nice it is, ability to get places when they want to, traffic, and a few other factors. The denser the city the more likely it is that transit is better.

I've lived in Hong Kong and Kyoto for a long time and most people here do prefer not to have a car. Even though it's relatively affordable in Kyoto, out of 15 people in my company only 2 had a driver's license.

That's because they didn't pay for the externalities or suffer from them. But that's changing fast. Maybe they'll change their mind.