For me, it is great to be able to drive to Home Depot, then Target, then stop and get lunch, and finally return home with a load of goods that would have been impossible for me to carry alone.
As you mentioned, I will strongly vote against, and even campaign against, any politicians threatening my way of life.
I really detest having to get into my car and drive 15 minutes each way (30 minutes round trip) to do any errand.
People like different things. The things people like change. Give the parent (and people like him/her) the benefit of the doubt.
If I want to do city things, I jump on the train (or drive) into a city and do city things for the day/night. But I don't want to live there.
I enjoyed city living for a short period of time but it got old, very fast. It is NEVER quiet. Your selection of restaurants and bars is actually quite limited, or you’d need to taxi/Uber. And overall I felt my quality of life much lower.
Now I have a yard and a garage, extra storage in my house, and don’t have to deal with renting.
Life is MUCH better, for me, in the suburbs.
I think that we also need to understand the whys of some of this.
Grocery shopping or going to another part of the city to see friends should not require a car. If it does, that means the city's transit infra isn't sufficient for residents' needs. And the reason that's the case is because car culture is prioritized above all else in the US.
For larger grocery 'trips' I usually do delivery these days. But we also have a small grocer a couple blocks away (very well stocked, huge variety of stuff, great produce, etc.) that easily meets daily/weekly needs.
I do have a car, but I drive it only a few times a month. I fill up the gas tank once every couple months. I probably shouldn't own a car, but I can't kick the habit. It's great for long trips outside the city when we're doing some light traveling, at least. But overall I really dislike driving at this point in my life (absolutely loved it back in my 20s); I'd much rather take a train or bus, or walk.
The lack of quiet is an absolutely valid point. I personally just got used to it. I grew up in the suburbs and didn't move to a city until I 29 years old. That was almost 15 years ago, and I still love living in a city. But everyone's tastes differ here, certainly.
> Your selection of restaurants and bars is actually quite limited
I guess you picked the wrong neighborhood, if that's what you were looking for? Within a 10-minute walk I can choose among 15 or so restaurants, and seven bars. If I widen that to 20 minutes, I can add another 10 restaurants and three or four bars. And I don't live in a particularly dense or "party scene" neighborhood. At this point my partner and I pretty rarely leave the neighborhood for food or drink. And when we do, it's usually to meet up with friends who live in a different neighborhood, or to treat ourselves with something fancy/different.
> Life is MUCH better, for me, in the suburbs.
I'm genuinely happy for you! I personally don't care so much about having a yard, and we have all the storage space we need. (Frankly I prefer to constrain my storage space a bit, so I don't accumulate more stuff than I need.) We also own, so no need to deal with renting.
But I'm not trying to say you shouldn't live in a suburb, if that's what you want to do! My point is that I do think that some of the things that make cities unlivable for some people are the way they are because of decades of pushes toward car culture. Maybe fixing those things wouldn't sway you, personally, but I think there are lot of suburb dwellers who think, "I wouldn't mind living in the city except for X", and that X is actually something that's not hard to fix, if there was political will to do so.
To see what everyone means by car dependency, you'd need to see the few places that aren't.
Here's what a 100% car-free island looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWDFgzAjr1k
Here are some progressive European cities that have started to undo the damage that's been done by cars:
• Freiburg, Germany: https://youtu.be/6Vil5KC7Bl0?t=36
• Haarlem, Netherlands: https://youtu.be/ztpcWUqVpIg?t=90
• Paris, France: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSQSBoHmG8s
Check out these background noise levels:
• A very busy mixed-use street in Amsterdam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqQSwQLDIK8
• Exiting the train station in Delft, Netherlands: https://youtu.be/CTV-wwszGw8?t=289
• Cycling streets in the Netherlands: https://youtu.be/bMJaMy-0ChA?t=242. You can even hear birds chirping at 4:29.
When I lived in the suburbs it took me 28 minutes to drive to the grocery store. When I lived in a city it was a 4 minute bike ride to two different grocery stores.
Wow. That sounds more rural to me. I've lived in 5 or 6 different suburbs (of three different cities, 2 "major" ones) and never been more than 10 minutes from a grocery store; even when I had corn fields in my back yard and drove by cows and apple orchards on the way to the store.
Admittedly, it's possible I'm "dense suburbs" and you're "sparse suburbs"; there's a range. It's just.. 30 minutes is a REALLY long trip for a grocery store.
A 30-minute drive to a grocery store in a suburb doesn't surprise me all that much. In the 'burb I lived in during my teens, 15 minutes to the grocery store was essentially the best you could hope for. Add some traffic (pretty common most of the time) and that could easily creep up to 20 or 25 minutes.
(And yeah, I live in a city now, and I can walk to a very well appointed smaller grocery in about 3 minutes.)
The car industry has been very very successful with equating driving with freedom though which makes this a hard conversation to have with people.
It should all be priced accordingly, you want to drive your private vehicle into my city? Then be prepared to pay a fair value for parking and road maintenance.
It can't possibly be a "hard conversation to have" because people disagree with you, huh? It has to be that the car companies brainwashed them?
I see this everywhere on social media. "I have an opinion, my opinion is the right one, and if you disagree with me, you didn't actually come to an independent conclusion, you were just brainwashed or had an emotional response."
They do make ads of cars taking shortcuts, going to nature, driving really fast, looking really cool etc (closed course, professional driver, do not attempt)
Demand as seen by prices and lack of affordability in walkable areas in the US is sufficient evidence that it’s an underserved market.
BTW You sorta proved my point at how convinced people are, and how it's such a hard conversation to have.
it goes in line with taking rights and responsibilities away from the individual. You want to go somewhere? take the government's approved method of getting there. You dont like smelling urine or seeing trash or getting accosted/threatened by homeless at the train station? too bad, should have voted for my guy, he's 6 votes away from funding the next "program" to help fix it. Sorry we can't fund police, they don't respond to property crimes any more. we need to raise taxes again to fund the next $CHILDREN program, get with the times. and on and on.
With my truck I know I can handle anything on the way and be self reliant. I can take lots of water. I can take almost all my tool for any repairs on the road. I can sleep in it. I can traverse off road terrain with the large off road tires. The 4wd can help with icy road conditions. I have a winch to self recover or help others in trouble. The large and bright lights and higher sitting position give good visibility of the road.
These things are popular because they engender self reliance which contributes to practicality and convenience for the driver.
Not everyone has a boring daily commute to a cubicle job in their tiny ev that has 100km range and coming home to put on nature videos while they run on their treadmill. Stop trying to make everyone fit into the same box as you
Interesting that you're actually the one trying to make me fit in your box, when I said that it's fine for people to like what they like. Nobody's saying you can't drive your truck, go off road etc.
I would like to be able to travel the 1/3 of a mile without having conflicts with drivers when I'm trying to walk. Additionally I'd like the freedom to be able to get places with dignity without paying many thousand per year in costs associated with a motor vehicle.
Also since you brought up "self reliance" almost any bicycle is going to be way more repairable than a motor vehicle, and _much_ more reliable, more capable off road etc. Literally children can repair and maintain them.
Not really...
> I would like to be able to travel the 1/3 of a mile without having conflicts with drivers when I'm trying to walk.
Why? Are you flipping off all the SUV drivers you see?
> Also since you brought up "self reliance" almost any bicycle is going to be way more repairable than a motor vehicle, and _much_ more reliable, more capable off road etc. Literally children can repair and maintain them.
Yes and you can still fit tent and stuff in your backpack or take a little trailer if you need. Way less tools needed. Travel lighter, less impact, access more places via skinnier tracks, it's cool. And you get a workout at the same time!
I modify and maintain my own vehicle, so making it back from a 6000km trip on road and off road is very rewarding experience as it proves your abilities at (technical) driving as well as at spinning spanners and camping conveniences. Can cover more ground in a vehicle, visit more places, see more sights. Take a few more creature comforts.
We only get so much time off work.
Suburbia is subsidized —- the cost of infrastructure is often 10x the property taxes.
Millions of people are accustomed to paying $1,000/year in taxes to live on a street that costs $9,000 to maintain. “Asking” them to pay the true cost of their decisions is considered politically untenable —- until the city itself goes bankrupt.
To put a finer point on it, people who like suburbs live in them. People who dislike them move elsewhere - forfeiting any voting rights they might have had where the problems are most acute. So who's left to fight the NIMBYs and car-lovers where it matters? Too damn few, by a long shot ... and this outcome was obvious to anyone who was actually thinking about society or the long term instead of just themselves and the next few years.
If you want to solve anything, instead of just shifting the problems around, you have to solve them where people are and will remain. Stay and fight. Unfortunately that's hard so almost nobody does it.
People like the environment they grew up in, it's part of their identity. Americans are no different.
Very few people go out of their way to meaningfully explore different approaches to life around the world and form an informed opinion on what they like.
It's not that. It's that most people in the US like car-centric culture, and like suburbs. They don't want to live in dense spaces and have to rely on transit.
I disagree with these people, but politicians are not going to be able to enact the things you've described without getting kicked out of office by the people who don't actually want them to do these things.