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I'm glad being without your car is working well for you, and I have absolutely no quarrel with your choice, but I am greatly puzzled that you would call owning a car an "unhealthy addiction". What is unhealthy about it? Why is it an addiction? We are required by law to wear clothes in public, but I don't hear anyone talking about an addiction to owning clothes. One's personal health is totally independent of car ownership. One can choose to exercise at the gym even if one drives to work. I am 69 and have always owned a car; I am not unhealthy at all - quite the contrary.
Can not speak for the person that used the term "unhealthy addiction" but a very short list of how car culture is unhealthy:
Accidents: 40k+ dead every year. Yesterday a two year old was run over and killed near me. Huge number injured every year.
Financial: Add up what you have spent in your life time on cars. You could have retired ten years earlier if you had invested that amount. Poor families and young spend a large percent of their income to live in a car culture.
Society: Could morning and afternoon gridlock in every city in the US possible be good for society?
Personal health: Glad you are healthy but many people could not walk to the corner store and back because of a lifetime of driving everywhere.
Addiction: Our society is designed so life without a car is very difficult, except in a few big cities. Many (most) people feel they have no choice but to own a car.
Secondly, many young people want to be in urban areas that are close to shopping, bars, nightlife, culture, etc. that they can just walk or bike to.
Thirdly, usually younger people are more active so why not just bike to work, save money, help the enviornment, exercise, meet people, feel better, etc.. Plus, often times biking to work is just as fast as taking a car, especially during rush hour. Not to mention the more people bike the less crowded the traffic will be. So it helps slow the need for new roads, repaving, etc.. This isn't just for millenials though. I've been biking in Chicago for over twenty years. My father biked to work into his late sixties. I see plenty of older people biking nowadays.
I was born in 1984 and think I am considered part of this generation. To answer you question hell no I don't want to live without a car. I have been dependent on public transportation in a big city. It sucked to go only a few miles and have it take so long and be late for things, it got very old and very frustrating pretty fast in life. I guess if you live in a big city that has decent public transportation it can be a great way to save money on gas. It just seems like it would be really hard and miserable to plan your day to leave 2 or 3 hours to get to your destination waiting on a bus that breaks down (several times that sucked big time), just to go one way and then having to take all that time to get back as well. Not my cup of tea but I guess since I have a car and it is paid off I am in a blessed situation. I would go insane waiting on buses and other forums of transport. I do remember using a bike in college and that was helpful because you only have to wait at crosswalks but then I think about transporting large amount of groceries. I have a coworker who doesn't have a car and she has to rely on a supervisor and coworkers to bring her to work. She also walks to the grocery store and then walks back home. When she wants to go somewhere besides work she takes the bus. I guess all things are possible especially when given one's circumstances but I am grateful and appreciative to have a car.
Having been on these boards a while it seems that among most posters in the General U.S./City vs City forum the common denominator is most people want to live in cities where they can walk or take public transit everywhere they need to go and not even own an automobile. Does this represent Millennials as whole?
No, there are still millenials who were raised in a suburban culture and prefer driving. However the trend is definitely moving towards pedestrian / mass transit.
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Are cities that are less walkable in trouble in terms of attracting young talent?
No.
The reason I say no -- is because the labor market is too weak for young people. Currently, young people will move wherever they can find a job.
However if labor became more scarce, yes, I anticipate that you'd see anti-pedestrian cities fare poorly.
Quote:
Going without a car seems today to be a cultural or political statement closely tied with the hipster craze. Will that mindset go away as this generation gets older and being 'hip' becomes less important or is it here to stay?
It isn't so much "going without a car" as a political statement, as much as it is: (A) Not starting a family / having kids / wanting a yard, (B) Not sitting in traffic 2 hours a day, and (C) Not paying the costs of a car.
I think a lot of millenials would like a car, but we don't earn enough to (A) Live in a high-density central business district, and (B) Afford a car, and (C) Afford a place to park it. So it is increasingly viewed as a luxury item rather than a necessity.
I think some good points have been made as to life style changes that have only grown in cities .Certainly the use of cars has not changed much looking at roadway growth thru need. I don't even see a trend change in taxi use and for some owning a car has always been too expensive but rarely by choice alone. In many of the fastest growing cities car use is increasing as form of transportation.I don't think the fact that up to the mid 60's mass transit by private owned companies were not only common but actually financially viable should be loss in the discussion. Now days few bus systems are not financially possible by their usage. Privately own passenger trains where unviable as commercial enterprise long before that by air travel.That say a lot of what people actually prefer and willing to pay for .People would love free cars if available but their not.
Having been on these boards a while it seems that among most posters in the General U.S./City vs City forum the common denominator is most people want to live in cities where they can walk or take public transit everywhere they need to go and not even own an automobile. Does this represent Millennials as whole? Are cities that are less walkable in trouble in terms of attracting young talent?
Going without a car seems today to be a cultural or political statement closely tied with the hipster craze. Will that mindset go away as this generation gets older and being 'hip' becomes less important or is it here to stay?
I'm a millennial and I was born in '94 (I'm 19). I commute to school which is 15 minutes away, and I use my dad's car. I drop him off to work, go to class, study in the library, and then pick him up at 5pm.
When the economy took a turn for the worse (I was 14 and a high school freshman), my dad lost his business and I couldn't even get a part-time job minimum wage anywhere. I was told that I didn't have enough work experience; which I understand, but I have to start somewhere, right? It didn't even matter that I had over 100 hours of volunteer experience at our local hospital. My dad was doing odd jobs to make ends meet. They couldn't afford to help me get a car and I obviously, couldn't afford one on my own. He now has a stable job and it's 1.5 miles away, so he can walk home if necessary. Most of my friends have an old car from their parents/grandparents or share with a sibling.
It doesn't matter where I live because I can work in the hospital (city) or in the school system (suburbs) as a speech-language pathologist (aka speech therapist). My location would benefit my future husband. It's a lot easier to drive from the city to the suburbs every morning. I don't want a big house, because I don't want to clean it. Don't even get me started on maintaing a lawn... And the shopping is better in the city, too!
There have always been people who choose to live car-free, since the beginning of the environmental movement. I don't see it as a generational thing. Maybe what will happen is something along the lines of what San Francisco has already been experiencing; child-free couples live in the city, use public transportation to go to work, and walk to amenities. Couples who are starting a family move outside the city, and drive, unless they're in towns like Berkeley and Oakland that have good transportation. Maybe the cities of the future, or the downtown areas, at least, will be child-free zones whose residents are also car-free. And the suburbs will be full of kids and cars.
Bart is going to change the minds of a lot of people when it comes to being car free. That is nothing though compared to what the next larger earthquake does. Suddenly, having a car will be one of those things lot of people wish they had, if nothing else but to make a one way trip.
I wonder, with another Bart strike looming and more on the way (they always come up sooner or later) how many people wish they had a car.
Correct on the family thing. Applies to anyone with a family or that has dependents. Its one thing to rely on public transportation for yourself, quite another when one of them needs to visit the doctor and the choices available are calling a taxi, waiting for a bus or calling an ambulance. Then that car isn't such an unhealthful thing.
It sure seems like the people that choose not to have a car always manage to enjoy the benefit of someone else's car.
I was born in 1986 and am one of the Millenials raised in suburban and rural areas, having lived only in TN, SC, and IA, none of which have areas dense enough to live car free.
I would prefer to rely less on my vehicle; I currently drive a hundred miles per day roundtrip for work and have never had a less than ten mile commute. The closest metro >500,000 is at least a hundred miles. When I lived in Iowa, my commute was less, but the distance to go anywhere on the weekend was far greater.
Gas, insurance, parking, the car itself, maintenance, and taxes consume huge chunks of income for many people in rural areas and in the working class. I wouldn't mind to live in a bigger city where I didn't need a car as heavily as I do now, but a personal vehicle is, to me, the symbol of independence - the ability to take oneself places one cannot otherwise easily get to. I value that independence and can't see myself abandoning a car completely.
Can not speak for the person that used the term "unhealthy addiction" but a very short list of how car culture is unhealthy:
Accidents: 40k+ dead every year. Yesterday a two year old was run over and killed near me. Huge number injured every year.
Financial: Add up what you have spent in your life time on cars. You could have retired ten years earlier if you had invested that amount. Poor families and young spend a large percent of their income to live in a car culture.
Society: Could morning and afternoon gridlock in every city in the US possible be good for society?
Personal health: Glad you are healthy but many people could not walk to the corner store and back because of a lifetime of driving everywhere.
Addiction: Our society is designed so life without a car is very difficult, except in a few big cities. Many (most) people feel they have no choice but to own a car.
YMMV
It's bewildering to know where to even start rebutting the hyperbole, so I'll just follow your points from the beginning in order.
1. Accidents. Do you think if cars were suddenly banned there would be no more accidents? There are also buses, trains, and bicycles. There has been a spate of train accidents with multiple fatalities in the last several weeks. Solo bicycle accidents (not involving a car) can and do also result in death.
2. Financial. Car ownership is just not that expensive. People do not have to buy brand new BMW's. Sure, people with minimum-wage jobs will appreciate arranging their lives so they do not need a car. More power to them. However, this is not the Frugal Living Forum, and the business about retiring 10 years earlier is totally bogus. A person would need close to $700,000 to cover 10 years of retirement if you factor in health care costs, and I am only talking about a middle class lifestyle.
3. Gridlock in every city in the U.S.??? Every city, large or small? Have you been to every city? Have you taken into account that many, many people are able to arrange their living location so as not to be caught in gridlock? During the last 20 years of my full-time working career, in Los Angeles no less, I lived in a place which did not involve any gridlock at all for my automobile commute to work.
4. Personal health. I already rebutted your point in my earlier post. If people are not getting any exercise at all, that is a choice they have made and that is totally on them. Blaming it on car use is lame in the extreme. Have you never seen any fat people riding buses? A person could have a damn nice gym workout everyday just on the time saved by not having to use public transportation to get to and from work. The latter statement would apply not to every single individual, but to most.
5. Structure of society = addiction to cars. Sure it's hard to get along without a car in many, probably most, locations. It's hard to live a normal life without a telephone either, but have you ever heard people talking about telephone addictions? I already covered clothing addiction in my other post, but of course you didn't pay any attention.
I find your bizarre anti-car sentiments totally incomprehensible.
Thankfully the right to mindlessly drive automobiles will soon be a thing of the past as automation takes that from the realm of human responsibility. Think of the highways in the movie Minority Report- people will merely be passengers and the cars will be moved along by software to its destination with little interaction from the occupant other than to make a pit stop along the way home to shop.
The 20th Century gave humanity too many options and technological progress is now blessedly redacting some of the less intelligent choices offered up for the sake of consumptive profits. In the name of safety and sensibility, the convenience of driving for hours on end and enduring so much opportunity to hurt oneself and others due to operator error will be removed. Millenials understand this and will embrace such a thing because they have no interest in mindlessly driving around town to waste their precious time, pretending to appear important behind the wheel of an unnecessary luxury such as a sedan or SUV. It will all be about utilitarian needs in a family unit that will return to span several generations in the same living space as it once was and still is in many places in the world. It will be more humane, less egocentric- and OPEC doesn't like that.
Just as old landline phone use is dying, so will the steering wheel.
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