Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
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Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#2Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#3Millennial: same feeling here. When I talk to people of my parents generation they always talk about how cars let them roam about and give them freedom.
I never felt the same way, and I think a large part of that is that I grew up with the Internet; I could always AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) my friends or use ICQ. I was always connected even during an era of dialup. With the always-on functionality of modern phones, I’m sure that feeing is much more magnified. This doesn’t surprise me and I hope it drives a much more efficient future.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#4If you live in anything like a real city and don't absolutely need a car to commute, the misery of street parking alone vastly outweighs any kind of occasional benefit.
But it's nice to have a license so you can rent a car if you really want to.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#5[deleted]
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#6Millennial: same feeling here. When I talk to people of my parents generation they always talk about how cars let them roam about and give them freedom. I never felt the same way, and I think a large part of that is that I grew up with the Internet; I could always AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) my friends or use ICQ. I was always connected even during an era of dialup. With the always-on functionality of modern phones,…
Cars have always felt more restrictive to me. I don’t want to have to worry about parking or road access or fuel when I’m visiting somewhere.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#7I can't read this due to the paywall, but taking the title as representative, and assuming the evidence to back the claim up is in the article (which I doubt):
It's irrelevant whether or not the young are "falling out of love" with cars, cars are essential in the rich world (at least in my country, the UK) outside of a few urban areas well-served by public transport infrastructure - and non-EVs at that.
There's a huge amount of development needed in that infrastructure before the luxury of choice will matter to the average Jo.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#8Cars are falling out of love with them. How is one expected to pay for a $1500/mo apartment and a $40k car on a $60k salary?
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#9I can't get through the paywall, but I'm one of these car-less youngs (although less young by the day).
Mainly it is for idiosyncratic reasons: I hate being confined where I can't stand up if I want to, and I don't like "car smell". There's something about the air inside motor vehicles that puts me on edge. I get the same feeling on buses and planes, but oddly not on trains, even though rationally I know the air must be of similar quality.
There's the health benefits and the climate stuff and saving money and so on. But that's not what I'm happy about about when I bike around; it's about fresh air and postural freedom.
I'm glad I live somewhere where I don't need a car to do everyday things. It's not as bike-friendly as somewhere like Denmark but it's tolerable.
Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars
#10There's 138 trains per day between Amsterdam and The Hague. It's faster to take the train than to drive on that trip. Driving in either city in an exercise in frustration. Why would anyone in a rich country with a high functioning rail system like The Netherlands want to drive?
I don't know how many rich countries that describes, but I lived happily for years in Boston in the USA without a car. I have one now but only because I have an off-street parking space for it. Otherwise I'd go back to renting one on the ~monthly occasions I want to use one. The main benefit of Zipcar to me versus owning is that the car had a parking space that it went back into.
Now if only the mass transit system in the area wasn't falling apart and the rail connections to other cities were even half as good as the ones in the Netherlands.