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Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

economist.com

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Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#291

Post by PartiallyTyped »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #20

The young are falling out of love with home ownership, cars, dating, drinking etc. I suspect a lack of money is the common factor.

N=1, I am young, have a great job, I don't own a car, I haven't owned a car in 5 years, and I deliberately avoid living in places where I need to own a car.

I am not interested in owning a "house", too expensive, there is little to no reason to strap myself with long term responsibilities.

I am also not interested in drinking, given all evidence on how bad alcohol is, I am not keen on destroying the only tool I have that allows me to live as well as I do. Unless of course you mean drinking for social reasons, which is another thing entirely but I don't do that either.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#292

Post by [deleted] »

nostromo123 wrote: post #69
runako wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gentle reminder that a significant portion of society is not able to carry out trips on bikes due to infirmity, disability, or needing to convey someone who cannot bike (e.g. small children).

I agree, but in a short time someone will reply here to tell you how they brought their kids to kindergarten in subzero temperatures with a bike, or how they bike half an hour in rain to buy groceries... For my family it's not even about the physical aspect, but about time. I don't want to waste my free time going to and from places in 2x/3x the time it takes by car.

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Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#293

Post by ikesau »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #191
rexpress wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First, let's establish that the Netherlands is a car country...On a typical day, 1 million people use public transport. Cars are the norm, not trains or bicycles. Anyone visiting a Dutch city can see what a distortion this comment is. The sheer volume of bike traffic on largely safe infrastructure is phenomenal. Imagine if even half of these people took to cars instead, it would be gridlock. Life may be good for Dut…

How is that a distortion? It seems like you’re violently agreeing with the parent that many people bike to work but far, far fewer than the majority (which is essentially what the American anti-car rhetoric suggests). > Imagine if even half of these people took to cars instead, it would be gridlock. There are 10 million employed Dutch (Statista) of whom 65% drive (Statista), so an additional half a million would be a…

Do you mean Statistica or Statista?

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#294

Post by oweiler »

overthemoon wrote: post #174

I'm an aging millennial, but on a purely personal level, when I lived in a city with good public transit, I was a lot happier, most of the time. I really like stepping off the train and the bus and being on my own two feet, the walking exercise, not being chained to this thing I have to worry about. I hate driving, I hate parking, I hate owning a car--the maintenance, the ongoing cost of fuel and insurance, all of it…

I detest my car. Not only is it generally more expensive than public transport, you always have to set aside money to replace or fix broken parts. Regularly driving to the oil station sucks. Traffic jams, which are more and more commonplace, sucks.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#295

Post by nerdchum »

I rode the Los Angeles and San Fran mass transit for years.

And it made me love cars.

I love having a little home base wherever I go.

I love not having to sit next to homeless people on drugs doing crazy things next to me.

I love being able to wear a nice watch and nice shoes and not having to constantly look over my shoulder worrying about being robbed.

I love being able to bring my little mini Australian shepherd dog without having to beg and plead with the government for permission and medical institutions for service dog paperwork because Pitbull owners exist and are exactly the people who ride mass transit.

I love being able to go anywhere at any time.

I love not having to rely on unreliable drivers of mass transit to get somewhere on time.

I'm sure mass transit works great in an idealic region of all middle class and upper middle class people.

But I would rather the downsides of driving than the downsides of having having to sit next to the seething teeming flesh of the average American anytime I want to go somewhere.

Also part of me wonders if mass transit works better in cities like New York in Chicago where the cold weather annihilates the homeless population.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#296

Post by BrandonS113 »

mcv wrote: post #259
BrandonS113 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One needs iDEAL for many things in Holland, and needs to be a resident for that. My colleague tried to get a personal OV-chipkaart, https://www.ov-chipkaart.nl/en/apply-for-personal-ov-chipcar... , needed for bikes, he went though the process, and got nowhere. It was 2 years ago, so may have changed. But he said it stranded on need for a local bank account. I know you can get anywhere by public transport, much better…

The accessibility of OV-kaarten is indeed not great for tourists, which is ridiculous. There's been a lot of criticism of the OV-kaart system. But most things can be paid with a simple bank card transaction. I doubt buying or renting a car would be that much easier.

yes. I dont want to make much out of this. One of the team came from a country close by and he brought his car. Problem solved.

But just about every Dutch person we worked with had a car. They would meet us on weekends in villages, and most drove. Public transport is great in Holland, but cars have their place too. And unlike some countries close by, Holland has a well maintain and well designed road system. Its great for car travel.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#297

Post by hgomersall »

davidMC1982 wrote: post #205
hgomersall wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point... If you reject car ownership and the associated commute etc, you structure your life around that. You get a job and a house that are compatible with that philosophy. As a couple, neither of you would have a job that requires you to commute such distances.

That only holds true when your basic needs to survive are met such that you're able to entertain a philosophy such as "reject car ownership". I suspect most people are going to abandon such a philosophy as soon as "putting food on the table" is no longer possible. Conflicting ideas such as these crop up all the time. For instance, "commuting in a car is dead time, at least I can read/work on the train". A reasonable…

Yes absolutely it's about choices. I would argue the debate is more worthwhile than that because it's good to think in terms of "what would be ideal" so that as a society we can plan for that. Too often, such public debate become bogged down with a view that those that oppose car usage as part of a daily routine are fundamentally opposed to car usage. In fact, typically we can see a better world and want it for everyone. Since improving things for drivers generally necessarily makes things worse for everyone that isn't in a car, the practicalities of reducing car usage are actually a reduction in existing privilege (which people will always fight tooth and nail).

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#298

Post by juve1996 »

gadders wrote: post #94

Young people in towns are going to be filling up the comments about how they don't need a car. Trying living somewhere rural without a car.

This is the 50th time someone said this on here. It can be said without being said.

Yea, try living somewhere rural without a large number of things. The fact is, most people don't, and the fact is, most of the market for everything is in cities and their satellite suburbs.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#299

Post by [deleted] »

maxsilver wrote: post #254
anovikov wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well but this is simply not the case. Cars did not get more expensive in the last 30-40 years vs CPI and much more accessible vs median let alone average income. They also last a lot longer so used cars are much more of an option than they were 30 let alone 60 years ago.

> Cars did not get more expensive in the last 30-40 years vs CPI and much more accessible vs median let alone average income. This is objectively false, cars absolutely did get more expensive in the last 30 years, they cost about double what they did in 1990, even after accounting for inflation. (see https://thesoundingline.com/since-1990-the-price-of-a-cheap-... as just one example of the math on that). They may "la…

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Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#300

Post by [deleted] »

nirimda wrote: post #266
throwaway894345 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that a distortion? It seems like you’re violently agreeing with the parent that many people bike to work but far, far fewer than the majority (which is essentially what the American anti-car rhetoric suggests). > Imagine if even half of these people took to cars instead, it would be gridlock. There are 10 million employed Dutch (Statista) of whom 65% drive (Statista), so an additional half a million would be a…

I think the problem is that American anti-car rhetoric doesn't speak with one voice. There are people who know what they're talking about, who are mostly saying "If we follow some of the Dutch practices, we can get a city where people can get to a local destination by bike safely. But we should also take note that even in the Netherlands, the need to engineer roads for bike safety is something they continually forget…

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