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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

#311

Post by Dudeman112 »

sokoloff wrote: post #250
maxsilver wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but even then, I don't get the emotional association of freedom that previous generations did. I don't know what's different, although I have some guesses. Money, I'm sure, but there's something that's nagging me about it. I'd argue it's a combination of money and aging infrastructure. Money is the big one (cars used to be a lot cheaper, both to buy and to maintain. Incomes for most used to be much higher). Infrast…

> (cars used to be a lot cheaper, both to buy and to maintain. Incomes for most used to be much higher) Cars have inflated at a rate significantly lower than general inflation (typically by about half as much), meaning they've gotten cheaper in real terms. They've also gotten much safer, more fuel efficient, reliable, lower-maintenance, and long-lived. https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation/1980-...

Wages have gone up with inflation where you live?

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

#312

Post by twic »

rexpress wrote: post #154
fleddr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US anti-car narrative often refers to the Netherlands as some kind of beacon of proper public infrastructure, whilst not knowing a damn thing about it. First, let's establish that the Netherlands is a car country. We have 11 million cars on a population of 17 million. On a typical day, 1 million people use public transport. Cars are the norm, not trains or bicycles. Public transport is rarely faster, not even in…

>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…

Generalising from the centre of a city to the whole country is a distortion. Last time i was in the Netherlands, i arrived in Amsterdam, then went out to the countryside, somewhere near Dedemsvaart. I looked at doing the trip by public transport, but it would have taken forever. Instead, we rented a car and drove there, along wide, fast, busy roads. The Netherlands is indeed a heavily motorised country.

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

#313

Post by thedriver »

jimbo9991 wrote: post #141

People are really out to lunch if they think this is due to people not wanting cars and preferring public transit. I wish that was the case, but it's 100% because of the dire financial situation.

Yeah. Owning and driving a car is becoming really expensive. It's understandable that people will avoid it if they are able to.

Also, I'm pretty sure that many "anti car" teens still know someone, like their parents or a friend, that owns a car and can help them out occasionally.

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

#314

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

prng2021 wrote: post #286

I don't understand how to account for the fact that total vehicle sales in the US has not been dropping over the last 40 years despite stats like this from the article: "By 1997, 43% of the country’s 16-year-olds had driving licences. But in 2020, the most recent year for which figures are available, the number had fallen to just 25%. Nor is it just teenagers. One in five Americans aged between 20 and 24 does not hav…

Maybe I'm the exception but I had a driver's licence about that time and I didn't own a car because as a teenager neither I nor my parents could afford one. Even now I've never actually bought a car myself - my wife bought one early in our relationship and we've yet to buy another and I'm now pushing 40.

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

#315

Post by vidarh »

kevinali1 wrote: post #271
vidarh wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 47, and have never bothered getting a drivers license because I've always lived places where the combination of public transport with fallback to taxis has been good enough. Add on Uber and equivalent, and my need for cars is lower than ever. If I'd lived somewhere a car was needed, I'd have learned. It's not an ideological opposition to cars by any means. Occasionally I consider getting a drivers license, and th…

While I totally agree with this, I think you should still get a drivers license. There's always a very real possibility that you may need to drive a car in some sort of emergency.

It's a risk that is so low that if I were to invest time in reducing the top risks in my life, it'd be far outside the top 10. Put another way: The odds of me finding myself somewhere where I can't easily find someone to drive me somewhere is near zero.

Note that this is how I evaluate my risk. I absolutely accept this will be an issue for people who live in places where getting transport might be a problem. If that's a problem here, civilisation has ended.

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

#316

Post by dashundchen »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #202
mcv wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have 11 million cars on a population of 17 million. Yeah, but we have 23 million bikes. It's true that our public transport has been neglected. The privatisation of the 1990s was a bad idea in my opinion, and public transport should be run for the public good, not for profit. Like roads, it's part of the nation's infrastructure. And better public transport means less people on the road, which means less traffic…

All of that is true but it doesn’t seem to refute the parent’s claim that the American anti-car rhetoric envisions a nation where cycling and taking public transit to work is the norm because the Dutch have figured out how to make cycling and public transit faster than driving.

It doesn't refute it because I think it's a mischaracterization of what "anti-car" or bike/transit/pedestrians advocates are typically asking for

What I and many other advocates in the US want is for anything besides cars to be even considered in public infrastructure and urban design. Living without access to a car is near impossible in lots of US cities.

The default is to design around the car, if bikes or pedestrians are mentioned it's tacked on as an afterthought.

An example I had just last night was my US city presented their first phase of the "bike master plan". Essentially the engineers told us they didn't want to maintain protected bike infrastructure or interfere with traffic. About half of the "improvements" they listed out were "sharrows", bike symbols painted in the travel lane. The other half were striped bike lanes with no protection from vehicles.

And this is in a city that's inherited some bike/ped/transit friendliness by the nature of it being built pre-war.

Good luck in the exurban sprawl, South and Sunbelt - you'll be lucky to even have a sidewalk, nevermind a bike lane on the 8 lane road. The car is default in the US.

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

#317

Post by mcv »

kensai wrote: post #92
david-gpu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine having toddlers, having to do heavy groceries, and living in a place with difficult landscape or challenging weather. Imagine having a neurological disease or some other disability. I tick all of those boxes and never had a car. I live in the city, walking and using public transit. Toddlers love to walk and to be carried in the stroller. Cars from the suburbs are a constant inconvenience for us living in in…

So what do you imply? That (inner) cities will be only for your carless people? Good for you that you tick the boxes and still not use the car. I know of people that cannot manage this. The inner cities are also places were the suburbs people come to work and play. So space in underground parkings or other accomodations is expected. Imagine if the sububs people decided to say to you (inner) city people that you are n…

Car-owners can still come there, just not in their car.

Amsterdam has slowly tried to move cars out of the city center over the past couple decades. Residents can still get a parking permit, but parking space has been reduced to make more space for people, and visitors had better park their car at the edge of the city and take public transport into the city center. Or just come by train.

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

#318

Post by dymk »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #291
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…

> there is little to no reason to strap myself with long term responsibilities

equity, retirement

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

#319

Post by vidarh »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #285
vidarh wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 47, and have never bothered getting a drivers license because I've always lived places where the combination of public transport with fallback to taxis has been good enough. Add on Uber and equivalent, and my need for cars is lower than ever. If I'd lived somewhere a car was needed, I'd have learned. It's not an ideological opposition to cars by any means. Occasionally I consider getting a drivers license, and th…

I found that not having a driver's license tremendously limited some of my opportunities for recreation and travel. I drive way more when I'm on vacation than I do when I'm home.

If you're into things that requires you to be able to drive, sure. I prefer spending my times in cities, and I like walking. The combination means I've never felt constrained even when visiting the US. On the rare occasion where I want to go somewhere where it's a genuine challenge, I can justify blowing money on getting someone to drive me.

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

#320

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

sokoloff wrote: post #250
maxsilver wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but even then, I don't get the emotional association of freedom that previous generations did. I don't know what's different, although I have some guesses. Money, I'm sure, but there's something that's nagging me about it. I'd argue it's a combination of money and aging infrastructure. Money is the big one (cars used to be a lot cheaper, both to buy and to maintain. Incomes for most used to be much higher). Infrast…

> (cars used to be a lot cheaper, both to buy and to maintain. Incomes for most used to be much higher) Cars have inflated at a rate significantly lower than general inflation (typically by about half as much), meaning they've gotten cheaper in real terms. They've also gotten much safer, more fuel efficient, reliable, lower-maintenance, and long-lived. https://www.in2013dollars.com/New-cars/price-inflation/1980-...

In that case I wonder if it's a matter of the essentials costing so much more? Is it possible the cost of housing is taking up the price of a car?
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