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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

#381

Post by MarceColl »

iso1631 wrote: post #215
mcv wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally better to live close to one person's workplace than right in between the two.

Modern advice is to move jobs every 2-3 years. You want to move house every 2-3 years? Move the kids schools every 2-3 years?

I've moved between jobs every 1-2 years for the past 10. I've never been more than an hour away (and that was one job that was particularly far away). In most cases, because we have a good public transit system, I'm within 10-15 minutes by subway or 30/40 minutes walking. I don't even consider it too much. Never moved house.

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

#382

Post by khuey »

zamadatix wrote: post #321
taylodl wrote: post #287

The young are falling out of love with cars because they're unaffordable. It's as simple as that. It's yet another sign the standard of living is declining for the young. The average new car price in the U.S. is now over $47K (Consumer Reports). I make a good living and I'm not going to pay that kind of money for a new car! A young person would be stupid to pay that kind of money for a car. Okay, so what about used c…

It's meaningless to talk about prices over time without normalising them to something like income of the group over that same time or at least inflation. E.g. if you look at the price of gas that way it really hasn't changed much in the last 50 years but mpg has gotten a lot better. I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar "not really that different" story for new cars. Used car prices have really went nuts since mid…

The income of this group has been declining because fewer teens work.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/teen-labor-force-p...

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

#383

Post by Tade0 »

hgomersall wrote: post #173
Tade0 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps because real estate/rent is simply too expensive anywhere closer.

Whenever I've heard people make that argument, what they actually mean is "The huge house I want to live in I can afford if I spend an hour a day in the car, oh and people that live in the cities should not make it harder for me to pursue such a path by restricting car usage. Externalities be damned, won't someone think of my being unable to afford a 5 bedroom house with a big garden in the city".

That might have been the case a decade ago, but with the uptick in real estate prices it's not even that any more.

I have friends who bought an apartment in a small town next to the city where the jobs are because they didn't have the credit score for anything closer to work.

This is the reality (and realty) people in the market for living space are currently facing.

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

#384

Post by habosa »

I can afford a car but I really don't want one and I haven't had one in 10 years. I don't think most people in American can really comprehend how much we'd benefit from more reliable public transit.

As others have mentioned though, cost matters too. AAA reported today that for new car owners the average cost of ownership has crossed $10,000: https://newsroom.aaa.com/2022/08/annual-cost-of-new-car-owne...

That's a lot of buses and Ubers.

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

#385

Post by thesuitonym »

fleddr wrote: post #109
wffurr wrote: post #10

There'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 onl…

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…

My guy, nobody thinks the Netherlands is a perfect beacon of transit, but you just can't understand what it's like living in the US. Even if you live in a large metro, unless it's NYC or you live and work in the right parts of Chicago, public transit just isn't even an option--unless an hour and a half commute on a bus is worth it to you.

Let's compare your commute to work to a commute in the US:

>I have to get up early and be there some 10 mins before departure to secure somewhat of a reasonable spot. In the US, you have to be there at least 30 minutes early, because the parking lot will be absolutely packed, and the busses don't run on time, so it might get there too soon.

>Next, I'm on route to the first big city station. We don't even have this in the US. You would have had to already be in the city to get on the bus.

>This route is slow, it stops 5 times along the way as everybody needs to connect to a big hub to get where they need to be. In the US, this route stops the same five times, but also gets stuck in rush hour traffic, because we rarely have dedicated transit lanes.

I arrive at the hub, where there's a 20 minute connection wait to take the train to the big city destination. The connection in the US would be at least 30 minutes, if you're lucky it will be scheduled at 20 during rush hour, but the bus is probably late. Also, again, it's not going into the city, you were already there, you just need to get on a different route.

>I get out and have a 10 minute connection wait for the bus to take me to the place closest to work, after which there's a 5-10 minute work.

If you have to make another connection outside the hub, you're probably waiting at least 45 minutes, in addition to the bus being late. The closest bus stop to where you work is another 30 minute walk away, along a 45 mph highway with no bike lanes and a sidewalk that just randomly ends occasionally.

>Total commute time: 2.5 hours single way. To move 60km. And that's living behind a train station and working at one of the countries' largest employers.

In the US, this was actually entire hypothetical. The route just doesn't actually exist.

Hope this helps you see why we place NL on a pedestal. We know it's not perfect, but it's so much better than what we have. Unless you live in an incredibly small portion of the country, it's just not an option.

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

#386

Post by ghaff »

dkarl wrote: post #322
taylodl wrote: post #287

The young are falling out of love with cars because they're unaffordable. It's as simple as that. It's yet another sign the standard of living is declining for the young. The average new car price in the U.S. is now over $47K (Consumer Reports). I make a good living and I'm not going to pay that kind of money for a new car! A young person would be stupid to pay that kind of money for a car. Okay, so what about used c…

My wife and I have friends who can't get their children to learn to drive despite cars being available to them with gas and maintenance paid by their parents.

Owning a car/not owning a car is to at least some degree an economic decision.

But I literally could not have done my first job without being able to drive to job sites. And I couldn't really have worked at the next company in an office park either. To say nothing of countless recreational activities and vacations I've done that required me to drive.

I've spoken to friends with teenagers and they've told me their kids aren't excited about getting a driver's license but understand it's a probably a practical necessity.

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

#387

Post by scottLobster »

tristor wrote: post #337
randomdata wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then why would they have no money? Their parents are rich (per the article) and they're young (high school age) so we should be able to assume that their basic costs are funded by those rich parents. Is it because of this intense fear of getting a job that was starting to emerge when I was young and seems to have really taken off since?

> Is it because of this intense fear of getting a job that was starting to emerge when I was young and seems to have really taken off since? Something odd, that I haven't seen many folks talk about, is that a lot of jobs are tacitly considered "beneath them" for Gen Z who grow up in middle class or higher affluence families. This is despite the fact that their parents don't think this, but the kids see a lifestyle on…

To be fair, no one wants to be the person who works the drive through at McDonald's. Back in the day it used to be good money for a high school kid, and maybe it arguably still is, but high school kids, particularly high performing ones, don't have time for part-time jobs that aren't contributing to a college resume. Let alone time to spend any money they make with friends.

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

#388

Post by ajmurmann »

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 bought a brand new Kia Soul for $20k and am very happy with it. I greatly enjoy driving twisty rural roads, especially in Europe where speed limits don't change for every curve. However, I dislike driving in urban areas where it's all about avoiding an accident and looking out for other drivers doing stupid stuff. Even worse if I'm driving somewhere new and have to navigate at the same time. So stressful!

What I really dislike though is living in a place that's made for cars. I miss walking to a grocery store to pick up a few things, walking to a friend's to hang out or just walking to a bar or restaurant to meet up. I've lived in the American suburbs now (mostly due to affordability) and hasn't had that experience in a long time. However, I recently had to do a unusual trip to a city in Germany near where I grew up and stayed at a downtown hotel. I mentioned to a friend that I was there and he texted me that he and his girlfriend happened to be having dinner in a restaurant not far away. Just being able to walk over and sit outside on a street filled with other diners, playing children and some guy playing piano was incredible. I'm not sure if this is all due to car centricity or other circumstances like having childhood friends in that city, it was a beautiful summer day, I was going through a tough emergency and seeing friends is extra nice then. However, given all the caveats I don't think I'd headed over to meet them if I had needed to get into a car, find parking etc since it was very short notice and I didn't know if I had 10 minutes or 3 hours till I had to go back to the emergency situation.

What I do know is that I do badly want more of that all the time!

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

#390

Post by synthpop »

thesuitonym wrote: post #330
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 don't get the emotional association of freedom that previous generations did. Previous generations would just go out for a ride, take the car out on Sunday and and enjoy the scenery. We just don't do that anymore, either because we're more concerned about the environmental effects of driving, or that we just have more interesting things to do. Not to mention, when this idea of "the freedom of a car" came about, ev…

It's ironic that as a result of previous generations of the USA being so terminally car-pilled, the "scenery" of most American towns/destinations have slowly transformed into bland, ugly parking lots as far as the eye can see.
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