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

economist.com

411–420 of 835 posts

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

#411
post #322

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.

Should just let things happen naturally, forcing things on children tend to push them against the idea.

When they wanted to drive, then they'll learn to drive with great passion.

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

#412
Let's hope the trend continues. Cars are terrible for us. They are bad for health because we don't walk anymore or at least easy way less than 30 years ago. Children can't walk to school safely anymore. We can't play on the street. Cycling is very dangerous. Alternative light, healthier and greener alternatives are heavily discouraged by car centric infrastructure.

Cars pollute. Cars can kill you (and do kill many unprotected people every day). Cars make people disconnected from others and social connection suffer - you don't just meet people on the street anymore, children don't walk home which was always great time to socialize.

Cars are also terribly inefficienct way to get around. Even if you forget fuel cost, health considerations, pollution. They are just too big for everyone to have one and still be able to get around in a city in reasonable time. Bikes are already faster in many cities even with terrible car centric infrastructure and laws hostile to cycling. E-bikes with some infrastructure would be significantly faster than cars. And cheaper, and greener and safer and healthier.

Cars often take valuable land which could be used for residential buildings or recreational areas. Significant % of many city centers are parking lots. Significant % of many big buildings are parking lots as well. The cost of car centric infrastructure is humongous.

I am so happy this movement gets some traction. For everyone life quality getting rid of cars in cities would mean great improvement for life quality, especially young people and poor people.

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

#413
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

Public transit strikes and system breakdowns happen occasionally, nothing to do with the end of civilization. Not being able to drive really limits your options, especially if you want to travel to remote locations for business or leisure. Knowing how it drive is just a basic life skill for any adult. It's something everyone should know how to do like being able to cook a meal or rewire an electrical outlet or shoot a gun or splint a broken limb. You might not need those skills every day but you shouldn't be completely dependent on others. Having some generalist skills gives you freedom and independence, and opens up a lot of options.

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

#414

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…

The original poster claimed that car usage is the norm in the Netherlands, which implies that anything else is outside the norm, or unusual. This is obviously incorrectly.

There are various other posts in this thread that also give statistics, and the number of car vs bike journeys is not so far apart.

In a country that famously has more bikes then people, the idea that if half the bike journeys converted to cars there would only be a ten percent increase in traffic is quite clearly ridiculous. Especially within cities bikes carry volumes of people that would overwhelm roads if those people used space-inefficient cars.

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

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, we should imagine having young children. I want my children to ride a bike to school and not die.

I grew up essentially a prisoner in a rural US community before I could drive. Kids need to be able to explore independently! Thank you for understanding this.

Trying! It's been a long journey.

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

#416
post #322

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.

I have a friend who only reluctantly learned to drive at 22 despite living in a car dependent suburb. It blew my mind.

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

#417

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…

They don't want cars or even to drive. They have all the creature comforts at home. Big TV's, internet games, and food delivery.

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

#418
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have never understood the anxiety americans have related to parking. (unless you’re going to a music festival etc) You literally just drive around for 5ish minutes and you find a spot. Ive lived in two major cities in america fwiw.

Then you haven’t had the full experience. Let me walk you through the awful things about parking:

* circling the block over and over until you find a spot.

* making sense of the layered rules on parking signs to make sure you can park

* finding the parking stall and/or downloading the app to pay for parking.

* making sure you have no valuables visible and each car ahead and behind have enough space to get out.

This is experience based off living in DC, NY, and the Bay Area. I’m actually OK paying for a car - but I have an absolutely no time for parking and traffic.

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

#419
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swapping trains can take a while, but until self driving works you can’t do much while driving. And even with self driving simply getting up and stretching, grabbing a bite to eat, or even just going to the bathroom requires you to stop making progress for a while. Driving has several advantages, but getting stuck in traffic is extremely unpleasant in ways that similar delays on other forms of travel don’t really rep…

> getting stuck in traffic is extremely unpleasant in ways that similar delays on other forms of travel don’t really replicate But you also don't have to take a 3 hour coach ride because the driver or other staff's union is striking. It's just you and your car.

Just you and your car + the guys bumper 3 feet in front of you that’s moved 5 feet in the last minute because of a traffic accident or something. Luckily you can just look at waze and holly shit you’re going to be in this mess for another 4 hours, but you can’t even take a nap or something because traffic is still inching along…

Now that’s not universal, but I really do budget 3-4 hours extra for some trips because holiday traffic is just that bad in my area.

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

#420

It's been a decade-long journey but my wife and I finally got EU citizenship and are picking where to live (Utrecht and Freiburg are the frontrunners) specifically so our child can have a proper, independent childhood, and not the painfully lonely, infantilizing, ones we had in stroad-infested Californian suburbs. We're not young! But I applaud this development.

Good luck! Be aware that suburbia exists in Germany as well (I'm still stuck in it).

Indeed! We are being very intentional about it - we want to check out Vauban in particular though I understand it would be hard to get a place there!
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