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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

#521

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

zeku wrote: post #429
intrasight wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a "Generation X" near the Boomer boundary, I just can't stop being shocked by "average car is $47k". When I was a teen, my parents did rental investing, owned about a dozen properties, and had never paid more than $30k for a property. I'm a well-compensated tech worker, and have no shame in driving my 2004 Volvo that I bought used 16 years ago. Had a second car for a while. A 2005 Camry that I bought for $5000 in…

Most would love to, but the rent is too high and they need a car to be able to get to their job so they can tread water. Owning a primary home as a means of "lazy wealth generation" is only accessible to people with family money or career titles like "Software Engineer" and even then the homes are much lower standard than before for older people working the same job.

And all the while companies are advertising like crazy to try and hire more heavy equipment operators (starting north of 100K). There are plenty of other jobs out there besides "dog walker" and "software engineer"

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

#523

Post by spacemadness »

mellosouls wrote: post #409
narrowtux wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is talking about taking away cars from people who live outside of cities. Yet this argument always comes up when problems with cars in densely populated areas are discussed.

That's because the tone of "problems with cars in densely populated areas" and those discussing them tend to completely ignore the significant part of the population that the argument is redundant for.

Yes, talking about adding bike lanes in cities and improving public transportation should really infuriate the rural demographic that continually think everything is about them and their way of life. These ideas must all come from the cult of anti-car that wants to come into every tiny city and change everything overnight apparently. It’s typical status quo paranoia that always tries to halt any progress in these areas.

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

#524

Post by BizarreByte »

fundad wrote: post #117
BizarreByte wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maintenance is expensive This is largely just nonsense for a lot of modern cars. I’m at 80k in 4 years and have only done oil changes and tyres. My mother only had her first “big” repair on her car at 140k after 10 years. Cars are more reliable than they’ve ever been.

Oil and tires is expensive

Oil changes are inexpensive and new cars often have them included for the first few years. On top of that with modern oils the change interval is longer than it used to be.

Unless you're driving an obscene amount or doing burnouts everywhere a set of tyres should last 3-4 years. A set for a small sedan really isn't that expensive.

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

#525

Post by t0bia_s »

stuckinhell wrote: post #493
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'm an aging millennial as well. I love having a car! I can't imagine not having a car when you have KIDS! Driving them to their various sports games, with a car full of their equipment. Going camping with them. Getting groceries for a family of 5. I can't imagine doing that on public transport.

Family of 5, no car, just bikes.

It is possible. It just depends on where do you live and how comfortable you are.

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

#526

Post by tristor »

scottLobster wrote: post #504
tristor wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I could have expanded on my last sentence more and completed the thought. Of course nobody wants to be the person who works the drive through at McDonald's as their life's ambition. This type of job used to be seen as a stepping stone that provided you some spending money and an opportunity to meet people outside your parents social circle and school, a first taste of the working world, but wasn't a determina…

Well I'll admit hadn't considered that factor, I guess I'll find out in a decade or so when my daughter reaches that age, although hopefully that mentality will have died out once that generation gets a decade of reality under their belt. That said I kinda get the social media obsession, that was college for me and I was all in on the facebook parasocial queues (not liking someone's post that they KNOW you saw was an…

> As you say, it used to be that person working the McDonalds drive through might be something big some day. Nowadays that's 100% assured to not be the case, McDonalds drive through is a dead-end job you do to stay alive until you can trade up to a different career path.

Can you expand on how you see these two statements as different conceptually? At least for folks in my generation, I don't think anyone harbored delusions that they were going to make it big by working at McDonald's, but it was seen as a way to get basic work experience and the benefit of a wage while you worked towards something different. The "mail room to executive" pipeline was always a fantasy, as far as I'm concerned, just due to basic math, there's a lot more mail room clerks than executives, so it in all probability won't happen to you. On the flip side, working a summer job provides you a pathway to pay for entertainment and a modicum of freedom so you can explore the world and figure out what you actually want to do. At least that's how it was seen when I was a teenager.

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

#527

Post by fleddr »

thesuitonym wrote: post #385
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…

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 ea…

My guy, dude...I didn't contradict the idea that the Netherlands has superior transit options compared to the US. I was giving push-back against the idea that the Dutch situation is utopian as if some kind of paradise. It isn't.

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

#528

Post by ryukafalz »

asciimov wrote: post #481
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…

As an aging millennial that grew up in West Texas, I have the exact opposite feelings. To me cars, equal freedom. I grew up in a small neighborhood, I rode bikes to my friends houses there but my neighborhood was so far removed from other places and stores that there was no other place to go. Getting my license at 16 opened so many doors for me. Now I could go hang out at my other friends houses that lived 10-15 mile…

>but my neighborhood was so far removed from other places and stores that there was no other place to go

This is probably why. It's less clear cut when there's an abundance of places to go and things to do within easy walking/biking/transit distance.

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

#529

Post by dclowd9901 »

stuckinhell wrote: post #493
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'm an aging millennial as well. I love having a car! I can't imagine not having a car when you have KIDS! Driving them to their various sports games, with a car full of their equipment. Going camping with them. Getting groceries for a family of 5. I can't imagine doing that on public transport.

I worked with a guy who had two kids and no car. They rode their bikes everywhere, always. He insisted on it. I think his wife was miserable lol. But his kids seemed to like it!

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

#530

Post by bluecalm »

vel0city wrote: post #256
refurb wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar in Singapore which arguably, because of its size has amazing public transport. But what do a lot of people do if they can afford it? Buy a car, especially if you want to live away from the city center and have kids. They even pay the $100,000 fee for a 10 year permit to have a car, on top of 100% import tax. That's close to $175,000 just to own some tiny 3-cylinder car for 10 years.

When you make it incredibly expensive to own a car, few people own cars. Who would have guessed? I wonder what car ownership would look like if there was no fee and taxes were much lower?

Maybe wonder how it would look like if car owners actually paid for the cost (environmental, killing pedestrians and cyclists, huge areas of valuable land dedicated to parking, cost of road maintenance). Cars are the most subsidized mean of transportation, no wonder there are so many of them.
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