And it’s a valid question, but there’s no reason to assume that the people with such concerns are primarily liberals. When tabulating people who dislike cities and suburbs (including the related road infrastructure), you’d have to add in those who’d rather live in isolated rural communities or compounds, and at least some of these people are right-wing extremists. Heck, why not the entire state of Montana, or largely-rural states generally?
Anyhoo, the United States is pretty large and has room for quite a bit more urban and suburban sprawl. The long-term problem might not be that you can’t afford to build this expanded network, but can you afford to maintain it?
I sure wish you would stop saying “hates cars” as if someone had actually taken that position.
I prefer not to use a car when possible because I can usually get around my city much more rapidly and conveniently on a bicycle. When I do use a car, it’s to get out camping or something, which is simply impractical any other way. I object to what I percieve as an overuse of cars, in that I feel many people use them in a superfluous fashion. This is (1) bad for the environment (2) bad for transit in the city (3) bad for peoples’ health. I’m not saying cars should be outlawed or anything, but I fully support higher emissions standards and initiatives designed to shift cars onto an alternate fuel source.
I am the mysterious car-hating liberal. While I recognize that cars are a reality for most of us and don’t begrudge anyone their cars given that they are such an essential part of of our culture. But I wish there were more alternatives and I personally don’t have a driver’s license and hope to avoid situations where I need one.
Why do I hate cars so much?
The demise of public space. This doesn’t exactly mean I hate suburbs, but that I think there is a huge mental and social benefit to being in public around people besides your friends, family and co-worker. I think a major reason why Americans are so damned depressed is that we can so easily slip into isolation. I think most of us need simple daily interaction with our community (and not just buying stuff) in order to really make sense of who we are in the world. Not to mention that being exposed to different kinds of people makes you understand others as well.
Cars encourage the demise of this public space, and our suburbs are built so that even people who want these social interactions can’t get them. By all means, keep the suburbs. But simple actions- like building parks and schools in the walkable centers instead of the outer fringes- can make a huge difference.
Anyway, I personally need these interactions to feel mentally comfortable, so walk when I can.
Health. Americans are too damned fat. I’ve heard people on this board say they are unable to walk a block without getting winded, but don’t consider that a health problem. Kids don’t walk to school anymore. And kids are developing diabetes like crazy. We need to be a nation that can walk a block. And the best way to do that is to walk a bit each day instead of just hopping in the car. I walk a few miles a day just doing my daily tasks. In my opinion, that is way better than driving (!) to the gym.
Efficiency. I have some deep belief that we have some kind of duty to use our resources well. On no planet is putting millions of individuals each in 4,000 lbs of steel and then hurtling them an average of 40 miles every day a good use of our resources. It’s probably the most absurd misuse of resources possible. Money is also a factor. I read the average American spends $7,000 a year on gas and maintenance. For $7,000 you could backpack cheap countries for a year, or make a movie, or build some classrooms or something. There has got to be some better use of that money than literally burning it. I’ve been lucky to have the chance to do many things I’ve dreamed of despite not having a ton of money- in part because I’m not putting it all into the money-pit we call our cars.
Anyway, if you want a car, go ahead and have one and I won’t think worse of you. But all these things are important to me, and I know once I get a car I’ll get used to it and I won’t want to walk anywhere either, which is why I’m holding out as long as I can.
I am the mysterious car-hating liberal. While I recognize that cars are a reality for most of us and don’t begrudge anyone their cars given that they are such an essential part of of our culture. But I wish there were more alternatives and I personally don’t have a driver’s license and hope to avoid situations where I need one.
Why do I hate cars so much?
The demise of public space. This doesn’t exactly mean I hate suburbs, but that I think there is a huge mental and social benefit to being in public around people besides your friends, family and co-worker. I think a major reason why Americans are so damned depressed is that we can so easily slip into isolation. I think most of us need simple daily interaction with our community (and not just buying stuff) in order to really make sense of who we are in the world. Not to mention that being exposed to different kinds of people makes you understand others as well.
Cars encourage the demise of this public space, and our suburbs are built so that even people who want these social interactions can’t get them. By all means, keep the suburbs. But simple actions- like building parks and schools in the walkable centers instead of the outer fringes- can make a huge difference.
Anyway, I personally need these interactions to feel mentally comfortable, so walk when I can.
Health. Americans are too damned fat. I’ve heard people on this board say they are unable to walk a block without getting winded, but don’t consider that a health problem. Kids don’t walk to school anymore. And kids are developing diabetes like crazy. We need to be a nation that can walk a block. And the best way to do that is to walk a bit each day instead of just hopping in the car. I walk a few miles a day just doing my daily tasks. In my opinion, that is way better than driving (!) to the gym.
Efficiency. I have some deep belief that we have some kind of duty to use our resources well. On no planet is putting millions of individuals each in 4,000 lbs of steel and then hurtling them an average of 40 miles every day a good use of our resources. It’s probably the most absurd misuse of resources possible. Money is also a factor. I read the average American spends $7,000 a year on gas and maintenance. For $7,000 you could backpack cheap countries for a year, or make a movie, or build some classrooms or something. There has got to be some better use of that money than literally burning it. I’ve been lucky to have the chance to do many things I’ve dreamed of despite not having a ton of money- in part because I’m not putting it all into the money-pit we call our cars.
Anyway, if you want a car, go ahead and have one and I won’t think worse of you. But all these things are important to me, and I know once I get a car I’ll get used to it and I won’t want to walk anywhere either, which is why I’m holding out as long as I can.
Not a car-hater here, but I do recognize that car culture is not some state of nature that always was and always will be. In fact, whenever someone describes an issue as too big and too ingrained in our culture to change, I ask them to take it up with the farriers.
Aside from the issues already mentioned, car culture has been the beneficiary of gigantic government subsidy. People talk about how efficient car travel is for an individual, but that’s only after untold billions of dollars for safety oversight, the interstate highway system, local roads, maintenance, research, Chrysler bailout, Second Chrysler bailout, Everybody Else bailout, and so on. Car manufacturers have generally strenuously resisted every improvement in safety and efficiency (seat belts, intermittent wipers, airbags, fuel standards, etc.) until the government forced them to change, and many improvements in performance, until the Japanese outcompeted them. This backwardness has cost lives an trillions of dollars in fuel wasted, lost years of accident victims, and vanished manufacturing capability.
Yet people who are perfectly ducky with the enormous and ongoing government subsidy to car culture balk at many other government subsidies or handouts as being amoral. Funny how we can wear blinders when it suits.
When investment in bicycles equals the total investment in car culture, we can have a thread about bicycle-hating conservatives.
