[so33]

> A car is just easier, assuming light traffic, short drives, and good parking

And that’s precisely the problem, because cars don’t scale well. Suburbs surrounding large growing urban areas in the US are often clogged with traffic. Just look at the Bay Area.

You could say the solution then is to decentralize and make it so everyone can have the light traffic car commute. Aside from possible environmental impacts (Who knows, there might not be any with all the reduced traffic from this scheme), I don’t think this is realistic right now; humans have clustered around cities for literally millennia.

Edit: I live within a few minutes’ walking distance from several grocery stores. Typically I just buy a bag’s worth of groceries at a time. Physical ability differs, of course - but that’s another argument for reducing car use in my view, so you can clear the roads for the people who truly need the car.

[dsfyu404ed]

>You could say the solution then is to decentralize and make it so everyone can have the light traffic car commute.

You could also say that the solution is to get the government to stop micromanaging what people do on their own property thereby freeing people from the need to build parking when it is not economical to do so thereby creating the political will for good public transit.

[aclsid]

I live in a place where that is actually a thing, and let me tell you what happens then is that a new coffee shop opens and suddenly a two-lane road becomes a one-lane road. So too much freedom in that sense also hurts.

Also the decentralize idea is not too far off. I think the DC metro area, Pennsylvania and the New York suburbia are great in that sense. You take your car to the commuter train station and off you go into the city. It is the best tradeoff without having to do something radical.