[joepie91_]

> This is so true: cars have massive externalities but the 20th century was spend rebuilding the world around them because they were useful.

Well, no, not really.

While cars do have non-zero usefulness, the reason we rebuilt the world around them was because of car manufacturer lobbying, not because of some shared revelation about their value to society.

[acdha]

There's some truth to that but the main point was simply that anyone who bought a car, especially earlier on, saw immediate benefits. Later on they might have reconsidered if they learned how traffic jams work, saw the effects of pollution or injuries, etc. but by then they were most likely financially invested with major commitments to an automobile-based lifestyle.

That's the problem with these kind of things: the early adopters see benefits but probably not the costs, that convinces other people to join them, and it quickly reaches the point where the easiest/most profitable is to continue down that path. If you're the average suburban homeowner, you might hate the effect that sitting in traffic has on your health and time but if you can't afford to live next to the office you're probably going to treat it as inevitable since dramatic changes affect your property values.