I am really surprised every time I see this vehement hatred of cars. I lived in NYC my whole life and didn't have a car, but now we got kids so we happily moved for the house-and-car-in-the-burbs life and it's absolutely better. People make this choice for a reason.
Just curious, do you have a family and do you shlep them by bus everywhere?
Have you been to, say, the Netherlands? There are plenty of cars in Amsterdam, but it is the opposite of a car centric culture. Bikes and pedestrians abound (including bikes with places to "shlep" your kids or cargo around), and they all have right of way, anywhere, and the drivers generally seem to respect it.
Contrast that with a big American city like NYC, and though probably the vast majority of New Yorkers don't own a car, it is still very car-first in the priority of who gets to use the streets.
I feel the same, lived in a large city when single just to be part of all the hustle and bustle. I liked it but I mean eventually all the bars/restaurants/music venues start becoming the same. Got married and started a family, eventually moved out to the suburbs. It’s MUCH better for families. Good public schools nearby, lots more parks and stuff geared for kids. Very safe, like leave your doors unlocked overnight safe. Yeah I have to drive more but I don’t mind, the benefits definitely outweigh the drawbacks.
But of those benefits you mention, most are not in contradiction with a walkable neighbourhood. In my home town, most things are in walking and biking distance and we still have good public schools, lots of parks and safety. These things have nothing to do with cars, if you just make the choice to create them somewhere walkable.
We have two cars, but anything within walking or cycling distance I prefer to do walking or cycling. E.g., 10 minutes walk to school with the kids, 20 minutes cycling into the city to do shopping,
Better how? You don’t actually say why you prefer your new lifestyle. Clearly lots of people prefer to live without a car. Have you ever bothered having a conversation with them? Maybe if you did, you’d be less surprised!
Its easy to go places like the beach, camping, skiing, fishing, golfing, etc. Basically all the things I like to do except biking and hiking which I can do from my house.
These are all occasional things. Day to day life is better car free. And then when you want to go out you can rent a car. Or even own one. You don’t have to use a car for every single activity just because you sometimes go skiing.
This is every weekend. Also, kid soccer practices are about four times a week and too far to walk or bike. Soccer games on the weekend can be 60 miles away. The grocery store is eight miles away.
I sense that the no car advocates are single people living in cities. I lived car-free back on those days. But once you have a house and a family, a car is a basic necessity. Its financially impossible to raise a family in a city on the US west coast, with the same standard of living as suburbia.
Sorry, but this is false. It entirely depends on your circumstances. Four soccer meets per week and soccer games sixty miles away is not a necessary thing in a child’s life. If they’re into it and you can make it work, that’s great, but this is hardly the only option.
It seems like you have a notion of what a high standard of living is that isn’t actually shared by everyone. I’m looking forward to raising my kid in the city with the absolute minimum amount of car dependency that I can manage.
Until you want to do things like bring groceries home (more than you can carry in your two hands), or something novel like, say, building materials. People do do those sorts of things, you know.
Or are you telling me that day to day life is better if I'm not a woodworker?
More food for thought: how cold does it have to get, with how much snow on the ground, before walking can be reasonably said to be unattractive to the average individual?
When I’m doing a big shop I just get it delivered to my door. Costs from $2-$10AUD.
I’m not claiming there are no things where a car is useful. But having to drive regularly is depressing. My life improved so much when I moved out of the suburbs and in to a walkable area. Sitting in traffic twice a day was sending me insane. While walking makes me feel better.
Having building mats delivered frequently would be a good reason to have a work vehicle.
In walkable places, you can just walk down and get that day's groceries as needed, or maybe you do it on your way home from your walkable job, etc. It's more flexible, fresher, requires less mass consumption, less packaging, as well--lots of ancillary benefits.
More food for thought: I've heard a saying (attributed to Norwegian/Scandinavian folk wisdom) that goes like, "There is no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate clothing."
Car-centricity is a result of neighborhood design, which necessitates owning a car. There's almost nothing within walking distance of most houses. As you add cars, you need to add car infrastructure (especially wider streets for car parking, lanes of vehicles, sidewalks, parking lots etc). This further increases walking distances and also creates coverage areas that public transit cannot feasibly satisfy. Cars create a problem that only they themselves can "solve".
Just curious, do you have a family and do you shlep them by bus everywhere?