[HEmanZ]

It’s really weird to me that Americans automatically assume that “soccer mom” suburban lifestyle is just the default way to raise kids. Like it’s normal for kids (children! without jobs!) to need to travel 20 miles per day for their daily activities.

Go to any other civilized country and you’ll see children biking or walking to their daily activities, or riding public transport alone (ever heard of a school bus?) if they really need to.

[maerF0x0]

The reason it's hard to talk about in isolation and without assuming stereotype personas is because it's truly complex.

Part of why Americans travel 20 miles per day is because highways make things "close" in terms of minutes, and because they take up so much space, large roadways can make proximal (distance) things further. Eg if you have to walk 1 mile down a highway to a pedestrian bridge to get to the part that is just across 8 lanes, a 1 minute walk becomes a 40 minute walk.

Additionally these roadways rarely are kid safe for things like bicycles.

Additionally social stratification and division has made it (seemingly?) less for those kids to travel alone.

Additionally 100 other points.

I really do think when people choose to drive they're expressing their best known solution to a wide variety of non transportation issues and because they choose it it feeds back on itself democratically and design wise (Design for cars because people choose cars, people choose cars because of the solutions to design for cars)

[HEmanZ]

Of course they’re choosing their best option. Because there aren’t better options. That’s the point of pushing these discussions right? So that as cities evolve over the next generation, Americans get more options