[parl_match]

> Not everyone lives in large cities with whole mass transit systems or works the usual 9-5.

Have you been to the suburbs of Japan? Or France? Towns created before cars were invented. Lots of single family homes, and a smattering of small vehicles used for work.

It can work, but we've built huge car-required cities and towns and lifestyles and it's a sunk cost fallacy. And it feels "normal" to us, but it's not. It's bad for the environment, and it's bad for us.

Hours spent in a car is directly related to obesity. Exhaust fumes and tire particulate matter is directly related to asthma and cancer. Your car is killing you.

[hot_gril]

Right, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but car ownership in the US seems to have been subsidized. You should be allowed to have a car if you want and not be taxed unfairly for it, but it shouldn't be that almost every job basically requires one. And to get there, I don't think we have to ban things or restrict people's lives, just build new cities less around cars and let people choose that life if they want.

[ryukafalz]

> just build new cities less around cars and let people choose that life if they want.

New cities aren't a good solution, they almost never work out. That's effectively ceding everything that's already been built to the automobile and telling people "if you don't like it, uproot your life and go somewhere else."

I would rather see the places that were originally built without cars in mind return to prioritizing walking, cycling, and transit. Let the exurbs be the exurbs, sure, but let's have our old cities and inner ring suburbs not cater to cars so much. They weren't built for cars in the first place.

[parl_match]

> just build new cities less around cars and let people choose that life if they want

We should modify existing cities with better transit and make them hostile to cars, and then offer excellent car transfer points. If you want to use the city, use the train.