[SoftTalker]

> If you chose not to buy a car then your life will be dramatically more expensive and difficult to live, because of the network effects of this requirement.

That depends where you live. In Chicago, for example, your life will be simpler and less expensive if you don't own a car.

[dylan604]

I don't understand this as a blanket rule either. My life is dramatically less expensive because of not having a car. I don't have to fill it with gas. I don't have to carry insurance. I choose not to have a car, and while somethings are less convenient it does not prevent me from existing. I have an ebike and it suffices for everything thing that is a necessity for me. For the other things, rental for a weekend away is very much a thing.

Now, for people that choose to live in the further reaches of suburbia where things are not nearly as close, then cars become more of a need. But that is a decision when location to suburbia or further was made.

[bobthepanda]

Eh, eventually there is a network effect and much of everything needs a car.

If you happen to live in one of the numerous cities in the US that has a hollowed out core, you need a car even if you live downtown. And often the cities that have vibrant walkable downtowns are expensive to move to.

[SoftTalker]

Any city with a "downtown" is in 2024 going to have uber/lyft, probably bus services of some sort, and there's always cycling. Groceries and supplies can be delivered to your door. There is less need for a car today than there has been in a long time.

[revscat]

You’re still forced to participate in car culture if you use Lyft/Uber/Instacart, you’ve just added middlemen and increased the cost even further.

This comment comes across as incredibly privileged, to be honest. Most people must drive to work. Asking them to use Uber for such a purpose is just… it’s kind of infuriating.

[lovich]

Eh, I lived for 7 years without a car in suburbs. Granted the local market, and I specifically mean market vs supermarket, was a 5 minute walk from me, the supermarket was a 30 minute walk if I felt fancy that night, and Amazon delivered.

I will grant that I was within walking distance of the last stop on the local metros subway system so maybe some people wouldn’t consider that the suburbs, but it was considered so for the city.

Also just broke 20k miles last week on my vehicle I bought in 2021 after moving to the countryside so it’s not like ive

[bobthepanda]

this sounds like not the US. in the vast majority of the US traditional markets/small groceries are effectively extinct and illegal to build new in a financially sensible way.

[lovich]

I don’t have enough data to give you an answer one way or another but this was New England and we have a lot of things that are common for us but weird for the rest of the country by dint of being where colonization efforts were good enough to be started and built up, but not so bad that they are worth replacing.

Examples include individual shops that used to be called markets which are not farmers markets or supermarkets, basements in all/most homes, and town halls being an expectation of normal governance rather than a newsworthy event