[lenerdenator]

Well, it's very much a part of the problem.

The entire nature of commerce in much of the US is based around the automobile. You are expected to buy things in quantities that are best transported by a car. You are going to a place that is stocked by the truckload because it is placed near a road or highway.

The money is made because of the road network. That's why governments build highways and roads: to enable commerce that they then tax. It's more efficient for a lot of commercial purposes if you have commerce occur at the scale of a vehicle than it is if it occurs at the scale of a person.

If you want to go to a park or some other place "I like to go", sure, it's great to have those within walking distance, but that's not going to be enough to motivate political and economic will to scrap trillions of dollars in investment in infrastructure based on the automobile. It just isn't.

[hombre_fatal]

> You are expected to buy things in quantities that are best transported by a car.

This just isn't true. You got distracted by my mention of Costco and then ran with it.

Do you know how people live in walkable cities without a car? Not unlike people who live a block from H-E-B, except passing by the shop is part of your day. You can pick up of quart of milk and some eggs and avocados for breakfast because it's no big deal to walk to the store and carry a bag.

> It's more efficient for a lot of commercial purposes if you have commerce occur at the scale of a vehicle than it is if it occurs at the scale of a person.

That's not what the data shows. We subsidize car infrastructure, and less density is worse for commerce, and land that could have been used for more business is eaten alive by surface parking.