[jsolson]

I was born in 1983, so that puts me at the leading edge of what I think most people classify as millennials, but honestly what you're saying doesn't resonate strongly with me. I can (and have recently) lived without a car, but not for any of the reasons you cite. Instead it comes down to (a) parking is a pain in the ass in downtown Seattle and (b) if I drive somewhere, I avoid drinking while I'm there, so driving is a no-go for shows, parties, or even most evenings out with friends. Both of these are solved pretty thoroughly by Uber and (rarely) public transit. I don't tend to use my phone when I'm moving between places unless I'm running late or someone pings me; I'm much more likely to sit back and just watch the world go by.

That said, I do own a car primarily for my daily commute and weekend outings up to the mountains. In terms of safety, environmental friendliness, or cost effectiveness, none of these factored at all into the decision for me. That said, I drive a Tesla, so it's chock full of modern safety features (protecting me; for pedestrians it's a silent rolling death machine with 691 horsepower), and I could argue that it's less environmentally unfriendly than other cars, but I bought it because it looked fun, not for either of those reasons :)

[seanmcdirmid]

75 here. The first thing I did when moving to the U district at UW was get rid of my car, it is just annoying to have one there. I've had a car since, but prefered biking or public transit, and now I'm completely carless in Beijing where parking is sh*t and taxis are ubiquitous. Oddly enough, all my chinese colleagues have cars anyways since it is a precondition (along with owning an apartment) to getting married....

[restalis]

"I'm completely carless in Beijing where ... taxis are ubiquitous."

I don't know about you, but I had a bad experience when I've needed to use a taxi in Beijing! Taxis are ubiquitous, yes, but they won't take you if your destination is not far enough for them, and most of them don't use taxing machines (because you know, there are plenty of tourists around), and prefer just to wait for someone willing to pay ten times the rate that they actually should bill. And there's more - you can't call a taxi in order to come to pick you up even from hotels (which is ridiculous), and most of the places where you might have some certainty that you'll land in a taxi are taxi-stops (often posted near bus-stops), and you also may have to stay in line for one!

[seanmcdirmid]

There's an app for that.

Didi kuai che for taxis.

Didi Zhuan che if you want something more like Uber.

The latter allows you to pay electronically from your union pay account, the meter is GPS (just like Uber), so you'll never get ripped off. Beijing taxis drivers are pretty honest as China goes, of course, that is just in the city, out in tourist ghettos it can be much worse.

[restalis]

Thanks, I'll keep in mind, although I don't know how much will change for those like me (I was in a tourist-related activity having to crawl in tourist ghettos). I hope my next experience with Beijing taxis will be better.

[seanmcdirmid]

In any case, the apps aren't very useful if you don't speak chinese (a problem for some visitors). They do make life tolerable in Beijing for those of us who live here.

[radicaledward]

I was born in 1987 and I didn't think of myself as a millenial until someone told me a month ago what the definition was. I'm still not sure if I agree that my behavior matches up as closely with the behavior of the people born in the 90's as the demographics people would like.

In regards to point a: I've never really driven in our downtown area enough to experience this problem. I hear a lot of other people complain about it though. I imagine, if I started driving in the downtown area more this would probably get added to my list of complaints.

In regards to point b: I don't drink more than 3 or 4 times a year. So this doesn't really come up for me, but I do agree that this is a factor for a lot of people.

As for not using my phone when moving between places, I don't use mine much during transit either. However, the mental pressure of being completely unable to check it when it pings seriously bothers me. With that being said, I actually spend most of my time on the bus reading books, which is definitely not something I can do while driving. I guess I could amend my post by saying that driving takes away time when I could be doing literally anything else, and, with modern advances in technology, 90% of the things I would be doing otherwise can be done on the bus.