Environment & Energy

There was no point. Our family couldn't afford a second car and my dad was driving the one car to work. Before my parents were married and having children my mom lived in the city within walking distance of her work, grocery and department stores, etc.. If she wanted to go further she took the bus. When my parents bought their first house it was still within walking distance to grocery stores, pharmacies, etc.. The bus stop was two blocks away and the busses ran frequently. We also had a milkman who would deliver milk, eggs, bacon, and a few other items in the morning. My mom generally just got the milk because it came in heavy glass returnable bottles which were not the sort of thing you wanted to be carrying two and a half blocks from the grocery store and back. There were also bakery trucks and produce trucks that drove through the neighborhood on a regular schedule

My mom learned to drive after my grandparents gave her their old car and my parents bought a bigger house that was about a mile away from the grocery stores and bus stops. By that time cities and developers had mandated car-centric lifestyles for new housing, partly as a means of segregation.

Living without a car is still possible in some places. My nephew lives in San Francisco without a car. He rents cars when he actually needs them, a few times a year at most.

One has to ask, if living without a car is so undesirable, why are are housing costs so high in places you can comfortably do that?

If we truly wanted to solve this problem we'd be rebuilding all our cities, turning them into attractive affordable places where car ownership is unnecessary. In general, the people with the smallest environmental footprints live in cities and don't own cars.

I often resent the fact that I'm forced to own a car in this society if I'm to be considered a fully functional adult. Car culture is inherently fascist, the "freedom" they promise an illusion. If we were truly free we could choose to own a car or not enjoying similar opportunities for work, play, and education either way.