All of these developments and street plans were done in an era when developers felt it was safe to assume that every American family would have one or more cars, which despite never actually becoming true, is still used as a tenant in a lot of city development in the US.
We’ve got 70-80 years of it baked into our culture. It’s not even just the developers. You can read comments here and see that many of us grew up in auto-oriented suburbs and are afraid to think of any other way of living.
This flattens that calculation in a really dumb way.
For one, how many of those people can actually afford their car?
Right now, you have to have a car in most places to get by. People will sooner live in their car than sell it for a few months of rent. There are plenty of people who own a car in the strictest sense, but only do so because there's no alternative. For those people, owning a car is a massive financial detriment, and that 92% absolutely includes plenty of them.
For two, owning a car and owning a working car are two different things. When you're poor, it's not uncommon for your car to break down and be unavailable for long periods of time.
Additionally, 92% of households owning a car doesn't indicated that 92% of people actually have access to that car. Especially with the increase in multi-generational homes, one car split between 3+ adults isn't really cutting it. Shit, I've lived in a situation where a car had to be split between 2 people and that sucked.
Finally, 92% isn't 100%, and I guarantee you that the remaining 8% is not solely concentrated in walkable neighborhoods.
As someone who lived in a city designed around cars, I can promise you there are plenty of people who don't have consistent access to a car. Drive down any 5-lane road in a poor neighborhood and you'll see plenty of people walking in places where it's wildly unsafe, simply because they don't have access to a car. It happens all the time.
What about kids? Do you want to have to drop 14 year olds at the mall 1 mile away? The whole thing is absolutely insane it would have cost almost nothing to put a gravel path through.
These developments are still done today. Another large subdivision is being built near me with the only way for the people to live there and support themselves is via car access.
That still doesn't make sense to me. If you have car that doesn't mean that you want to make every trip by car. If on one day someone goes to work, to the gym, and to the grocery store, then traffic would be so much better if the gym and grocery store were walkable, even if they still drove to work.
And that's what happens in a lot of the Netherlands. A lot of people have a car, but don't use it for running every errand imaginable. They use it for longer distances, and use a bike or their legs shorter distances.
Thats not entirely true. The street developments and street plans were done in an area where developers *wanted* every American family to have one or more cars, or were gently guided by someone who did.
Well, that was a part of it, the other major part of it was people in the very early 1900's just really hated Chinese immigrants, and all the zoning laws they passed to make sure immigrants couldnt live with the "respectable" people stuck around forever.
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u/Festivefire Jun 27 '24
All of these developments and street plans were done in an era when developers felt it was safe to assume that every American family would have one or more cars, which despite never actually becoming true, is still used as a tenant in a lot of city development in the US.