Cars are just too expensive
7 Urbanisttidbits 6 5/21/2025, 1:10:45 AM
People don’t talk enough about how most Americans are forced to own cars (due to how we design our cities) and have to spend over $12,000* a year (!) as a result
*hard to find exact numbers, but many sources wind up around the $12,000 average for all cars (new and used)
I fear that with the millions of lines of code lurking in dozens of ECUs it might end up being more like a cheap smartphone.
How many cars that amounts to depends on the differential, and of course, CA invites travel, being so wildly diverse.
Rent homes? Rent cars? Build urban housing when tech companies bid up property values "to Mars?"
Were it that it was, but alas.
Amsterdam was crowded with cars in the 1970s. Several decades later, it’s a model many look to for how to design cities that aren’t centered around cars.
It won’t happen overnight, nor will it happen by accident, but it cities can and do change.