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Comment by human_breather | Hacker News Reader

Driving is amazing. I can travel further faster, making it easier to see friends. I can travel with more stuff making grocery shopping faster and easier. I can store things in my car which saves me worry and time. Driving can even be fun! I'd hate driving if I had to live in the middle of a dense city though.

Biking and walking are also amazing. It's healthy, and can be quite social. I can walk without having to worry about finding parking. I don't need to worry about keys, license, etc. It's simply impossible to walk/bike everywhere though in the majority of the country.

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If you live in a city where everything you need is 1-2 blocks away and you have good public transport, Why would you need a car that sits idle 95% of the time? Just because you don't have to carry a bag ?

Because very, very few cities in the US have "good public transport", and even then they only have it in certain small areas. In NYC, public transit is pretty decent in Manhattan, and a part of Brooklyn, and that's it. Everywhere else it sucks: Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, the rest of Brooklyn, and everything on the NJ side (Jersey City, Newark, etc.).

What we need to do is build SkyTran.

It is so much nicer living outside a city compared to living in one.

That depends a lot on the city and situation.

If you live in a city, then you have far bigger problems. It's no way to live.

If you live in a suburb you have far bigger problems. It's no way to live.

(see, I can say the same low quality thing you did and replace city with suburb)

Living in a large city has many huge benefits. Density of people leads to diversity and density in entertainment and food. Density means that you will find large groups of people that engage in the same esoteric hobbies.

Walking is amazingly free of worries. I thought biking (in urban areas) would be the same but at higher speed, it's not. When you get above 25 you become dangerous and cannot be mindless. Also securing a bike is nearly impossible unless in protected parking lots or private homes. (I've read many reports of robbers "hacking" into buildings in case some people left their bikes unlocked or with subpar safety mechanism).

Maybe with a cheap bike tracker in the frame...

Folding kick scooters are a good compromise for urban commutes. You can take a fall on them if you push hard or take a steep slope, but they generally aren't going to go above 15 mph, so it's more like running everywhere and you can walk in everywhere carrying it.

I never managed to get into those, somehow I got stuck at the skateboard era. They do look very practical.

Having biked in urban environments for quite some time, I've found the solution is is to have a crappy bike and a bigger lock than the next bike over. Note that a crappy bike doesn't have to be a bad bike, just not something flashy.

Yeah the only way is to make the ROI impossibly low. I made the mistake of thinking my old bike was crappy enough (low brand 90s thing with a broken pedal) to use two cable locks. Wrong. I was greeted with a McDonalds paperbag and the remains of these poor cables. Fat chain or U-Lock are mandatory.

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