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That's called "being wealthy." Being wealthy enables you to escape a lot of the problems that not having a car involves, because you can just throw money at the problem to overcome it. A lot of people are not wealthy and cannot do this.

There's also a bit of good fortune involved. I was young, single, and healthy. But I'm older now, and there are times when I simply cannot afford to use public transit or walk. If you get the flu, you don't even have the choice; walking fifteen minutes to get medicine or food is agony. And you always have to walk fifteen minutes, just to get to the transit spot. You feel the weather a lot more as you age; a brisk rain shower is rougher on you at 40 than at 20.

And come on, what can be more totalitarian than restricting the ability of people to move beyond a tiny radius apart from communal vehicles that can be shut down on a whim?

I think you are evaluating many things from an American context and you reveal that you are older. IMHO the problem with American environments are that they're often semi-explicitly designed around the car. If you are used to a car, not having one is probably a horrible prospect. However, as you explicitly discussed aging, you can't put your head in the sand - obviously eventually you won't be able to drive a car, so you'd better get ready for it. Most of the US likely won't change quickly enough to lessen that challenge for you, but perhaps with younger generations behind change one day that issue won't be faced by others.

You can drive a car a lot longer than you can walk. I could do a 30 minute walk as a younger person, but now it's something I could only do as a special thing, not every day to a job. Society will not be able to redesign for this; if anything it's other people who own cars that act as caregivers for housebound seniors as their work.

Oh, wow, that's not my experience at all. Most of my older relatives and their friends walked 30m/day into their 80s, long after they no longer had the reflexes or eyesight to be safe drivers.

The thing with walking is that it's very much a "use it or lose it" thing; people who never owned cars are much more likely to keep walking.

Can I ask what age you? You should easily be able to walk 30 min at any age short of 60, unless you have relates health issues. If you can't then you need to seriously consider improving your health.

My dad is 66 and can easily walk for hours. I think the problem here is strictly health issues, not age. (Obviously, health issues often come with age... but age itself is not the limiting factor at all!)

> And you always have to walk fifteen minutes, just to get to the transit spot.

I know a lot of broke people who live within less than a two minute walk of a bus stop and could not possibly afford a car. You might want to consider how the built environment has dictated your choices.

You've clearly never lived in pedestrian friendly environment. The nearest transit spot in areas with good public transport is a 5 min walk max. The nearest shop or doctors/dentist or bar/restaurant is 10-15min max and as another poster said you can easily use a taxi in cases of illness.

Also on the point of cost, cars are incredibly expensive, especially in the US where everyone seems to have massive vehicles. If you live without one, in a pedestrian friendly area you'd find the costs of using a bus or subway would be a small fraction of your car costs.

cars are incredibly expensive, especially in the US where everyone seems to have massive vehicles.

Actually cars are dirt cheap in the US compared to Europe. Taxes are low, second hand cars can be had for basically nothing, and gas is cheap.

I agree that not owning a car would be better than owning. But simply saying "you should move to a better place" is not only a privileged statement but also a callous one. You assume people are not in a place for important reasons like staying close to family, working for a company they like, simply loving where they live or not being able to afford living to an urban environment. These are all valid and if not owning a car is too prohibitive to basic life needs than a person should own a car.

Also, the Americans or Australians comment is a bit of a broad stoke, no?

I personally choose not to live in a freezing place, and most people can do that. Even without crossing a border intra-EU/CN/US/AU moves achieve this goal.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... and order by 'emission per capita'.

You exchange freezing for warming, as if walking in 100 degree temperatures works any more than 0 degrees.

This is true, but you can also petition your local authorities for better public transport, bike lanes etc. You can campaign against urban sprawl. One of the issues at the moment is complete lack of awareness of any alternative to car centric urban planning.

>Counter point. Late 30s here, family, no car, no license. I use cabs all the time, it's great. I have a fine social life and can drink safely. I can rent houses and move about for work, then change countries without offloading assets at fire-sale prices. I choose not to live in an unpleasant climate, so snow is a non-issue for me. Have you considered the option that maybe you just don't get it?

There's nothing to "get". His experiences are his experiences. I've also tried the living-without-a-car thing, and in both Atlanta and the Bay Area, it's about as fun as... I don't know, walking on hot coals or something. The fact that you feel otherwise (while living on a salary that allows you to talk about "offloading assets") doesn't invalidate his actual life.

> noise, visual and air pollution, danger,

How is calling a taxi every time you need a car any better than using a car you own in these areas? I do agree that the need for parking spaces is improved.

Reduced need to dedicate public space to storing private vehicles, a more efficient fleet (since they're incentivizes to optimize for cost/mi), no time spent looking or paying for parking, no need to maintain or fuel a vehicle, reduced risk of impaired driving, more experienced/capable drivers, freedom to switch between transit modes (cycle/walk somewhere but call a car to get back due to time of day/weather), often cheaper than owning a vehicle after considering all costs (depreciation, maintenance, insurance).

Outside a sufficiently dense city the pros might not outweigh the cons, but if walking/cycling/transit can cover most of your travel you probably don't need a car for the other half. I only have one for leaving the the city.

>> I can rent houses and move about for work, then change countries without offloading assets at fire-sale prices.

Um. Do you have... kids? Spouse?