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Comment by Tiktaalik | Hacker News Reader

NA has designed its cities to require a car and has not paid any thought to how this isolates and erodes the quality of life of the elderly once they cannot legally drive due to health reasons. Whoops.

As boomers age it'll get worse.

Yet another reason we need to redesign our cities.

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Economics of profiting from misery will prevent any effective change as numerous industries actually make more money from this state of affairs.

This won't change until/unless civic participation in government increases.

Jesus christ, this is the most depressingly real comment I've read in my life.

I don't completely agree. As Camus once said: "hell is other people". As prosperity increased people fled each others company thinking that being in isolation would rid them of social anxiety. There was little consideration for the results, which is profound loneliness.

Great, I agree - now do a bit more analysis and regress one step further - who profits from this? Why is this a problem now, rather than say, 50 years ago?

>do a bit more analysis and regress one step further - who profits from this?

Home builders making individual houses and possibly therapists and pharma making anti depression pills. Did I miss any?

>Why is this a problem now, rather than say, 50 years ago?

People shared bedrooms, went to communal bath houses for example and there was a stronger family unit most likely due to societal customs.

You mixed up your Frenchmen. It was Sartre from his play "No Exit".

It isn't contained to single cities. I don't know of a single family I grew up with where at least one if not all of the kids no longer live in the city they grew up in. Same goes for extended families. My cousins are scattered across the country as are my husband’s. I’m around and so are my aunts and uncles, so my parents aren’t lonely, but I think this is more the exception than the rule. I don’t think this can be boiled down to a city transportation problem. There is a larger erosion of community stability that needs to be addressed across the board.

This is one of the things I hate most about living in the US. Europe was so much more connected and accessible. Even rural places mostly had public transport. Where I live now there is nothing. I have no car of my own and have to borrow one to get into "town". No tram, bus, train to pop on when needed. It is a massive negative in quality of life.

My entire life I have heard the excuses, but it boils down to the reason that most other things here that are wrong...are wrong...because individualism is seen as proper and better than social systems of all types.

I've lived in Europe and Asia and of course, it is much easier to get somewhere on public transit than it is in my hometown of Toronto.

However, driving my car in Toronto is so, so much nicer than even the best public transit I've experienced (Hong Kong or Tokyo). I felt a decent amount of friction going places because "ugggh, I have to take this line and switch lines there and then walk and oh, btw, it's raining and 33 degrees celsius outside".

I guess for me the attention driving requires, the stress of other drivers trying to kill me, and vehicle costs, parking etc all outweigh the "on demand" nature of it for me. I found having public transport available actually increased my social interaction.

"NA" didn't design these cities, it was the old people who did it to themselves and, now, the younger people too. The best part is they're still showing up at planning commission hearings all over the country angrily demanding that their car-choked hellscapes be preserved in amber for all time.

> once they cannot legally drive due to health reasons

The state of Florida used a simple hack to solve this problem. They just let 'em keep driving no matter what.

Driving through my granny's subdivision is like a game of bumper cars lol.

Even some non-car-centric housing situations can lead to isolation. I've lived in a couple of mid- to high-rise buildings in walkable neighborhoods where you pretty much don't see any of your neighbors except some who live on the same floor as you.

Small (walk-up-sized) apartment buildings and co-housing arrangements seem to be some of the best for striking a balance between meddling and isolation.

Yes this is the "most right" answer among this entire thread of comments and even missing from the article. We have literally designed ourselves into isolation and we wonder why we are lonely?

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