"Fuck the absolute necessity of car ownership" I'd say strikes a balance.
But when people can't even afford cars, it becomes something even weirder than subsidising cars.
Small scale self dependence is a significant problem in the US (and many parts of the world) where the poor have been, through intentional historic policy, ghettoized. If you first scale back spending to maintenance levels, and then push against state level redistribution, you end up with pretty predictable results that look alot like the ghost of redlining come back to life. Even if you excise #2 from the platform, it's still the end result. By explicitly adopting strongtowns brand fiscal austerity, there just wont be money left to fund schools in poor neighborhoods.
Look, I'm not saying what we've got now is a perfect solution, far from it. I even think that if we could start from absolute scratch, there are some aspects of strong towns that would solve some of today's ills. But we have poor cities, of every makeup, size, demographic, and skin color, and I don't think that "market urbanism" (ie the same market forces that got us to where we are today albeit with stronger federation) can get us out.
Edit: I guess I should clarify that my criticism of strong towns applies equally to economically destroyed rural communities, who make up the largest recipients of food stamps in America.
When we’re talking about government services that literally everyone uses multiple times over it stops being a subsidy and starts being “we all pay for it collectively.”
> Exempting pickup trucks and SUVs from emissions laws
> Lack of vehicle safety laws to protect pedestrians and cyclists
> A mortgage interest deduction drives suburban sprawl
> Pedestrians have limited ability to sue drivers
> Pedestrians can’t sue car makers for defects
> Hit and runs are rarely prosecuted
> Out-of-pocket car expenses don’t cover the cost of roads
> That’s right: Registration fees, rising gas prices, insurance, and toll booths don’t come close to covering the cost of roadways. The federal gas tax hasn’t gone up since 1993, under-pacing inflation along with state gas taxes. The difference is recouped with universal taxes that pay no attention to how often a person drives.
-- https://stacker.com/society/how-driving-subsidized-america
Also: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/02/09/study-car-ownership-c... , https://medium.com/radical-urbanist/cars-gets-billions-in-hi... , https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180092...