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Comment by CSMastermind | Hacker News Reader

Grew up in a rural area but have lived in many places now including cities and suburbs.

Totally agree with your point though: a large segment of the car hatred movement types strike me as lacking significant perspective.

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I would probably qualify as being in the car hatred movement but I don’t lump in rural areas. I do believe that cities should be largely car free. Cars belong in rural areas but when coming into a city should park outside and take rapid / convenient public transport into the city. This transition is already happening in many international cities.

That said, even rural areas shouldn’t require cars nearly as much as they do in the US now. Trains can service rural areas as well the same as they do in Europe.

I live in SE Europe, 800k city, part of EU. This notion that public transport is well developed over here applies only to more developed parts of the continent. I am in Croatia and trains are... a joke to say the least. In a 800k city we don't have any notion of rapid urban transit. For us a tram is best you can get. Recently I took public transport for fun, took me 1h to get 9km and that's in 8pm, when there is no peak traffic.

I have to drive a car everywhere.

The problem with rural areas and cars is not usually getting from unincorporated settlement to the big city, it’s getting from your home in an unincorporated settlement to the Main Street of the closest city with a Walmart. Especially as you look eastward into the US, there is a spider web of tiny junction cites, settlements, town, etc, all would be difficult to serve with mass transit effectively.

My main beef as someone living in cities is suburbanites wanting to impose all the costs of their lifestyle on those living in the actual city. The need for automobiles in actual rural places is fairly obvious.

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