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Comment by MarcScott | Hacker News Reader

I take it you live in an area with good public transportation, or maybe you work from home and have shops within cycling distance of where you live.

Workers need to get to work, and there are tradeoffs. Unless you want your local sewage treatment plant, the fat rendering factory, or the refuse landfill within walking distance of your house.

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Here's one of sewage treatment plants in Copenhagen [1]. As you can see, there are bus stops about 3 minutes walk away on Stamholmen, and Avedøre Station is about 10 minutes walk (or a brief cycle) north.

[1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/i2ywzokrGMaZSJnR9

Like GP said, problems caused by cars. Why isn't there good public transport? Because of cars. Why aren't there shops within cycling distance? Because of cars. Why do people live so far away from work? Because of cars. Etc etc.

> Why do people live so far away from work? Because of cars.

And this is a good thing, or bad?

Bad? What possible upside is there to having a longer, more expensive, stressful and soul-destroying commute to work every day?

Bigger salary and bigger perspectives and mainly: choice.

Workers can get to work without needing cars. Buses and trains exist. The reason why they don't in many cities is because people in the 40s and 50s collectively decided that cars are better, entire cities were designed around them, and designing cities for cars complicates public transportation planning.

> Workers need to get to work, and there are tradeoffs.

I think the GP's point was that there _are_ tradeoffs, _and_ that we as a society ignore and avoid actually measuring and confronting the actual harms this way of life brings (possibly because they are actually standing and overwhelming to face; possibly because the problems seem depressingly intractable; possibly because of the effects of propaganda imposed on us our whole lives by big oil and the auto industry).

And do not have kids.

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