Hacker News Reader

Comment by joncp | Hacker News Reader

... and a car to haul all that stuff, and time to drive to the nearest Costco.

It really is a luxury that a ton of people can't afford.

Time to go and acquire necessary food stuff is not a luxury in any reasonable framing. What is the alternative, eating drive-thru every day or having Instacart deliver overpriced groceries?

I believe eating food from street vendors was the usual way for paupers until quite recently. Recall that it was common to rent a bed for a few hours and share it with someone who worked different shifts.

Indeed. And I say this as Costco member. There are lot of factors that make Costco memberships work. And a lot of people won't be able to make much benefit out of Costco membership.

I say this as someone who admires their business model and how they treat customers & employees: your typical Costco experience is drive to the suburbs, spend $500 and load up your car with nice to have food products and discretionary purchases. Poorer people cannot do any of these things.

Why is car a luxury? A clunker car worth $2000 will still work fine for years with minor maintenance that can be done by yourself.

Oh, yeah. Cities. Cars are expensive when you live in a 100 sq. ft. box.

Perhaps that's what is causing problems?

The cost of the car itself is minimal compared to insurance, gas and storage costs.

What "storage"? You put it on your driveway. The minimum liability insurance around here is about $50 a month.

Some people do not own a driveway or a car space. There is an active rental market just for that.

A competently planned city makes car ownership unnecessary.

A competently planned _country_ makes cities that only seem to create generational poverty unnecessary.

Sprawl comes from urban planning. I think you mean to say a certain approach to planning makes it unnecessary.

There's no way to plan a city so most people can walk to a Costco. Warehouse stores are an inherently car-based phenomenon.

They don't require everyone to own a car. At the very least, they can run an efficient delivery service. And there's got to be a way to make a 3 hour rental or single taxi drive once a month much cheaper than owning a car.

The $2000 daily driver died with covid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com