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Comment by Earw0rm | Hacker News Reader

It's fine if people choose it.

It's not fine if that choice denies other people the choice not to.

And there seems to be a lot of the latter.

For example, when shopping facilities or hospitals are built so as to be, de-facto, only accessible by automobile, that locks people out of the choice to say no thanks.

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This is a regional problem. Legislation to require pedestrian accessibility would fix it.

Where I live every new development must build out sidewalks as a condition of permitting.

I don't follow, are people then not able to choose to live somewhere that has shopping facilities or hospitals that are built so as not to be only accessible by automobile?

We shouldn't have to completely upend our lives to move to the small handful of major cities that provide the infrastructure to exist comfortably without a car. At least in the US, your options are limited to NYC, Chicago, Boston, and maybe a few others (Seattle/SF). And even then, the hard set default in these major cities is car ownership EXCEPT for NYC.

How is Bumfuck MT, population 250, going to support the infrastructure to live comfortably without a car?

as someone who lives there, they're not. Nor is that what is being suggested, it's critiquing car-centric cities where not having a car is needlessly difficult. Population 250 isn't going to ban cars, but the city may discourage driving and provide ample facilities for those who don't have a car.

Well I do agree that city living should not require a car, although cars should be an option for those who need them. I just don’t think it’s realistic to expect rural areas to discourage car use. Not everyone in rural communities has a car, but for many they are essential.

> re people then not able to choose to live somewhere

No, because no such somewhere has been built in the country in question (US) in the past ~60 years, because the default is car-centric. So you're left with a few uber dense, old, predating automobiles, places. Which are extremely expensive, because they simply do not have the capacity for everyone who wants to live in them.

There are plenty of city centers that aren't super-expensive but probably don't have a lot of great local employment options and maybe aren't generally considered desirable--and don't have a lot of great transportation options to outlying areas though that's generally true of a lot of major Tier 1 cities as well. You prioritize your choices.

Yes, if such places are plentiful. It's a messy situation where revealed preference (house prices in walkable areas, Amsterdam and Paris increasingly full of rich young Americans) vs immediate consumer choice (more cars! More convenience! Oops, now we need to flatten downtown for an elevated freeway...) tend to give conflicting answers.

They exist, but usually they are expensive and in-demand areas because... people usually like walkable areas. Its a shame that more suburbs arent designed this way, because it doesnt even cost more money...just more thoughtfulness in how we should design our livable spaces.

Suburbs/car-dependecy is a classic case of "worse is better". Its simpler to build and the worst-case suburban sprawl is tolerable, so it proliferates.

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