Haha, my experience is people buying cars feel poorer, not wealthier. Car payments, maintenance, insurance, taxes, fuel... and as soon as you finish paying it off, it's basically EOL. Time to start paying for the next one.
The thing is in the US cars are traditionally a huge part of the economic engine. So they get preference. You see something similar in Germany though not nearly as bad.
The average age of a car on the road in the US today is now more than 11 years. The average new car loan is just less than 6 years. Beyond that, it's all just a different set of trade-offs. Aside from living somewhere truly dense with fantastic public transit and only going places reachable by said transit, owning a car means less time spent on transportation, and infinitely more flexibility on where you go. Lots of people prefer the lifestyle. Even in Europe cars remain quite popular.
>owning a car means less time spent on transportation
See, that's how drivers think. "I need to spend less time in transportation", because it's miserable for them. You don't even consciously think about it, but subconsciously, you hate being in that car. I like riding the train. It's fun. Even the old Amtrak trains are fun to ride. I can enjoy a beer if I want. There's one cute conductor who flirts with me. I'm not getting any of that in a car.
>Lots of people prefer the lifestyle.
How many "prefer" it because they have never tried any other way. Sitting there alone, rage listening to talk radio in gridlock. No thanks. Cars are antisocial. Been there, done that, I don't care for it.
I hear the cope though, about how cars are "freedom" and can "go anywhere," but when you don't have a car for a while, you begin to realize how cars are the opposite of freedom. Cars are an anchor. Everywhere you go, you have to worry about where to put the car. You can't get too far away from the car. If you have to feed a parking meter, you can barely get a block away from the car. Can't even finish the movie, let's go back to the parking meter. You always have to go back to the car, you can't just continue on your journey and leave it behind. That's not an option. Go back to the car.
Once you have no need for a car, only then do you realize what a slave you were to the car.
Totally agree, I didn't realise how much of an issue this was.
I often go somewhere, walk 25km and go back from a totally different station. With a car this would have made me so uneasy knowing I still have to make my way back. Knowing I can do whatever I decide in the moment really makes me feel easy.
> See, that's how drivers think. "I need to spend less time in transportation", because it's miserable for them. You don't even consciously think about it, but subconsciously, you hate being in that car. I like riding the train. It's fun. Even the old Amtrak trains are fun to ride. I can enjoy a beer if I want. There's one cute conductor who flirts with me. I'm not getting any of that in a car.
Well personally I hate transportation too, but the car was more of a phenomenon. I had a car because I lived 70km from work. Now I live close and no longer need a car, and I waste less time on commute.
I personally find driving very stressful and wasteful of my time so I hate cars. Even when I had one from work. In fact that was worse because they only give you a work car because the job involves loads of driving. Even though the tax man wanted lots of money for something I didn't even want in the first place.