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Comment by mynameisbilly | Hacker News Reader

The isolation produced by centering our urban and suburban design around cars is pronounced. It cannot be understated how much damage cars have done to our sense of connectedness, community, walkability, and health.

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And yet, watch all these consumers deciding they want something different from what you're proclaiming is better for them.

Human consciousness is dictated by their material conditions, not the other way around. If the material reality of many Americans is unhealthy foods and heavily car-centric urban design, where does the "decision" to walk and take public transit come from? It is genuinely not an option for the vast majority of Americans to live in a walkable and/or public transit supported community if the infrastructure does not exist.

And this wasn't due to consumer choice, either. Decades of policy dictated the shift towards car centrism that resulted in railways and street cars being torn up, the construction of the interstate highway system and destruction of dense urban cores, zoning law mandates and parking minimums, federal subsidies for suburban mortgages, etc.

This "choice" or "decision" was manufactured by car lobbyists.

It’s not exactly a free choice when the built environment and infrastructure is designed around a single mode of transport. I can’t just “choose to cycle” when there are no bike paths, or “choose to walk” when things are spread out and separated by impassible freeways as to make it impossible. Look up the various ways the oil and automotive lobby has influenced city planning over the years – it might become a little more obvious who has the “free choice” here, and it’s not consumers.

It's not just a matter of preference or proclamation. There are decades of research showing that more walkable neighborhoods are associated with higher physical activity levels, lower rates of some chronic diseases, more interaction with neighbors, and stronger feelings of community. The debate is usually about how large those effects are and whether they're worth the trade-offs, not whether the effects exist at all.

Yes, yes, totally dismiss the agency of people who inconveniently don't like what you want them to like. Their preferences mean nothing, their actions must be dictated.

I'd be more angry with you if I wasn't amused at the frustration you must be feeling in failing to get traction for your dystopian vision.

You're making a lot of unwarranted assumptions about me: I'm not dismissing agency. I don't feel people making decisions is inconvenient. I don't not like their decisions. Their preferences do not mean nothing. I'm not dictating their actions.

I own and drive 2 cars.

I'll just stop there. I don't feel this conversation can continue in a positive way.

Walkable neighborhoods and cities that aren't car centric being a "dystopian vision" is laughable. Thankfully, the default for car brains across much of the globe is car centric urban design.

You people never fail to be ridiculously dramatic.

You can see the same outcomes in cities that are walkable and interconnected. Its to complicated of a problem to point to cars as a major factor.

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