"The Age of the Car Is Over": Fewer and Fewer Private Cars in Berlin | Hacker News Reader

"The Age of the Car Is Over": Fewer and Fewer Private Cars in Berlin

morgenpost.de

5 pointsdoener5 comments

This is only (possibly) true in big cities. In the burbs, or rural areas, not so much. It always amuses me how pundits take a look at big city life and assume that everybody lives that way. Much of America will never, ever be urbanized. It's just too damn vast.

Migration is and will continue to be to urban areas (more than half the world, ~4B people currently live in urban areas, as of this comment). With respect to the US rural areas, they will continue to clear out over time, which is important to consider so as to not invest in more auto centric infra that will be stranded assets (and the US already has ~$50T in existing federal debt liabilities, as of this comment, and no one is willing to increase the federal gas tax to pay for auto infra).

A leading indicator in this regard, US centric, is k-12 school, college, church ["place of worship"], and hospital closures in rural areas; once anchor employers and critical infrastructure close, the population death spiral is not far behind. More US farmers being over 75 versus under 35 is also a factor, as most US rural areas are ag driven and supported, economically speaking.

Citations:

Our World In Data: Urbanization - https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization - Published September 2018, text updates made in March 2025.

Our World In Data: Share of population living in urban areas, 1950 to 2025 - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-urban...

Our World In Data: Share of population living in urban areas vs. GDP per capita, 2024 - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/urbanization-vs-gdp

U.S. Family Farms Face Record Aging and Rising Bankruptcies Crisis - https://www.agrolatam.com/news/u-s-family-farms-face-record-... - February 15th, 2026

Half of All US Rural Counties Are Losing Population. What Is Contributing to Those Declines? - https://dailyyonder.com/half-of-all-rural-counties-are-losin... - April 15th, 2026

Depopulation, Deaths, Diversity, and Deprivation: The 4Ds of Rural Population Change - RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences January 2025, 11 (2) 88-114; DOI: https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2025.11.2.05

‘Too many old people’: A rural Pa. town reckons with population loss - https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/06/23/rural-ameri... | https://archive.today/4EtHj - June 23rd, 2024 ("81 percent of rural counties had more deaths than births between 2019 and 2023")

Rural America Lost Population Over the Past Decade for the First Time in History - https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/rural-america-lost-popula... - February 22, 2022

(think in systems)

Additional citation:

Transportation After the Age of Expansion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48679891 - June 2026

Imagine intentionally trying to destroy a whole industry your country is known for worldwide along with all the jobs that come with it and celebrating it.

The age of affording a car OR having affordable public transportation is over.

"You'll own nothing and be happy"

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