Fuck Cars

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A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

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How is it that Germany and Japan can maintain good urban planning despite being home to some of the largest car companies? (self.fuckcars)

submitted 2 months ago by SpiceDealer to c/fuckcars

78 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Ever since ditching car culture and joining the urbanist cause (on the internet at least but that has to change), I've noticed that some countries always top the list when it comes to good urbanism. The first and most oblivious one tends to be The Netherlands but Germany and Japan also come pretty close. But that's strange considering that both countries have huge car industries. Germany is (arguably) the birthplace of the car (Benz Patent-Motorwagen) and is home to Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Japan is home to Toyota, Honda, Nissan and among others. How is it that these countries have been able to keep the auto lobby at bay and continue investing in their infrastructure?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Haha yes, the car is the German's favorite child, and complaining their favorite pastime.

That being said, I think there's more factors to it. Keep in mind that most German cities were in ruins after WWII, and plenty of buildings have been demolished to make room for cars.

The difference in electoral systems might play a role, where a green party could slowly, but steadily gain influence.

Railway infrastructure was already quite dense before mass motorization.

A lot of money has been spend to get through traffic out of town centers.

There's probably more to it ...

[–] orrk 2 points 2 months ago

Railway infrastructure was already quite dense before mass motorization.

the US used to be quite well connected via rail