this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
128 points (95.7% liked)

Personal Finance

3773 readers
32 users here now

Learn about budgeting, saving, getting out of debt, credit, investing, and retirement planning. Join our community, read the PF Wiki, and get on top of your finances!

Note: This community is not region centric, so if you are posting anything specific to a certain region, kindly specify that in the title (something like [USA], [EU], [AUS] etc.)

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] themeatbridge 1 points 8 months ago

Cars were the infrastructure that allowed sprawling development. People could drive out to the middle of nowhere, buy some land, and build a house and a grocery store. Towns didn't need a train station or a bus station to grow, and neighborhoods could be located farther from the noise and pollution of high-traffic areas.

It's not good or bad, it's just what it is. Cars are a part of the fabric of American society. Chasing civilization with train tracks and subways will cost far more now than if we had built our residential neighborhoods around public transit. But that's not what happened.