One thing that I dislike about living in America is having to deal with Car reliance. Unlike a lot of areas in Europe or in Asia, you definitely cannot get by very easily in America without having a car. You cannot go out and walk to a nearby grocery store or convience store to get basics like food, water, supplies, etc without having to have a car since many stores and recreational areas are spread apart. This is mainly due to the fact that many places in America were built up after cars were invented and many automobile companies alongside oil companies lobbied the transportation infrastructure in America to be reliant on Cars. These companies also tried to get rid of existing forms of public transportation like trolleys. There are also zoning laws that make it so buisnesses, residental areas, and shopping areas have to be segregated in seperate arwas.
It is definitely somewhat isolating living in an area where you have to have a car to go places. You cannot meet or interact with new people very easily since everyone is stuck in their car. I think this is apart of the reason why some people spend all day in their rooms playing video games or on social media. The neighborhood I live in doesn't even have a park nearby without having to drive to one which means I cannot go "touch grass" or go out walking/excersizing easily.
Owning and maintaining a car is relatively expense. According to this artcle from cbtnews which will be linked below, a price of a new car is around $47,000 and the price of a used car is around $27,000. The website doesn't mention the car payment on a new car but the car payment for a used car is on average $548. This doesn't factor car insurance which my mom pays around $300-$400 a month for(in California at least it is illegal to not have car insurance), paying for gas which for the car I am using costs about $50-$60 to fill up a low tank to a full tank, you sometimes need to get an oil change which costs less than $100. and you may need to ocassionally repair your car which costs about $1000-$2000. Imagine how much money people would save if you could just walk or bike to a nearby grocery store and if you wanted to go to a place that is further away from your home, you could take a train or a bus to get there.
There are definitely some people in America that are against trying to make cities and areas less reliant on cars. People say that rich or upper middle class people have to deal with poor people or the homeless more and any potiental crime those groups may bring. You can definitely get around cities like Tokyo or Seoul easily without a car and those cities are much safer than any American city. I may make another article discussing the issue of homelessness and poverty in America. And I do not think it is a bad thing that people from different socioeconomic backgrounds live next to each other and in fact creates less tension and division of people of different economic statuses
There are some right wing Americans who are against it because they think that if places were easily walkable/bikeable and had good public transportation then the people who are in power are going to take away people cars(this is definetely retarded to think this way about trying to get rid of car reliance)
It is definitely not good how many areas in America are so reliant on cars and I ish it wasn't like this so I wouldn't have to deal with the cost, responsiblility, and maintance of having a car.
Sources
Price of new and used cars of of 2024
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