[corodra]

Yea, but if we're going to follow the logic of the article, the Harris Poll’s Alienation Index had American alienation at 29% in 1966. Car culture and the general structure of most towns were already mature at that point. I think the reliant of blaming car culture in America is a red herring to point away from not just the digital revolution but also the 90s media blitz. Late 80s and especially the 90s saw a real rapid change in the way we consume just about anything and everything. The VHS tape really came into power in the 90s, meaning most people didn't have to go out and sit in a large room of strangers to see hollywood movies anymore.

While I do understand (and personally do like) places being close together so I can walk around. Don't pretend that city life is the perfect solution. There's the Rat Park experiment that showed utopian cities are not the answer and it plays out in the human psyche as well. People who live in cities are not necessarily happier than those in rural communities. There's a few NGOs that do happiness surveys across the globe. While living in a city may make you richer and maybe even technically healthier in some aspects, very few are happier than their rural counterparts.

Just saying, it's definitely more complicated than just "car culture".

[plytheman]

This is a little aside from the topic at hand but do you have any links or literature to expound on the 90s media blitz you mention? I was born in 87 and so grew up with only a faint impression of the 80s through what was lingering into the 90s. From talking to people older than me and looking at various media I can't help feeling like society took a hard turn in the 80s and through-out the 90s to where we are today. I've largely thought that it was due to a combination of technology and corporations/consumerism but I've never read or heard anyone else make that link until your comment.

[asdfman123]

Well, I think it's probably that we live in an economy that has been exponentially expanding for centuries. Workers are producing more, information is flowing faster, and everything is just moving more quickly.

I think what we have is the result of trying to optimize for sales and profits. You must always sell more this quarter than last quarter. It's just picked up, year by year over the decades.

Besides, I've always heard that society took a hard turn after WWII. All those factories had to keep producing something, so they reconfigured to producing consumer goods.

[asdfman123]

Oh, sure, I mainly meant I felt how isolating car culture is, too.

I pretty much have to live somewhat near a reasonably busy running trail. Sometimes, I think I go running just to see other human faces even if we have no interaction. It was especially true when I had an 100% remote work job.

I like to live near cool hangouts in the city where people regularly walk by, not because I leave the house that often, but because as a classic introvert I feed on other people's happy vibes.

[corodra]

Yea, I'm not picking on you about the car culture thing (sorry if it seemed so). I'm just getting irked by it because I've been seeing that comment so often the past year as "America bad because America likes cars, car culture bad". There's just way many to these issues than just cars.

And, I agree, maybe too much reliance of cars in this country. I can totally agree we should focus on increasing the walk-ability of many communities. But, you can't deny having the ability to say at any moment, "I feel like going 30 miles somewhere, at my choosing and route" is a bad thing. I've been through 3 different public transit systems, (Portland, Seattle and Denver). Portland was the best out of the three. But knowing you are wasting 15 minutes waiting for public transit, then another 10-15 minutes of time to get there due to stops and general traffic (25-30 min) for essentially a 10 minute car ride... yea... It's great in plenty of situations, but is annoying as hell in just as many. The fact that my mobility is not dictated by someone else, yes, to me, is worth the extra monthly cost in comparison of daily use public transit tickets.

[halfnormalform]

Are we talking about the same Rat Park? The rats in the utopian cities gave up using drugs.