[ylhert]

The car has done so much damage to our world and most people are completely blind to it. Obesity, climate change, isolation/loneliness, excess deaths/injuries from collisions, out of control housing costs, can all be tied back in a major way to car centric society. And yet people will defend their car and the "convenience" of it like their life depends on it, and force it down the throats of everyone around them. Boggles the mind.

[carapace]

If it helps, it's the result of a deliberate domestic propaganda campaign. I usually point to "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM for the story.

We can see what traffic was like just as motorized carriages began to mix with pedestrians and horses. Here is "San Francisco, a Trip down Market Street, April 14, 1906" upscaled and colorized: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO_1AdYRGW8

You can see that, at low speeds and modest density, carriages and pedestrians flow together just fine. Although I'm sure there were still lots of accidents, everyone is more-or-less sharing the space. You can already see the problem brewing: horseless carriages can accelerate much faster than horse-drawn carriages.

[zeristor]

Maybe this is the great filter as to why we don't see any Extraterrestrial Civilisations, once they get to the 'car' they wither.

[asdff]

The modern human sits for 95% of the day. We evolved to forage out in the environment for resources, not to wake up just to sit at breakfast then sit in the car then sit at work then sit in the car then sit in front of the tv or computer then sleep. It's no wonder so many people have issues with maintaining a healthy weight when they literally aren't moving in a given day.

[sebnukem2]

I argue that the car is mankind's worst invention, by many metrics.

[datadata]

How would you tie housing costs to cars?

[closeparen]

Car-oriented development seems to scale efficiently - bringing in a lot of new, cheap land - up until you hit the level of traffic that people will tolerate. Then it's done. New neighborhoods take too long to commute from. Densifying existing neighborhoods threatens parking, which people who live there still need, because they still live in an overall car-dependent metro. Overlaying public transit doesn't do much either, since people's origins and destinations are evenly dispersed instead of clustering around stations like they would in a real public transit city. Without transportation capacity there's no growth, and without growth it's a zero sum competition for existing homes.

You can get a whole hell of a lot further before you hit the physical limits of public transit network architectures.

[celtain]

Housing density becomes a problem above a certain level if everyone expects to use a car. Parking and traffic become annoying if not crippling, so communities widely support and enact bans on denser residential development.

Restricting supply like this can be fine if demand doesn't grow, but it can be a huge problem for housing affordability if your local economy is booming.

[warning26]

Easy, supply and demand. Before cars, dense housing was the norm, but cars popularized spreading everything out as much as possible so you have room for wide roads and lots of parking.

Less density -> less housing overall -> decreased supply -> increased prices

[eagleinparadise]

Subterranean parking costs $40-70k per stall

A developer can only build if they can achieve a 5-6% return on total costs

So 5% of $50k = $2,500 of income, or assuming 30% expenses, $2,500 / 70% margin = $3,500 of income needed per stall per year, or almost $300 per month per stall of underground parking provided

Surface parking is less expensive, like $10-20k/stall but you get the point.