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Originally Posted by Drybrain
Cars = freedom is very simplistic.
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Sometimes a simple truth is the most powerful.
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Cars have been beneficial in lots of ways, but they’ve also enabled the creation of far-flung and car-dependent suburbs, where huge numbers of people who can’t drive—too old, too young, too poor, or with some mental or physical disabilities—are basically trapped.
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Presumably they moved there at some point when they could drive. And are free to move again.
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Mid-century car-centric planning devastated neighbourhoods, ran highways through communities, and left huge scars in them in the form of parking facilities, roads and other car-oriented uses (look at all the housing stock ripped down over the decades in the north end and replaced with autobody shops and the like). They’ve created air and noise pollution (in my neighbourhood in summer, the drone of souped-up sports cars is constant).
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Any city neighborhood is under constant construction so the point is moot. Look at the number of old 1 and 2-storey wooden buildings wiped out for the construction of office towers and the like. Change is constant anf you cannot go back to the Victorian era.
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So yes, cars had many wonderful benefits, but they’ve also created more than their share of negative effects, in terms of health, community cohesion, and even the aesthetics of our cities. In our cultural enthusiasm for them, we went too far in years past and let them take over. Now we’re winding that back partially, and that’s fine. There is a generation that grew post—1950s thinking cars were the ultimate expression of personal freedom and mobility, and they might be perceive any little rollback on total automobile dominance as a “war” on cars, but that’s their problem to deal with.
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Hopefully one that is dealt with by voting out those pushing for this sort of revisionism.
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