A car is often essential in the US but while owning a vehicle is better than not for life satisfaction, a study has found, having to drive too much sends happiness plummeting
The United States, with its enormous highways, sprawling suburbs and neglected public transport systems, is one of the most car-dependent countries in the world. But this arrangement of obligatory driving is making many Americans actively unhappy, new research has found
Everything is about money in this fucking country. Every single decision the government makes HAS to revolve around profit and is powered by bribes. We are a dry pie that the shareholders are trying to squeeze even drier. We will never be like the rest of the world until we get money out of politics. Nothing will ever get done. Only what the rich wants done. . Fuck this country.
Not everything; some things are about racism. Suburban sprawl and car dependency owe a lot to white flight to suburbs with racial covenants and racist urban-planning decisions like Robert Moses making overpasses on roads to suburbs too low for buses to keep the minorities contained in the ghettos. The idea of retreating to defensible space (in a suburban cul-de-sac or a personal car) also raises the question of who one is expecting to defend against.
do logistics and it takes me sixteen hours to get to work and sixteen hours back to home with lots of driving while at work
only way out is for the United States to become an actual United States that have the same living wages and worker rights in all states, caps on housing and food costs in all states, require same environmental protections across all states, up education standards across all the states to the same levels, upping the funding amount on public transportation inside and out of states
car dependency is centered around where you live as travel is intentionally hobbled by high costs and other barriers because people that are stuck where they are at and dependent are unable to travel to see or share to other people and ways of life thus keeping the old ways going and the populace contained