It's a shame that questioning car dependency is becoming a culture war issue, but it feels kind of inevitable. There is a conservative case to be made against car dependent societies, but the voices on the left are just more numerous and vocal on this issue. Their messaging, which often invokes climate change, turns off conservatives, or worse, sets off a backlash like what we saw with the "15 minute city" conspiracy theories.
How many of them have any idea that Russell Kirk hated the car because it radically upended communities and social conventions? A right-wing argument against the car!
Why should telling the truth turn people off. When I sit down with my neighbors, several are very conservative, discussing the environment (once a conservative issue, remember Nixon, a big conservationist?) they are all for common sense in protecting the environment. But there is some insidious (Murdoch?) element pushing a message that clean air and water are for pussies. That real men breath carbon monoxide and lead.
"This is because it is effectively impossible to treat driving with the seriousness it calls for and demands, and also rely on driving to do almost everything." Very true!
I like that Addison Del Mastro writes about how urbanism should be a non-partisan issue. As a mom, I think there are so many points to be made about how total car dependency is not family friendly.
Thank you! Yes, it should be nonpartisan. It doesn't make any sense to try to force this issue into the political nonsense, but we try to do that with everything, don't we?
So true. It annoyed me when I had to drive my kids everywhere until they were old enough to drive themselves because there were no busses and a bike paths and walking is a challenge when five months out of the year the streets and side walks are covered in snow and ice.
Yes! For all the bluster about kids and teens using their phones and tablets too much, there's been no real movement to give young people accessible community spaces. Sidewalks, parks, and public transit could give them better ways to socialize and to just be. Instead we blame parents and kids for excess screentime when in actuality a lot of it is an infrastructure problem.
See the Beach Boys' "Fun Fun Fun" -- composed in an era when getting into the driver's seat was a rite of passage (into a long-awaited freedom) -- and when "dependency" meant riding the bus.
You would think conservatives would support transportation options that put less of a financial strain on infrastructure and encourage people to maintain better health by walking, riding a bike or using public transit to get to work. Unfortunately the right wing has become obsessed with culture wars driven by conspiracy theories. The day I heard them complaining about 15 minute cities was the day I knew that every facet of life no matter how minor would be radicalized into a culture war by these people.
I even stopped jokingly using the terminally online urbanist phrase "ban cars" because I wanted to stop even in a small way radicalizing the discourse about non car-centric infrastructure but I doubt it would do much good
I'm as conservative as the day is long and am the largest good urbanism/walkable city person in my circle. All my traditionally conservative friends and family have only ever heard about the worst excesses of leftist rhetoric when it comes to urbanism.
Optics matter!
I have found that appeals to beauty (highways are ugly, good streets are beautiful), comfort and convenience (lower volume with less road traffic, peaceful walk to stores that don't require a 30 minute drive), and economic viability (car-dependent sprawl is always going to fall into disrepair, it's too expensive) have all proved as great inroads for conversations.
"Appeals to beauty (highways are ugly, good streets are beautiful)"?
Have you ever gone for a drive up the Taconic, or down the coast road to Santa Cruz? There's a special sort of freedom (and, quite literally, empowerment) in being able to experience that beauty (and access a variety of shops and restaurants, far and wide) as readily as one might walk to the corner store.
As for the cost of maintaining the requisite infrastructure? That's indeed a political question. I'm a Pat Brown Democrat. "A(n electric) car in every garage"!
I think a very thing to bring up is like what you mentioned, that many would prefer a pleasant walk to the neighborhood store for something quick rather than a 30 min drive. When I grew up in a small town my parents regularly sent me to run to the store, something that I couldn't imagine a lot of people sending preteens to teenagers to do in the suburbs I live in now. I think economic viability is a little harder since so many don't know how costly car-centric sprawl is. Many times I've found that even people not opposed to not driving don't know things like where the local bus is, where the routes go or how often it comes. Getting them to try to take the bus where they don't have to deal with driving or costs to park is something I'll usually push for especially mentioning that they can sit there and play on their phone instead of dealing with other drivers.
Bringing up the aesthetics of neighborhood streets is a good point and I'll try to mention that more often in these conversations.
Being in the driver's seat means not having to deal with where the local bus is, where the routes go or how often it comes. One comes and goes on one's own timetable (night and day, far and wide), choosing one's own unique route. Got a problem with that?
I'll take a few minutes on a "stroad" (never the alleged half-hour!) over having to depend on a bus (or huff and puff on a bike) -- especially knowing that I can take the scenic route home (perhaps even with a stop at the beach)!
The War on Cars, tongue in cheek or not, is a luxury belief for most Americans. Living without access to a car is simply impossible for, what, 90% of American households? If you don't have a car, it's either because you're too poor, and it makes your life miserable, or you're very rich, and you can afford to live somewhere with lots of transit.
I'll agree that it's become a culture war issue, though again a theoretical one for most Americans. And while I should line up with those trying to reduce car dependency, since I've never owned a car (life-long Manhattanite here), I find it difficult on a tribal level. The actual War on Cars podcast takes such a sneering tone towards everyone who is not 100% on board with their ideology, it's hard for me to warm up to that side. And beyond the podcast, so many transit and cycling advocates can be so repellent when confronted with any challenge to their ideas, it's tough to want them to be successful.
I experienced the most anxiety in my life when I had to separate my elderly mother, in the grip of dementia, short term memory loss, loss of hearing and macular degeneration, from using her automobile. It happened without too much difficulty but I remember wishing the automobile had never been invented or that I lived in Bangla Desh. The automobile not only dominates our physical infrastructure but also the landscape of our minds.
Since many responses here (some of them very thoughtful!) seem to hinge upon the "war on cars" as a partisan or culture war issue, I just want to point out that there was a vocal and active pro-transit minority on the Right in the late 90s/early 00s.
Two arch-reactionaries, Heritage Foundation founder Paul Weyrich and "5th Generation Warfare" theorist William S. Lind, authored a number of white papers and hosted symposia on light rail and heritage street cars, one of which was called simply "Bring Back Streetcars!" The Free Congress Foundation (also a Weyrich group) published the New Electric Railway Journal for about a decade.
While pitched to a right-leaning audience and often focused on addressing conservative skepticism, much of their material makes a solid, broadly appealing, potentially nonpartisan case for greater investment in mass transit. Also contains a wealth of information about historical urban streetcar systems and their successes. (All of these publications are easy to find archived online.)
There's a bit of "no true Scotsman" lurking in that "no serious urbanist" phrase. There is a ton of "ban cars" rhetoric in the urbanist internets. It's true that no actual cities are pursuing these policies. But not many actual cities are pursuing the policies of the serious urbanists, either. The latter could change if some of the "ban cars" people came to their senses or quieted down. Or came up with well-thought-out ideas on how cities could be reimagined to preserve classical urban principles while also accommodating cars.
Well - cities *are* reversing parking minimums, reforming zoning, keeping outdoor street dining or closing streets to traffic for weekends, etc. "Ban cars" is one of these things that falls mostly into "shop talk" or "If I were dictator..."
The language definitely is loaded and gets heated fast, heh.
I've had multiple people tell me that "being expected to drive 20mph or less within the city core is fundamentally a ban on cars." Similarly, they'll say that even if maybe pedestrian deaths/injuries *might in theory eventually justify some changes to the roads* that no level of pedestrian discomfort/fear of the motorists ever is sufficient cause for action. If you don't want to fear for your life crossing the street, drive a car. While in the same breath they'll tell me that the general discomfort they have with "traffic calming" methods is an unacceptable assault upon them (and thus a salvo in the War on Cars).
When someone tells you what they would do if they were dictator, believe them! I like outdoor street dining and having (some) pedestrian-only streets. But I also like automobility. It's not an insoluble problem to have both! Governments need to recognize that people voting with their dollars are saying they don't want to live in strip-mall towns. But the urbanist community needs to recognize that nobody wants to live in 16th century Florence either. (When the "ban cars" people would have been saying "ban horses," if the same mindset prevailed.)
What I can't get is the fact that in my area, which is mostly a sprawl of small towns that have grown in and around each other, there are people, like my neighbor who is great, who have a smallish pick up truck and a huge high end SUV. It's adorable that he and his wife both barely 5'4 look like munchkins driving these huge vehicles. And they never haul anything big around in them. They are pristine.
You know, I at least understand the idea that a car is more free than a train or bus that is driven by another person and tied to a prescribed schedule, but within a proverbial 15-minute city, what could be more free than walking, using your own legs and dependent on no machine whatsoever?
A car is still more free than a train or bus that is driven by another person and tied to a prescribed schedule. In a 15-minute city without a car, one's life is circumscribed by a de-facto boundary -- beyond which it takes a specific act of volition to break free. Having a car elides that distinction.
Are you being a satirist on your post today, Addison Del Mastro?
You state at the beginning here that those who warn others about the intention of limiting or restricting car use to Americans are fools and dramatists. Yet, you argue through your writing here exactly the opposite of your initial argument. Your passionate tone against cars comes through loud and clear and you prove that others such as yourself want to limit people's ability to use cars, any car, as they wish.
Policy is not always transparent, but the intentions come about based on incentives or disincentives. I could mention a few disincentive approaches taken by the government but I'll stick to the price of oil. The first thing Biden did when he took office in January 2021 was to cancel the almost complete Keystone oil pipeline in the east and in multifarious ways, he has turned the US from a fully self-sufficient oil country and exporter of oil to a country with expensive gasoline cruelly affecting peoples already hard- hit inflationary wallets under Bidenomics.
Everything is more expensive because of high fuel prices, not just car gas. This is an intentional consequence of the insane economic and philosophical ideas coming from Democrats and, from your writing today, from you.
As for distracted drivers, you clearly support a highly controlling nanny state, even more than we suffer from today, and that is plain unamerican.
"As for distracted drivers, you clearly support a highly controlling nanny state, even more than we suffer from today, and that is plain unamerican."
No - I don't think that the death toll of our highways is an acceptable cost of doing business, and in any case I wasn't talking about laws, I was talking about attitudes. My father taught me two things: always treat a gun like it's loaded, and always keep your eyes on the road. Driving is a deadly serious endeavor, and we should treat it that way. I'm not "against cars" - I'm for cars where they make sense (rural areas and suburbs) and less for them where they don't make sense (dense urban downtowns).
Addison, you write, "I'm for cars where they make sense (rural areas and suburbs) and less for them where they don't make sense (dense urban downtowns)."
That's all well and good -- as long as you realize that in effect, dense urban downtowns function as theme parks. In many mid-sized European cities (e.g., Montpellier, Zaragoza), the "old towns" even have parking underneath!
I'm all about safety, but not safety-ism as proscribed by the all-powerful government/corporate overlords. We are not children and people need to take responsibility and not hand it over to Big Brother. Besides, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The more we ask to be protected from, the less free we are. Whose definition of safety will we adopt? The one demanded/forced from the top. Reminder, scamdemic and useless safe/NOT gene shots and masks forced on people throughout the world who were abused for being talked into doing the "right thing." Now the higly vaxxed countries are suffering from high rates of excess deaths and health damage due to those shots. I bet you that it will be a flexible definition and used for expanded power.
NY is being populated by various global meetings this week, including the UN, all wanting to circumscribe the world-s freedoms under the pretense of safety ism and many are believing those false, power grabbing consolidating claims.
But providing alternatives isn't the same thing: It sure would be nice if my kids could leave our neighborhood under their own power. If my elderly mother didn't have to depend on me to drive her everywhere now that she can't drive herself anymore. We could do that by building out alternatives (protected sidewalks, etc) - these don't force anyone to stop driving but makes not-driving more attractive!
To use your COVID parallel: There's a world of difference between a vaccine being made available vs. forcing people to take it to keep their jobs.
the gene therapies were forced on people to keep their jobs, to be able to saty in their universities and continue their education. People were forced to take these in order to be able to travel or participate in public events. Your memory is short if you don't remember this or are minimizing the policy harm by equating the wiords available and force. This is exactly what public officials are doing in Canada, UK, Australia and in the US. Blame the victim. Cruel. Where is the compassion?
I'm not equating them. Please go back and re-read. Making something available - whether it's a vaccine or a bike lane - IS NOT the same thing as forcing people to use that thing.
I want to live in a world where options are AVAILABLE. I'm not asking for a nanny-state that gets to decide what keeps me "safe".
As usual, I agree with you, but worry you might just be preaching to the choir. From my perspective, it seems like conservative thought leaders (generous term) are so determined to put a conspiratorial spin on everything they dislike that I worry no amount of rational argument will make a difference. Once people are determined to believe in that narrative, trying to reason them out of it feels a bit like fighting quicksand. Hope you don’t tire easily!
Another commentator here writes, "People voting with their dollars are saying they don't want to live in strip-mall towns."
Nonsense! Ever been to Milpitas, CA, or to Houston's (suburban) Chinatown, or to Buford Highway in Atlanta? Those are genuinely "vibrant" places where a diverse array of people are voting with their wheels. (These days, the best mom-and-pop eateries are in those much-maligned strip malls.) It's "sprawl" only when you're looking down on it.
Urbanism (complete with "walkability scores" and twee boutiques) is truly the new monoculture.
PS: I'd love to see a direct face-off between Addison Del Mastro and Joel Kotkin!
Can't speak for Buford Highway vs Manhattan -- but in San Francisco, quite a few long-established restaurants (venerable institutions) are shutting down because (especially with diminished foot traffic) they can't afford the inflated rents. Meanwhile, out in Milpitas (40 miles away), places like Barber Lane are thronged with customers (of every ethnicity), many of whom now work from home.
For starters, would you prefer regional Indian cuisine, or halal Chinese? For all the prattling about "white flight" and "suburban monoculture" (and all the obstacle-course engineering designed to "get people out of their cars") that's the reality -- with plenty of room to park.
"they can't afford the inflated rents" = "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"
The topic of discussion here is people "voting with their dollars." Demand in real estate is measured by dollars per square foot, not your anecdotal observations about how crowded your local strip mall is.
In the case of SF, here's my one-word answer: "Nordstrom" (with echoes throughout downtown).
Those restaurants are closing because the rents are being kept artificially high (for now), given the landlords' desperate efforts to recover their sunk costs (despite the decline in foot traffic) -- not because "It's too crowded." Give it time, as the bottom continues to fall out.
Hype springs eternal among the urbanist cognoscenti (and those stuck with over-valued properties) -- as meanwhile, the customers are dining out in the 'burbs.
Never thought I'd see people take the "get out of the car" metaphor for hallucinogenic insights as an argument that they should, in fact, never leave or even acknowledge any car that they find themselves in.
I don't know that I fully accept his topline stance, but if I'm being honest that's probably because I more or less envision the "best possible" version of Speed Cameras As Bandaid he describes, even if I mostly agree with his "that's not what's gonna happen" take.
But 100% I agree with his final 20 minutes or so where he's making the case that to the extent where there's a War on Drivers, it's *the status quo* not proposed urbanist remedies, and his plea to avoid vengeance-driven responses and focus on actually helping the victims, both on foot *and* behind the wheel.
Thanks for writing this, Addison. As a conservative who loves good urbanism (StrongTowns' fiscal arguments were what convinced me of its importance c. 2016, though I've since come to appreciate the aesthetic), I'd like to offer this quasi-syllogistic way of framing median conservative opinion that might help flesh out the problem:
A. Cash for Clunkers did (and onerous EV mandates will) tend to price cars out of the reach of working and middle class Americans.
B. The people who implemented Cash for Clunkers and who are trying to implement onerous EV mandates are Democrats / progressives.
C. Most urbanists are Democrats / progressives.
Therefore, D. most urbanists favor policies that will make cars unattainable for more and more working and middle class Americans (or in more inflammatory words, urbanists are making War On Cars).
Now obviously this isn't a logically valid syllogism; parties and ideologies are diverse and it's possible - maybe even likely - that the specific Democrats/progressives who support Cash for Clunkers and EV mandates are doing so out of environmental concerns and couldn't care less about good urbanism, and therefore it's not logically fair to blame the War On Cars on urbanists. But you're not going to make much headway among Republicans/conservatives with "Not all Democrats/progressives...".
Premises A and B are objectively true, whether one supports or opposes Cash for Clunkers / EV mandates. That leaves premise C.
I think you're on the right track in citing self-identified conservatives who've questioned auto-centric urban design, but what I think would be even better is if you could point to conservative *places*: cities and towns that both 1) retain the traditional development pattern and 2) vote for Republicans. What places can you think of that meet those two criteria?
Cash for Clunkers had nothing to do with urbanism or environmentalism. It was about helping the car companies sell more cars, which I would slot into the "pro car" camp. If that's also bad for consumers - which I agree it is - it's because even the Democrats put big auto above consumers.
As for your question, that's a good question. There are plenty of small towns in NJ and VA (two states I've lived) that lean R or are pretty evenly split. Not progressive towns, certainly. Many of those folks love their main streets and old towns. They just have no concept that we could build like that again, or they view them as museum-like and oppose new construction that would change them.
Also, I was curious enough about Virginia voting patterns that I looked up the 2020 presidential election results for all of the 38 independent cities in the Commonwealth.
Of those cities*, 9 voted more for Trump than Biden (Bristol, Buena Vista, Colonial Heights, Covington, Galax, Norton, Poquoson, Salem, and Waynesboro), and Lynchburg was fairly close with Trump receiving 48.6% of the two-party vote.
Aside from Poquoson, all of those cities appear to have at least some traditional development, and every one except for Colonial Heights lies in the Mountain-Valley region. Might make for another one of your excellent photojournalism trips?
*I'm sure you're aware of this as a Herndon resident (I'm in Fairfax City, BTW), so it's mostly for your readers: a lot of Virginia's traditional urban development is in *towns*, which I didn't include here because filtering the data would require figuring out what precincts in each county were part of the town, a much more time consuming task.
"Cash for Clunkers had nothing to do with urbanism or environmentalism."
Agree that it had nothing to do with urbanism - I was trying to illustrate how the two issues get conflated.
As far as environmentalism, I don't recall whether the Obama administration made specific claims that it would reduce pollution, but they certainly let people think that it was going to promote the removal of gas-guzzling 1970s smogmobiles, rather than the aged-but-reliable cars made in the 80s and 90s that were actually destroyed: https://www.thedrive.com/news/heres-the-full-list-of-all-677081-cars-killed-in-cash-for-clunkers
It's a shame that questioning car dependency is becoming a culture war issue, but it feels kind of inevitable. There is a conservative case to be made against car dependent societies, but the voices on the left are just more numerous and vocal on this issue. Their messaging, which often invokes climate change, turns off conservatives, or worse, sets off a backlash like what we saw with the "15 minute city" conspiracy theories.
How many of them have any idea that Russell Kirk hated the car because it radically upended communities and social conventions? A right-wing argument against the car!
Why should telling the truth turn people off. When I sit down with my neighbors, several are very conservative, discussing the environment (once a conservative issue, remember Nixon, a big conservationist?) they are all for common sense in protecting the environment. But there is some insidious (Murdoch?) element pushing a message that clean air and water are for pussies. That real men breath carbon monoxide and lead.
"This is because it is effectively impossible to treat driving with the seriousness it calls for and demands, and also rely on driving to do almost everything." Very true!
I like that Addison Del Mastro writes about how urbanism should be a non-partisan issue. As a mom, I think there are so many points to be made about how total car dependency is not family friendly.
Thank you! Yes, it should be nonpartisan. It doesn't make any sense to try to force this issue into the political nonsense, but we try to do that with everything, don't we?
So true. It annoyed me when I had to drive my kids everywhere until they were old enough to drive themselves because there were no busses and a bike paths and walking is a challenge when five months out of the year the streets and side walks are covered in snow and ice.
Yes! For all the bluster about kids and teens using their phones and tablets too much, there's been no real movement to give young people accessible community spaces. Sidewalks, parks, and public transit could give them better ways to socialize and to just be. Instead we blame parents and kids for excess screentime when in actuality a lot of it is an infrastructure problem.
That's so true. When I was at work my non driving kids didn't go anywhere unless I drove them there in the morning and picked them up.
And apparently cars = freedom!?. Not if you're a kid.
See the Beach Boys' "Fun Fun Fun" -- composed in an era when getting into the driver's seat was a rite of passage (into a long-awaited freedom) -- and when "dependency" meant riding the bus.
How old does one need to be to read Kerouac?
You would think conservatives would support transportation options that put less of a financial strain on infrastructure and encourage people to maintain better health by walking, riding a bike or using public transit to get to work. Unfortunately the right wing has become obsessed with culture wars driven by conspiracy theories. The day I heard them complaining about 15 minute cities was the day I knew that every facet of life no matter how minor would be radicalized into a culture war by these people.
I even stopped jokingly using the terminally online urbanist phrase "ban cars" because I wanted to stop even in a small way radicalizing the discourse about non car-centric infrastructure but I doubt it would do much good
I'm as conservative as the day is long and am the largest good urbanism/walkable city person in my circle. All my traditionally conservative friends and family have only ever heard about the worst excesses of leftist rhetoric when it comes to urbanism.
Optics matter!
I have found that appeals to beauty (highways are ugly, good streets are beautiful), comfort and convenience (lower volume with less road traffic, peaceful walk to stores that don't require a 30 minute drive), and economic viability (car-dependent sprawl is always going to fall into disrepair, it's too expensive) have all proved as great inroads for conversations.
"Appeals to beauty (highways are ugly, good streets are beautiful)"?
Have you ever gone for a drive up the Taconic, or down the coast road to Santa Cruz? There's a special sort of freedom (and, quite literally, empowerment) in being able to experience that beauty (and access a variety of shops and restaurants, far and wide) as readily as one might walk to the corner store.
As for the cost of maintaining the requisite infrastructure? That's indeed a political question. I'm a Pat Brown Democrat. "A(n electric) car in every garage"!
Absolutely optics matter!
I think a very thing to bring up is like what you mentioned, that many would prefer a pleasant walk to the neighborhood store for something quick rather than a 30 min drive. When I grew up in a small town my parents regularly sent me to run to the store, something that I couldn't imagine a lot of people sending preteens to teenagers to do in the suburbs I live in now. I think economic viability is a little harder since so many don't know how costly car-centric sprawl is. Many times I've found that even people not opposed to not driving don't know things like where the local bus is, where the routes go or how often it comes. Getting them to try to take the bus where they don't have to deal with driving or costs to park is something I'll usually push for especially mentioning that they can sit there and play on their phone instead of dealing with other drivers.
Bringing up the aesthetics of neighborhood streets is a good point and I'll try to mention that more often in these conversations.
Being in the driver's seat means not having to deal with where the local bus is, where the routes go or how often it comes. One comes and goes on one's own timetable (night and day, far and wide), choosing one's own unique route. Got a problem with that?
I'll take a few minutes on a "stroad" (never the alleged half-hour!) over having to depend on a bus (or huff and puff on a bike) -- especially knowing that I can take the scenic route home (perhaps even with a stop at the beach)!
I believe this is planned propaganda used to separate us and prevent sensible compromise.
The War on Cars, tongue in cheek or not, is a luxury belief for most Americans. Living without access to a car is simply impossible for, what, 90% of American households? If you don't have a car, it's either because you're too poor, and it makes your life miserable, or you're very rich, and you can afford to live somewhere with lots of transit.
I'll agree that it's become a culture war issue, though again a theoretical one for most Americans. And while I should line up with those trying to reduce car dependency, since I've never owned a car (life-long Manhattanite here), I find it difficult on a tribal level. The actual War on Cars podcast takes such a sneering tone towards everyone who is not 100% on board with their ideology, it's hard for me to warm up to that side. And beyond the podcast, so many transit and cycling advocates can be so repellent when confronted with any challenge to their ideas, it's tough to want them to be successful.
I experienced the most anxiety in my life when I had to separate my elderly mother, in the grip of dementia, short term memory loss, loss of hearing and macular degeneration, from using her automobile. It happened without too much difficulty but I remember wishing the automobile had never been invented or that I lived in Bangla Desh. The automobile not only dominates our physical infrastructure but also the landscape of our minds.
Since many responses here (some of them very thoughtful!) seem to hinge upon the "war on cars" as a partisan or culture war issue, I just want to point out that there was a vocal and active pro-transit minority on the Right in the late 90s/early 00s.
Two arch-reactionaries, Heritage Foundation founder Paul Weyrich and "5th Generation Warfare" theorist William S. Lind, authored a number of white papers and hosted symposia on light rail and heritage street cars, one of which was called simply "Bring Back Streetcars!" The Free Congress Foundation (also a Weyrich group) published the New Electric Railway Journal for about a decade.
While pitched to a right-leaning audience and often focused on addressing conservative skepticism, much of their material makes a solid, broadly appealing, potentially nonpartisan case for greater investment in mass transit. Also contains a wealth of information about historical urban streetcar systems and their successes. (All of these publications are easy to find archived online.)
Still extant in Britain. You could probably guess what Peter Hitchens thinks of cars.
There's a bit of "no true Scotsman" lurking in that "no serious urbanist" phrase. There is a ton of "ban cars" rhetoric in the urbanist internets. It's true that no actual cities are pursuing these policies. But not many actual cities are pursuing the policies of the serious urbanists, either. The latter could change if some of the "ban cars" people came to their senses or quieted down. Or came up with well-thought-out ideas on how cities could be reimagined to preserve classical urban principles while also accommodating cars.
Well - cities *are* reversing parking minimums, reforming zoning, keeping outdoor street dining or closing streets to traffic for weekends, etc. "Ban cars" is one of these things that falls mostly into "shop talk" or "If I were dictator..."
The language definitely is loaded and gets heated fast, heh.
I've had multiple people tell me that "being expected to drive 20mph or less within the city core is fundamentally a ban on cars." Similarly, they'll say that even if maybe pedestrian deaths/injuries *might in theory eventually justify some changes to the roads* that no level of pedestrian discomfort/fear of the motorists ever is sufficient cause for action. If you don't want to fear for your life crossing the street, drive a car. While in the same breath they'll tell me that the general discomfort they have with "traffic calming" methods is an unacceptable assault upon them (and thus a salvo in the War on Cars).
When someone tells you what they would do if they were dictator, believe them! I like outdoor street dining and having (some) pedestrian-only streets. But I also like automobility. It's not an insoluble problem to have both! Governments need to recognize that people voting with their dollars are saying they don't want to live in strip-mall towns. But the urbanist community needs to recognize that nobody wants to live in 16th century Florence either. (When the "ban cars" people would have been saying "ban horses," if the same mindset prevailed.)
What I can't get is the fact that in my area, which is mostly a sprawl of small towns that have grown in and around each other, there are people, like my neighbor who is great, who have a smallish pick up truck and a huge high end SUV. It's adorable that he and his wife both barely 5'4 look like munchkins driving these huge vehicles. And they never haul anything big around in them. They are pristine.
You know, I at least understand the idea that a car is more free than a train or bus that is driven by another person and tied to a prescribed schedule, but within a proverbial 15-minute city, what could be more free than walking, using your own legs and dependent on no machine whatsoever?
A car is still more free than a train or bus that is driven by another person and tied to a prescribed schedule. In a 15-minute city without a car, one's life is circumscribed by a de-facto boundary -- beyond which it takes a specific act of volition to break free. Having a car elides that distinction.
Are you being a satirist on your post today, Addison Del Mastro?
You state at the beginning here that those who warn others about the intention of limiting or restricting car use to Americans are fools and dramatists. Yet, you argue through your writing here exactly the opposite of your initial argument. Your passionate tone against cars comes through loud and clear and you prove that others such as yourself want to limit people's ability to use cars, any car, as they wish.
Policy is not always transparent, but the intentions come about based on incentives or disincentives. I could mention a few disincentive approaches taken by the government but I'll stick to the price of oil. The first thing Biden did when he took office in January 2021 was to cancel the almost complete Keystone oil pipeline in the east and in multifarious ways, he has turned the US from a fully self-sufficient oil country and exporter of oil to a country with expensive gasoline cruelly affecting peoples already hard- hit inflationary wallets under Bidenomics.
Everything is more expensive because of high fuel prices, not just car gas. This is an intentional consequence of the insane economic and philosophical ideas coming from Democrats and, from your writing today, from you.
As for distracted drivers, you clearly support a highly controlling nanny state, even more than we suffer from today, and that is plain unamerican.
"As for distracted drivers, you clearly support a highly controlling nanny state, even more than we suffer from today, and that is plain unamerican."
No - I don't think that the death toll of our highways is an acceptable cost of doing business, and in any case I wasn't talking about laws, I was talking about attitudes. My father taught me two things: always treat a gun like it's loaded, and always keep your eyes on the road. Driving is a deadly serious endeavor, and we should treat it that way. I'm not "against cars" - I'm for cars where they make sense (rural areas and suburbs) and less for them where they don't make sense (dense urban downtowns).
Addison, you write, "I'm for cars where they make sense (rural areas and suburbs) and less for them where they don't make sense (dense urban downtowns)."
That's all well and good -- as long as you realize that in effect, dense urban downtowns function as theme parks. In many mid-sized European cities (e.g., Montpellier, Zaragoza), the "old towns" even have parking underneath!
I read Addison as being not really against cars, but instead FOR safer alternatives, ones that work for people who can’t drive or don’t want to!
I'm all about safety, but not safety-ism as proscribed by the all-powerful government/corporate overlords. We are not children and people need to take responsibility and not hand it over to Big Brother. Besides, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The more we ask to be protected from, the less free we are. Whose definition of safety will we adopt? The one demanded/forced from the top. Reminder, scamdemic and useless safe/NOT gene shots and masks forced on people throughout the world who were abused for being talked into doing the "right thing." Now the higly vaxxed countries are suffering from high rates of excess deaths and health damage due to those shots. I bet you that it will be a flexible definition and used for expanded power.
NY is being populated by various global meetings this week, including the UN, all wanting to circumscribe the world-s freedoms under the pretense of safety ism and many are believing those false, power grabbing consolidating claims.
I am also not a fan of safety-ism.
But providing alternatives isn't the same thing: It sure would be nice if my kids could leave our neighborhood under their own power. If my elderly mother didn't have to depend on me to drive her everywhere now that she can't drive herself anymore. We could do that by building out alternatives (protected sidewalks, etc) - these don't force anyone to stop driving but makes not-driving more attractive!
To use your COVID parallel: There's a world of difference between a vaccine being made available vs. forcing people to take it to keep their jobs.
the gene therapies were forced on people to keep their jobs, to be able to saty in their universities and continue their education. People were forced to take these in order to be able to travel or participate in public events. Your memory is short if you don't remember this or are minimizing the policy harm by equating the wiords available and force. This is exactly what public officials are doing in Canada, UK, Australia and in the US. Blame the victim. Cruel. Where is the compassion?
I'm not equating them. Please go back and re-read. Making something available - whether it's a vaccine or a bike lane - IS NOT the same thing as forcing people to use that thing.
I want to live in a world where options are AVAILABLE. I'm not asking for a nanny-state that gets to decide what keeps me "safe".
THIS is not something that should be available OR mandated, as it was.
https://jessicar.substack.com/p/sc-senate-hearing-dr-janci-lindsay
As usual, I agree with you, but worry you might just be preaching to the choir. From my perspective, it seems like conservative thought leaders (generous term) are so determined to put a conspiratorial spin on everything they dislike that I worry no amount of rational argument will make a difference. Once people are determined to believe in that narrative, trying to reason them out of it feels a bit like fighting quicksand. Hope you don’t tire easily!
Another commentator here writes, "People voting with their dollars are saying they don't want to live in strip-mall towns."
Nonsense! Ever been to Milpitas, CA, or to Houston's (suburban) Chinatown, or to Buford Highway in Atlanta? Those are genuinely "vibrant" places where a diverse array of people are voting with their wheels. (These days, the best mom-and-pop eateries are in those much-maligned strip malls.) It's "sprawl" only when you're looking down on it.
Urbanism (complete with "walkability scores" and twee boutiques) is truly the new monoculture.
PS: I'd love to see a direct face-off between Addison Del Mastro and Joel Kotkin!
How's the price per square foot of Buford Highway in Atlanta compare to Manhattan?
Can't speak for Buford Highway vs Manhattan -- but in San Francisco, quite a few long-established restaurants (venerable institutions) are shutting down because (especially with diminished foot traffic) they can't afford the inflated rents. Meanwhile, out in Milpitas (40 miles away), places like Barber Lane are thronged with customers (of every ethnicity), many of whom now work from home.
For starters, would you prefer regional Indian cuisine, or halal Chinese? For all the prattling about "white flight" and "suburban monoculture" (and all the obstacle-course engineering designed to "get people out of their cars") that's the reality -- with plenty of room to park.
Teacher, leave those kids alone!
"they can't afford the inflated rents" = "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded"
The topic of discussion here is people "voting with their dollars." Demand in real estate is measured by dollars per square foot, not your anecdotal observations about how crowded your local strip mall is.
In the case of SF, here's my one-word answer: "Nordstrom" (with echoes throughout downtown).
Those restaurants are closing because the rents are being kept artificially high (for now), given the landlords' desperate efforts to recover their sunk costs (despite the decline in foot traffic) -- not because "It's too crowded." Give it time, as the bottom continues to fall out.
Hype springs eternal among the urbanist cognoscenti (and those stuck with over-valued properties) -- as meanwhile, the customers are dining out in the 'burbs.
Never thought I'd see people take the "get out of the car" metaphor for hallucinogenic insights as an argument that they should, in fact, never leave or even acknowledge any car that they find themselves in.
This ties in really well with Chuck Marohn's latest Strong Towns podcast on speed cameras:
https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-jniwf-14a749c
I don't know that I fully accept his topline stance, but if I'm being honest that's probably because I more or less envision the "best possible" version of Speed Cameras As Bandaid he describes, even if I mostly agree with his "that's not what's gonna happen" take.
But 100% I agree with his final 20 minutes or so where he's making the case that to the extent where there's a War on Drivers, it's *the status quo* not proposed urbanist remedies, and his plea to avoid vengeance-driven responses and focus on actually helping the victims, both on foot *and* behind the wheel.
Thanks for writing this, Addison. As a conservative who loves good urbanism (StrongTowns' fiscal arguments were what convinced me of its importance c. 2016, though I've since come to appreciate the aesthetic), I'd like to offer this quasi-syllogistic way of framing median conservative opinion that might help flesh out the problem:
A. Cash for Clunkers did (and onerous EV mandates will) tend to price cars out of the reach of working and middle class Americans.
B. The people who implemented Cash for Clunkers and who are trying to implement onerous EV mandates are Democrats / progressives.
C. Most urbanists are Democrats / progressives.
Therefore, D. most urbanists favor policies that will make cars unattainable for more and more working and middle class Americans (or in more inflammatory words, urbanists are making War On Cars).
Now obviously this isn't a logically valid syllogism; parties and ideologies are diverse and it's possible - maybe even likely - that the specific Democrats/progressives who support Cash for Clunkers and EV mandates are doing so out of environmental concerns and couldn't care less about good urbanism, and therefore it's not logically fair to blame the War On Cars on urbanists. But you're not going to make much headway among Republicans/conservatives with "Not all Democrats/progressives...".
Premises A and B are objectively true, whether one supports or opposes Cash for Clunkers / EV mandates. That leaves premise C.
I think you're on the right track in citing self-identified conservatives who've questioned auto-centric urban design, but what I think would be even better is if you could point to conservative *places*: cities and towns that both 1) retain the traditional development pattern and 2) vote for Republicans. What places can you think of that meet those two criteria?
Cash for Clunkers had nothing to do with urbanism or environmentalism. It was about helping the car companies sell more cars, which I would slot into the "pro car" camp. If that's also bad for consumers - which I agree it is - it's because even the Democrats put big auto above consumers.
As for your question, that's a good question. There are plenty of small towns in NJ and VA (two states I've lived) that lean R or are pretty evenly split. Not progressive towns, certainly. Many of those folks love their main streets and old towns. They just have no concept that we could build like that again, or they view them as museum-like and oppose new construction that would change them.
Also, I was curious enough about Virginia voting patterns that I looked up the 2020 presidential election results for all of the 38 independent cities in the Commonwealth.
Of those cities*, 9 voted more for Trump than Biden (Bristol, Buena Vista, Colonial Heights, Covington, Galax, Norton, Poquoson, Salem, and Waynesboro), and Lynchburg was fairly close with Trump receiving 48.6% of the two-party vote.
Aside from Poquoson, all of those cities appear to have at least some traditional development, and every one except for Colonial Heights lies in the Mountain-Valley region. Might make for another one of your excellent photojournalism trips?
*I'm sure you're aware of this as a Herndon resident (I'm in Fairfax City, BTW), so it's mostly for your readers: a lot of Virginia's traditional urban development is in *towns*, which I didn't include here because filtering the data would require figuring out what precincts in each county were part of the town, a much more time consuming task.
"Cash for Clunkers had nothing to do with urbanism or environmentalism."
Agree that it had nothing to do with urbanism - I was trying to illustrate how the two issues get conflated.
As far as environmentalism, I don't recall whether the Obama administration made specific claims that it would reduce pollution, but they certainly let people think that it was going to promote the removal of gas-guzzling 1970s smogmobiles, rather than the aged-but-reliable cars made in the 80s and 90s that were actually destroyed: https://www.thedrive.com/news/heres-the-full-list-of-all-677081-cars-killed-in-cash-for-clunkers