It depends on what’s wrong. I recently fixed my transmission myself using just a socket wrench, It failed in a way that most people would have had the transmission replaced to the tune of a couple of thousand dollars. I fixed it by replacing a solenoid for < $50. I fixed a radiator leak the other day for a few pennies - finding the leak and sealing it with JB Weld epoxy. I also do the brakes, oil/filter, etc.</p>
<p>Most modern cars are actually pretty reliable but can have some nuisance problems but I can usually fix what’s wrong without special tools and not a great deal of expense - annoying things like electric windows that won’t work, liftgates that won’t stay lifted, and the like.</p>
<p>This all reinforces polarscribe’s point about the hassles of car ownership but to me it’s offset by the benefits. Besides - I enjoy driving with the top down on a nice day. I enjoy biking and walking then as well but they’re all different.</p>
<p>I work with an urban designer, and we’ve researched the cost of a private vehicle, it is currently closer to $10k annually. My D lives in NYC, and pays $1048 annually for all the public transportation she can handle. That’s a huge difference. When she’s here she walks almost everywhere (we have terrible public transportation) or rides my bike. She doesn’t drive, and mostly has no desire to drive (although talks about perhaps she should at least learn, but she really doesn’t know why). </p>
<p>It’s really NOT just about the transportation, it’s also about the mixes of uses within a range that most of us are willing to walk to/from. I would happily give up my car to live someplace where the amenities are plentiful, and transportation available. And I’m not a kid!</p>
<p>I could definitely carry a lawnmower on my bike. I would, too, if I needed a lawnmower. The fertilizer-- well, I don’t think I could lift a 75 pound bag of fertilizer, so my need to carry it is somewhat limited. I’d try two or three of the 75 pound bags, though; five might be a stretch. </p>
<p>The drywall, hmm, I’d need a bigger trailer for that. I’d have to borrow a bike trailer from a friend. </p>
<p>I have all the car I need for all the times I have ever wanted to carry 10 sheets of drywall, or 375 pounds of fertilizer, viz, no car. But for those who want to haul such things once in a while, Zipcar.</p>
<p>I have lived long enough to see the wisdom of " Never say never.". I suggest everyone of the younger generation who swears they will never live in a place or take a job that requires a car take a mental note that they will most likely eat those words at some point. Looking at the wide expanse of towns, small cities, and rural areas of this country, and the large likelihood that none of us has a crystal ball, and the power of a tiny seven pound baby to change everything you thought you knew about life… Most of us will live a life where a car is necessary for a number of years. </p>
<p>Can’t wait to see you transport a one month old, very ill baby to a specialist via your bike. Or to the ER in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>The vast majority of us live in places where public transportation is nonexistent or inconvenient in the extreme. Even in the DC area, where Amtrak and metro and bus and taxi services abound, relying on only public transport to get from, say, Georgetown (no metro stop in that fine neighborhood) to a pediatric specialist at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore (not far away as the crow flies) on a regular basis would be a logistic nightmare. </p>
<p>My friend, mid forties, who has never driven, now finds herself in quite a pickle, having lost her DC, convenient to the metro, job. She is limited in her job hunt by her lack of a car and driver’s license. The logistics of interviewing for any job ouside the beltway or even in a different town or city is daunting for her. She did not expect life would take her in this direction.</p>
<p>"Young people are less interested in owning cars…
-So, they walk to work? Interesting…I consider myself very lucky to work 9 miles from my home. But I used to work about 55 miles away, no any kind of public transportation. i would have to turn down this job if I did not have a car. I cannot relocate as many others in family situation. I did not meet a young person who does not want a car. Both of my kids absolutely had to have thier licenses right after their 16th b-days. Cars were there for them. It was no other way. And what a relief for a parent not to drive around teen after work on a daily basis!!</p>
<p>And when I was young, even when my kids were young, I was swearing that a teen with a car at her disposal was the ultimate in spoiling a kid. Then, on a surprisingly regular basis, my kids had to get to a venue for sports or band before I could get off work to take them. . . .</p>
<p>Those tiny seven (ok, mine were always over 8, but you get the picture) babies made me eat so many words.</p>
That’s not true. Inner ring suburbs of Detroit like Royal Oak and Ferndale have surged back to life specifically because they’re walkable and younger people are demanding that lifestyle. Even downtown Detroit has seen its population increase because of its density / walkability while the rest of the sprawling city lost hundreds of thousands. </p>
<p>The problem in cities like Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix, etc… is that people still need a car to get beyond isolated centers of walkability. If they had legitimate mass transit, you’d see how many people would ditch their cars in a heartbeat. Just look at cities like Chicago, DC, or New York to see how transit, bike sharing, and walkability have been key to those cities’ resurgence. Ever increasing percentages are carless even as the cities serve wealthier residents. DC alone went from losing over 200,000 people since the 1950s to gaining 50,000 since 2000. Many are raising their families in such dense, walkable communities as well, whether inside the city itself or in walkable / transit suburbs nearby. </p>
<p>Tysons Corner outside DC is undergoing the biggest urban redevelopment in US history costing many billions of dollars to convert from a suburban office park / mall design to a walkable, transit-oriented, mixed-use city. Why? because the market demands it. It’s no longer a 20-something to party then head to the cul-de-sac situation. </p>
<p>These same trends are being seen in smaller towns that were built around traditional downtowns. It’s not just about metro areas with massive subway or el systems. </p>
<p>Sometimes reality prevents one from living without a car, but the culture has shifted away from demanding a car-centric lifestyle due to quality of life and environmental concerns. Many use car-sharing businesses for those times you do need a car, but social networking isn’t really as big a factor as some seem to think. </p>
<p>It’s a fundamental generational shift that I’ve found many older people don’t grasp because, despite thousands of years of human development without cars, they were raised to believe it to be a necessity. Nevertheless, the places that serve this demand for walkability / density / transit will be the ones that attract the most productive workers of the new generations.</p>
<p>^
No I didn’t. You said everyone in metro Detroit drives except those who can’t afford a car. I explained, with specific examples, why that isn’t true. The fact that Royal Oak used to be a ghost-town full of vagrants and is now a trendy, expensive epicenter proves that, even in the Motor City, the culture has shifted away from auto-dependence. The same has happened in the oil economy of Houston. Downtown Houston, for example, has surged back to life in the past decade. The supply just hasn’t always kept up with demand for freedom of transportation choice.</p>
This number is not even close to what our vehicles cost. But then we keep our cars until they wear out and don’t buy expensive vehicles.</p>
<p>
Who is paying for this? How many people will be able to afford to live there?</p>
<p>You might easily (will probably!) wind up paying more in rent in a place like that for your 600 sq ft of heaven, than you would for a house and a car in the burbs. And when faced with a choice between lousy public schools or paying for private schools, the burbs start to look pretty good.</p>
<p>The real game changer is whether or not you decide to have kids.
A small percentage change does not connote a"culture shift" IMO, especially when it is not clear how much of it has been driven by the economy.</p>
<p>EXACTLY! Expensive. Ema and I specifically said that there are really no AFFORDABLE places in Michigan where you can live without a car (with the exception of a few small college towns). Even then, like has been pointed out, many people have a car for emergencies. I really wouldn’t like to rely on CATA (our bus system, arguably the best in Michigan) the next time I have to go to the ER even though I could live in East Lansing without a car.</p>
<p>And one town does not constitute a culture shift.</p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, the city of Royal Oak, like almost every Michigan city, has seen population loss consistently for the last few decades. They’re consolidating schools for a reason.</p>
<p>Asserting a fact not in evidence. Moreover, you refuse to consider that quality of life is worth something - being able to commute in 15 minutes by bike rather than a one-hour drive, that’s more time enjoying life and less time stuck in traffic.</p>
<p>Also, I have absolutely no interest in <em>buying</em> a house, ever. I don’t want to lock myself in to living in one place, significantly limiting my potential mobility in pursuit of jobs. The era when you could get a job and stick with it for 30 years… it’s over and done with.</p>
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<p>When people move back into cities, they’ll demand better schools. The property tax base will increase and the funding will go up. Meanwhile, the drain out of the suburbs will have the reverse impact on those schools. This isn’t hypothetical - outer-ring suburbs across the country are losing population.</p>
<p>At the risk of sounding a lot older than I am:</p>
<p>My parents were born in 1917. Until the 1950’s passenger rail in the United States was (apparently) wonderful. My mother used to be able to walk (well, she "dressed for the occasion, so probably called a taxi) to the little train station a mile from our house in our small Northern Wisconsin town. She could take the train to Chicago to shop, or to southern Illinois to visit her family. She and her friends would take the train to Milwaukee and Chicago regularly.</p>
<p>I have a very clear memory of a conversation my parents had about the interstate system, and how at some point in time we (the U.S.) would regret our giant move away from the national passenger and commercial rail system to a car dependent interstate highway system.</p>
<p>The day our train station closed was the end of all excursions to Chicago for our family. After that Chicago just became too big a pain to reach by car.</p>
<p>What a shame we couldn’t have held on to the rail system.</p>
<p>My oldest is almost thirty, she has never owned a car,but she has made transportation work for her.
I agree that depending on where you choose to live and work, you may need your own vehicle. But if it is a priority that you don’t spend the money on that, then you can avoid it but it has to be a conscious choice.</p>
You’re really not getting this and don’t seem to have a clue what Tysons Corner is. It is a suburb. It’s the pinnacle suburbs - extremely successful, wealthy, great schools in the area, and vibrant with massive malls and a major jobs center. It alone has more office space than all of metro San Antonio.</p>
<p>It’s also a nightmare of traffic every morning, lunch time, and evening. People are miserable. You can’t walk to buy a sandwich. The market - older people, younger people, families, whatever - is demanding a more livable design. </p>
<p>It is being paid for across all sectors. Private sector has chipped in to build a new Metro line from DC and new buildings; public sector is focused on rebuilding the street and other infrastructure. </p>
No, it’s not the real game changer. Many people are having children and raising families and choosing, due to quality of life, to live where they can walk their children to school or to the grocery store. They may move to a better school district or such, but the structure of their lifestyle remains the same. There is ample evidence for this shift.</p>
<p>
It is clear how much has been driven by the economy. This shift pre-dates the economic collapse by many years. Another study was just released showing that the people demanding this lifestyle are on the higher end of the income scale (over $70,000 / year). Vehicle miles travelled by 21-34 year olds has dropped 23% since 2001. It’s not poor people who can’t afford a car or insurance or a lawnmower. It’s not the unemployed. The sector demanding this walkable / transit lifestyle is the most educated / affluent / creative / mobile. This is the group cities most covet.</p>
<p>Yep. The networks that Japan, France, Germany, etc. have had for years… we’re just barely starting to scratch the surface and it’ll cost us billions of dollars to catch up. But when gas hits $7 per gallon in the next decade, we’ll thank ourselves for starting to make that investment.</p>
<p>The simple fact is that the car-centric culture and infrastructure is enabled solely by cheap gasoline. Well, gasoline is never going to be “cheap” ever again. It’s a finite resource that is rapidly depleting. Maybe Baby Boomers don’t want to think about it - fine, you’ll be dead anyway. But in 25 years, our generation will look back at $4 per gallon gas and wonder how it was ever so cheap. There is no way around the physical reality of peak oil - and this without even getting into the climate change factor.</p>
<p>What if you are driving to Detroit from another city on a daily basis? You cannot afford NOT afford the car in my city. No car, no job, period. And, yes, many of us are driving to Detroit to work on a daily basis. Do not have money, ask your family/friends. If nobody trust you, maybe it is a good idea for you never own a car and never work for the sake of others’ safely. Other than that it is NOT a matter of choice, affordability is secondary consideration. Must own a car here, simply cannot afford not to have it.</p>