Magiccupcake

The stupid thing is that fixing it isn't even that hard.

Step one Get rid stupid zoning laws like single family housing and reduce parking minimums.

Step 2 Modify existing roads piece by piece to include alternative transit methods. Add bike lanes, if you can't slow down roads and people will bike.

Actually run decent buses where peoole want to go, not oversized 50 person buses on 3 routes that nobody uses becasue it doesn't go anywhere, and has an hour between the next bus.

That's it, the market will build more housing in areas that need it if its profitable, then use that new tax money to drive transit infrastructure.

There's a lot of fine details, but we're bankrupting cities with cars right now.

It's a good point that cities aren't built anymore, and that's part of the problem. Our population has grown drastically, but we don't build hardly any new infrastructure for them outside of roads. So traffic is terrible despite enormous amounts of money from both government and people.

Cities aren't supposed to be static, they're supposed to grow and adapt to the needs of those that live there. There is a large need for non-car transport that is either ignored or sidelined for cars.

I'm not talking about 90% empty land, that's not where people are.

When the car was invented, governments had little issue buildozing entire neighborhoods for highways, but now that some places are realizing that's a bad decision, its really hard to undo.

There are places that would be wonderfully served by trains, but just aren't.

Cars are best in rural areas, but by far the majority of peoole live in cities where cars are the worst, yet we still build them for cars.

How so? Is it because they're switching to electric vs hydraulic?

What's so mind boggling stupid to me is that full evs are mechanically so much simpler.

Their reliability should be fantastic.

But no oems cheap out on things like contactors in the battery.

Batteries should also be treated as consumable. Easily replaceable, maybe even in parts.

Electric motors seem like they should last forever too.

But nope, instead we get skimped cars with too big batteries, and seemingly no money spent anywhere else.

Manufacturers need to remember that planned obselesence only works when you know what your doing, and right now they early don't.

A good bet is alternative media, things like kurzgesagt, verisitium or other science outreach programs.

The other thing is education, engage with his education, and teach him yourself to think critically.

And I hate to say it to say it, but religion conditions kids to brainwashing. Even if not extremists.

Feel comfortable pointing out flaws in Christianity and question them with him.

And lastly, try not to be argumentitive. You need to carefully tease him out of these beliefs, not destroy them.

That would feel like you are attacking him and will probably be counterproductive.

Ah I understand, let me be more specific, and answer some questions.

When it comes to farming, we don't put farmland in cities, in rural areas cars do make sense.

Energy generation doesn't have to be done in cities either.

As for sewage, yeah it takes up space in cities because you can't tranport it out, but it's small compared to the entire city.

The parts that are unsustainable are the vast swaths of single family homes.

The maintenance costs for these areas, in the form of electcity, water, sewage, roads, are higher than the tax revenues generated by property taxes.

It takes a long time for this tax deficit to show, about 30ish years, and it can be delayed by builidng and developing new suburbs. The taxes from the sales and other newness generate some new income. The federal government will also subsidizie a lot a building a new road, but notably not maintaing them. Which after 30 years can be more than the road would cost to build new!

But after a while the maintenance comes due, roads fill with potholes and need replacing, sewer and water pipes start leaking due to wear, or even the ground moving. Electricity lines blow over, knocked by trees, or hit by drivers need to be fixed.

The cost of roads and car dependency is not cheap. A study came out that it costs Americans an average of $20k a year for car dependency. About half that is owning a car, and the other half is taxes spent on road infrastructure.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/01/massachusetts-car-economy-costs-64-billion-study-finds/

In just slightly denser areas, where the government hadn't regulated things like setbacks, minimum parking requirements, and soley single family housing, there is enough revenue.

So what ends up happening is these denser areas subsidizie car dependent suburbs.

And all the while suburbs with car only transportation have tons of traffic, because when you get down to it, a single lane of cars just can't move that many people.

Now there are some exceptions to this. I live in an area with astonishingpy high property values, nearing 1 million for a normal house. This generates a lot of revenue, but it creates an housing affordability problem. This problem would be alleviated if there was increased density if the local government didn't zone 84% of the land into single family housing only.

And it would still increase tax revenues in my area.

Cars are fucking terrible for the economy.

Possible productive hours are wasted with long commutes, because driving takes effort and work.

They caused us to build urban areas spread out in a density that is not self sustaining.

Its horrible for the environment, and climate change is gonna be absolutely great for the economy in the next decades. /s

Not too mention all the money and engineerimg that went into the technology of ICE cars that's now obsolete.

I think it could've used a few more years, because its still not that fun.

Exploation is meaningless, which completely takes the fun out of it. There's nothing interesting to discover.

• In Europe

I'd rather they build sustainable transit systems, but I'd take cheap evs over nothing.

This post unironically turned me into a Georgist.