Originally Posted by
erikd
You would be surprised at how differently the younger generation thinks.
I bought a new car three years ago, and the old beater that had been driving wasn't worth more than about $500, so I gave it to a friend of mine who had a teenaged boy of 15-16 years old. When I was 16, I was given a shitty old Ford that had been handed down to me. It was a beater, but it was still a car and it allowed me to drive to work and get around.
Much to their surprise, this teenaged boy had no interest in the free car that had been gifted to him. Even with a free car in the driveway, he preferred to take the bus to get to school, work, and visit his girlfriend.
Three years later, that car is still sitting in the driveway unused, because he has no interest in having a car. His peers understand him, and many of them are making the same choices, but most of his "elders" [[25+ years of age) think that he is insane, and that something must be wrong with him.
We have been slaves to cars for so many years, most of us can't even comprehend living without them.
Ten years ago, I made a decision to live car-free, and I stuck to it for a few years. I was living and working in downtown Detroit, so I didn't need need a car to get to work, and I was able to get most of the things that I needed on a daily basis within my walking/bus/bike area.
Over the course of my years of car-free living, the biggest problem was not an inability to go shopping and drive home a carload of stuff, it was the social condemnation of not being a car owner.
The assumption of car ownership was so ingrained in our culture, that any person who did not own a car was looked down upon as a failure. As Young MC said in his 1989 hip-hop classic: "you got no money and you got no car, then you got no woman, and there you are."
The vast majority of the 25+ population is completely out of touch and ignorant to the new mindset that is taking hold.
When people say things like "I can't imagine what a pain in the ass it would be to go to Costco without a car", it just makes me wonder why any person would need to go to Costco in the first place. I suppose that if you have an enormous family or if you are buying in bulk for a business, purchasing a carload of stuff from Costco could save you a few bucks, but for the vast majority of people, it doesn't actually work out. You might save a few bucks by buying a pallet of Cheetos in bulk, but most of the time half that shit will go bad before you can use it.
Also, there is this great new business that started about 15-20 years ago called Amazon. They sell basically everything that you could ever want, besides fresh produce, at discount prices, with free shipping. Why would I want to waste my time and money driving to a giant warehouse store when I can get the same stuff delivered to my home without having to drive around and load up a car?
Downtown specialty retail is the future. Regional shopping malls are the past. As the cost of driving and owning a car continues to get more expensive, and median wages continue to decrease, more people will choose to opt out of the auto-centric suburban system, either by choice, or by simple reality.
The 25+ set needs to wake up and realize that the auto-centric, suburban lifestyle is not sustainable, and it simply can not continue on, no matter how much the old people want it to. You may think that kids today don't know anything, but they actually have a better understanding of the future than almost every adult that I have ever met.