this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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1 in 8 lives in poverty (<20k for a 2 person household).
1 in 4 has less than 1k in savings.
1 in 2 has less money saved than last year.
1 in 2 is living paycheck to paycheck
But thanks to massive income inequality, the average American makes 59k a year.
Fun fact: America is arguably better if you are rich or with a high income, Europe is better if you have a lower income / are poor
While this may be true today, note that European countries (well, the rich ones anyways) might just be behind the curve here. We're certainly on our way towards a U.S.-style disaster.
It's very hard to generalise this though as cultures here are very heterogenous here. You'd never in 100 years expect the Dutch to fall for the car industry's strategy of getting everyone dependant on cars to anywhere near the same degree as the U.S. has while you absolutely couldn't say the same about Germany; we love sucking on those exhaust pipes (especially our politicians).
Americans absolutely need cars due to the size of the country. We like our space. We're not being duped into buying cars for no good reason.
Cope.
It is absolutely possible to build infrastructure that is not car centric. Of course, they are always going to be people who need a car to get around but that doesnβt mean that we canβt design cities that donβt require cars.
The dumbest excuse for bad cities - Not Just Bikes
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
The dumbest excuse for bad cities - Not Just Bikes
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
This is a common misbelief.
There's a small subset of U.S. citizens who do live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and actually do need a personal vehicle to get around. The vast majority does not.
Not true. So much of the US, including many cities is uninhabitable or at least extremely inconvenient without a car due to a lack of planning that supports a car free lifestyle.
Also, while the majority of Americans live in urban areas, the rural population is not so small as to be insignificant.
The long term solution is to improve infrastructure and zoning laws to reduce the car centrism of the majority of the USA, this is already being done in many cities, but for the time being most Americans need a car.
That's just false. There are vast rural areas and communities in every state. If you think it's only in a select few states in the middle of the country, then I have a bridge to sell you.
My argument does not hinge on any arbitrary state borders. Read again.