Comment by mmooss
1 month ago
That's what I meant by, it's not realistic for everyone and everywhere.
> I think a growing number of people, especially younger ones, realize this is unsustainable but it took generations to get here and it’ll take a while to change trajectories, too.
Urbanist movements, including walkable communities, are much older than this younger generation. I think within a certain segment - well-educated upper middle class, maybe - it's long had influence.
I think they need to bring those ideas to other segments of society, which they have a hard time doing.
I definitely don’t think that it’s new to the current young generation but I am optimistic that they might have enough political clout to actually make progress. My neighborhood narrowly avoided becoming a highway in the 60s so we have some older folks who have been fighting car culture since before I was born, but there were a lot of people who didn’t really care because it was more affordable in the past, but their kids are a lot more motivated because it’s so financially non-viable now.
In the United States, the other big factor was recognizing how much it wasn’t just car culture but racism driving things. Despite the current moment, I get the impression that a lot of people are more aware of how much avoiding sidewalks and transit was driven by racism and just hurt everyone.