I just want to share my perspective. I just had my car totaled (not my fault) and I decided to bank the insurance payout and not rebuy, and see what it was like. I didn’t think I’d cope since I’m now 50 and had a car my whole life from age 16.
I’m actually a little shocked to say I don’t I miss the car, and further I actively enjoy not having a car anymore. It did necessitate rearranging some of my habits, but now I save a shitload of money and I seem to find it more convenient in more ways than I expected. And it’s just so much less stress and worry.
I’ve never been fitter, and the freedom from lugging it around, gassing it up, washing it, maintaining, finding parking, blabla saves me time and bother almost everywhere. I stress so much less because of constant vandalism, and needing to seek stable non-ticketed parking at friends’ places and at my apartment.
There are times I need to do a big shopping thing or just go to the beach, I rent a car for a day. I don’t need to live a life of deprivation I just re-balanced things. If I need to go out for some special occasion I cab/uber round trip.
Preface: I’m jealous.
That out of the way, I think this really depends on where you live and your job. Carless in single family detached housing suburbia does not sound like fun. Being carless seems like a no-brainer in a dense area with decent public transportation and/or within walking distance of your job.
As I always say in posts about this topic: Living in a walkable city is nice. I can just walk outside and get groceries. No traffic. No fuel costs. No insurance. No maintenance. No parking. I just walk down the street and get stuff. If there’s a lot of stuff I need, I bring a cart, but I almost never need to do that.
Most of the places that I’ve looked at that are walkable are a lot more expensive to live. Unfortunately, I think this is a luxury that a lot of people do not have the means to access.
This is probably true for a lot of places. I’ve mostly lived in the NYC area so I don’t know what the costs and expenses are elsewhere very well.
You can get a 1BR apartment in Brooklyn for $2k/mo. That’s more expensive than some of my friends that live elsewhere pay, but cars are expensive so the actual cost is offset.
Personally I think the government should be subsidizing urban living. Suburbanization was a mistake. It’s so isolating. We should have more public housing.
