Living Car Free - WSJ Article

Why not raise the bar to the highest point possible; instead of car-free think of the goal as being more like free-of-cars. In that case, all cars would have to be removed from the continent along with advertising, cars in movies, references in books, etc. and only then would we be free-of-cars.

Oh, I agree with you; but there are those who do not.

There are some who forget the Rabbinical admonishment not to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

All the articles I see seems to be with the idea of a city that has decent public transit and the layout of the city is decent enough so you can get to places easily enough on a bike. However, in sprawling cities where they just build houses upon houses and put in strip mall here and there, public transit wasn't considered.

Here in Omaha the further you live west, the less public transit there is and there isn't any good bike paths that run east/west of the city - just bike paths that follow creeks; some of those don't connect to all of them anyway.

I think with the current price of fuel, people are not going to sell the car and start using mass transit nor are cities going to start up mass transit. If the fuel prices remained at $3.50 and up, then people would be changing their ways.

For me, I know that the last few budgets (every 2 weeks) the fuel budget has been a lot lower due to the lower price of fuel, however with me commuting to work, it has really helped too.

Michael

That is a major issue with most housing and retail built after about 1960. I have also seen nice older neigbourhoods that used to be very cyclist and pedestrian friendly become less so, because the local retail center went away, replaced by condo's and now you have to driver miles to get groceries, etc.

Aaron:)

Oh, I agree with you; but there are those who do not.

There are some who forget the Rabbinical admonishment not to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

I thought it was Voltaire that said "The perfect is the enemy of the good".

I thought it was Voltaire that said "The perfect is the enemy of the good".

It is in the Talmud. I don't know if Voltaire came up with it independently or if he had any contact with French Jews.

Unfortunately, we may start seeing middle-class families in these conditions pretty soon.

You don't have to wait very long. There are plenty of former middle class members now living on a relative's couch, in their cars, or even on the street. The food bank in the middle class small city next to me is crowded with former donors.


But I think Steve's main point was valid. Yes, peopl could cut back on communications and entertainment, but the real expenses are housing and transportation. Any significant cutbacks or savings will usually be in those areas.

OTOH, even the "bargain" prices of $100/month for phone, internet and cable TV are pretty steep. Add in $75 or more for a cell phone, and some people might be able to cut back there. Personally, I don't have internet access at home, cable TV or a land line phone. My cell phone is pay-as-you-go and costs a little over 10 cents a minute. I still manage to stay entertained and in touch with friends and family.

My frugal sections of my Websites do cover these expenses in more detail. It seems to me that most people have difficulty in deciding what to keep and what not to. I keep a land line phone, but I absolutely will not have a cell phone. I know that the land line phone is protected for the most part by law and custom. The cell phone does not have none of this being a very new technology. The land line offers built in discounts for my Internet access as well as real privacy for business calls referred to as "bundling" and low income provisions in my area. As far as I know, cell phones don't have this option yet. I won't pay for cable as I stream most cable and over-the-air programing for free off the Internet anytime I want after it is broadcast. And I don't have to fight for computer time at the local library or at Kinko's-which runs into more expense if I use the Internet access there too often. And instead of throwing out my "old" (only 4 years old) analog televisions, I hooked them up to converter boxes and get digital channels over-the-air, along with analog transmissions. So my pocketbook expenses and stress is kept to a minimun.

Yeah, I get the WSJ on my mobile phone. It is the only reason I upgraded my plan to give me 5 megs of internet and because of it I get to ditch my TV within the next two weeks because I no longer have a reason to turn on CNBC.

I love the WSJ.