velojym

When I started bike commuting, my "office" was in a rough neighborhood, and though we owned the block, and were all armed, parking an automobile there was nearly an invitation for the local thugs. Besides, by the time I got from my apartment to the parking lot, started the engine, and pulled out of the gated driveway, I'd have already arrived at work on my bike... about a mile away.
I was able to keep my Kona in the coin vault with me, too.

hollywoodeskimo

I sure do. If a person needs a big vehicle that's one thing. But when they're just buying them for to be in style it's really kind of stupid. SUVs cost everyone more. They tear up the roads at a significantly greater speed than passenger cars, thus costing us all more in tax dollars, they reduce fuel supply for others (which doesn't seem to be a problem right now), they cause more pollution that all of us have to pay to address, they add an unnecessary burden to our nation's security by making us more reliant on fuel from other nations, many that don't much like us. Obviously, there are legitimate reasons for some people to have these vehicles. But I think most folks that have them would be better served, as would all Americans, by owning passenger cars and , of course, bikes.

hollywoodeskimo

I agree chewy. It wasn't all that long ago that very few people owned what are now referred to as SUVs. Most People got along fine with passenger cars and station wagons. The "need" for SUVs has clearly been created to a large extent by advertising. There seems to be very little benefit to society from the over abundance of SUVs on the roads.

mconlonx

Yes. There's about twice as many people in the world as there should be, if we want to live sustainably. If half of you all could stop breathing, that would be great...

rossiny

If your theory is correct we will soon have an economic collapse. It seems that unless billions of cars are sold we do not have jobs.. Maybe we need a collapse so a new economy can be born?

rossiny

If your theory is correct we will soon have an economic collapse. It seems that unless billions of cars are sold we do not have jobs.. Maybe we need a collapse so a new economy can be born?

rossiny

So u really feel there is a substitute for a car in our current civilization , architecture is built up to match cars and roads. bus service is silly. I cant tell u how empty the buses are and how little they run in the city where I live. Why not have vans that run more frequently.?? I don't know why but when I start thinking and typing I just feel humans are doomed,, like moths to a flame, or at least like moths who keep bumping in to the porch light!!!???

rossiny

Most people cant see past their nose , let alone understand how a decision can have all these effects!

corrado33

The ironic thing is that the only reason I really ever drive my car is to go get groceries every week. (But then again, I generally buy more that what will fit on my trailer.) I bike for everything else.

chewybrian 

It's not that I disagree with your sentiments. Cars are favored, leaving potential substitutes lacking in many cases. Given a level playing field (no subsidies), these substitutes would have more appeal, and infrastructure for them would improve as a result.

However...

I was using substitute as a term of economics. If the price of strawberries goes up, peoples' willingness to pay the new price varies with their needs and desires. A substitute does not need to be perfect to qualify. If you love strawberry shortcake, perhaps you will pay the price. If I just love wine, maybe I will switch to making wine with raspberries or grapes. If I just want to get drunk, maybe I'll buy potatoes and make vodka.

The availability, price, and suitability of such substitutes helps determine the slope of the demand curve.

In this sense, my shoes are a substitute for driving, of varying effectiveness.

I-Like-To-Bike

How do all these economic supply-demand truisms jibe with the "stuff" touted by our LCF comrades that it is advertising, that drives demand for personally owned motorized transportation? Presumably with enough advertising all motorists will be trading in their vehicles for a bicycle.

Walter S

Well put. I don't buy all this "it's all advertising". Yes, advertising has a whole lot to do with sales. But it also happens to be advertising for the space and convenience people are willing to pay for. Advertise something that's lets people manage their lives with little thinking or exertion in a climate controlled environment and you've got a winner.

Ekdog

You need to take a course in Marketing 101. Here's a case study for you.

[h=1]Creating Need: Part of the Marketing Job[/h]by Vito Rispo

Sometimes, a good part of the time actually, marketing is just creating a need for a product where no real need exists.
A good example of this is Febreze. In 1996, Procter & Gamble launched a product called Febreze, which is basically just perfumed water. P&G developed Febreze to spray on clothes that smelled of cigarette smoke or things like that. It flopped initially.

The reason, P&G discovered, was that bad smells didn’t happen often enough for consumers to develop a solid use pattern. So even if they bought it, they’d just forget they had it when their clothes smelled like smoke again.
So P&G began looking for “cues” that would cause consumers to use the product more frequently than just the smell of smoke. In doing so, they tried to develop a habit in consumers. The cue they eventually settled on was the act of cleaning a room, something studies showed the target audience did almost daily.
Now, everytime a stay at home mom cleans up a room, she sprays some Febreze as a finishing touch.
The result:
$650 million a year for P&G in the United States alone.

Creating Need: Part of the Marketing Job ? Ad Savvy

Ekdog

Why wait for a collapse when there are so many things that need to be done now as we move out of the fossil fuel age, such as building cycling infrastucture, building new streetcar, underground, high-speed and conventional railway systems, reining in urban sprawl and infilling our city centers...?

Walter S

So I guess somehow these people have been programmed to spray febreze when they clean. It's not that the product meets its claim of making the room smell clean and fresh and the fact this is appealing to a segment of the population. There's apparently some sinister as-yet unnamed process that robs people of free will.

Ekdog

Why do you think corporations spend billions of dollars on marketing if it isn't effective?

I-Like-To-Bike

Sure it is just like smart phones. Why back in the good old days a decade ago, nobody wanted or used a smart phone. According to the LCF advertising geniuses, nobody would be buying or using these products if it weren't for slick advertising; product usefulness is irrelevant to our comrades.

Steve Jobs and his associates/competitors sure were crafty tricking people with advertising that they should buy and use a product that serves no useful purpose (for those who don't want to use the product.) Certainly those allegedly gullible brainwashed fools could use the same "substitute products" for communication and entertainment as the Smartphone Free People.

Walter S

Did I say advertising is not effective? Of course making your product known and showing it in the best possible light is important. What's your point?

Walter S

As I see it P&G were getting poor sales. They did a careful study and found a better purpose/target market for their product, changed their advertising strategy based on that and improved things. I don't think they programmed people or deceived them.

wolfchild

They spend money on marketing because they know that about half of the population is naive, gullible and easily manipulated into buying things which they don't really need.
When I know I need something I just go to the store and buy it, I don't need anybody to convince me and tell me what I need because I know exactly what I need.

chewybrian 

Advertising moves or changes the shape of the demand curve, but it does not create it.

There has always been a demand curve for cigarettes. Yet, advertising altered the demand in both directions at different times. Economics and marketing are not mutually exclusive.

Dahon.Steve

Marketing and advertising never worked for you but it's working for millions of people. Since I stopped watching television, marketing continues to change my wants to other products like bicycles. There are those who think it will be the end of the world if car sales decrease but that's not the case. Young adults are still spending all their money just like in the past because they continue to be exposed to marketing. However, their money isn't being spent on cars like the way it used to because they are watching far less automobile commercials.

Machka 

+1


I pick the least expensive one.

Machka 

Reminds me of this ...

I-Like-To-Bike

Probably those people who have not yet been allegedly tricked by previous advertising into thinking that toilet paper is a better product for the task than leaves and old catalogs; some people must prefer to dream nostalgically about the good life of the good old days and no stinkin' advertising is going to fool these smart guys into buying "unneeded products".

Have to wonder if our nostalgic simple life friends pine for the days before people were tricked by advertisers into wanting electric refrigerators and washing machines and indoor plumbing; back in the good old days everyone did just fine with substitutes for these unneeded products.