Originally Posted by
benajah
I have to be honest, I used to bad mouth it but having a kid and a demanding career and living out in the suburbs I see why so many people end up the huge SUV crowd. In the SF Bay Area for a even decent public school education you have to live out in the suburbs where you just don't have a three mile bike commute or a subway tunnel right out the door.
For me, a bike commute is 2 hours each way after factoring in changing clothes, traffic, etc and tacking that onto a 10 or 11 hour workday doesn't leave a lot of time to be a dad.
You have to be a two income family because it is just too expensive, and to top it off, most places where the economy is in good shape are much the same, Which right now seems to be just DC and SF.
My dad is a baby boomer, Vietnam vet draftee, working class guy, growing up we owned our home and always had plenty money on just his salary and when we were visiting for Christmas he straight up told me he thinks my generation has it harder and actually feels sorry for my kids generation. We are just never going to have it as good as they did.
This a good example of what is wrong in America today, we have built a society around the automobile and now the time is coming to pay the piper. I am wonder what is going to happen when the baby boomers start hitting into their 70's and can no longer get a license? They are in the process of tightening up the laws to make testing mandatory in many states when you reach a certain age, personally I think EVERYBODY should be tested on a regular basis. So what happens when Ma and Pa that live in NW Suburbia can no longer drive and the nearest store is 15 miles away?
With the loss of wealth in the US many of the Baby Boomers that had planned to retire and move somewhere comfortable, probably aren't going to be able to. So now they are stuck in a car centric hell.
Aaron
