Originally Posted by loneviking61

Limited space and too expensive. Neighborhoods were small enough to be walkable with merchants that sold everything you needed right there in the neighborhood. Most of the homes were small or joined together as rowhouses like the New York brownstone. Where would you keep a thousand pound animal, his tack, his feed and a carriage? Carriages were made of wood and needed to be garaged when not in use to keep them in good condition. Only the wealthy with their larger homes and land could afford them. That's why the bicycle was so popular. You could cover as much ground as someone with a carriage for a fraction of the cost on a machine you could put inside your home. It was freedom for a lot of people!