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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35347 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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There's a psychic cost that urbanists miss: namely, that public transit replaces the labor of driving with a lack of agency. Aside from the obvious downside of longer trips: whether you get there or not is out of your control. The wariness of being in a public space, of watching your possessions, of keeping your eye out for the urban lumpenproletariat - it's stressful in its own way.

Once again we return to the revealed preference of most people: when given the choice between the public commons and paying money and labor for a private space, they elect for the latter.

We clearly have very different points of view on driving: I think "lack of agency" is not a terrible summary of why I so strongly dislike driving. It's hard to imagine a more intense instance of lack of agency in everyday life than being surrounded by dozens to hundreds of people any one of whom has a non-trivial chance at any moment to make a mistake that will kill or maim me. Sure, driving a car as opposed to riding in one increases the agency there, but most of the danger is other people.

I would argue that it would be nice if we could live in walkable cities: but I'd rather be in the multi-ton steel behemoth than not, if the world is dangerous as you say.

Driving on an open highway obviously makes you feel more free than waiting for a train, but I don’t think driving in a city where you have to stop every block for stoplights or pedestrians and then spend half an hour looking for parking (and then can't drive yourself home from a bar if you've had a few drinks) compares all that favorably to taking the subway in terms of agency.

One of the problems here is trying to apply one-size-fits-all transit solutions. Being so pro-train that you want high-speed rail from California to New York is just as silly as being so pro-car that you bulldoze apartments to build an interstate through downtown Manhattan. The difference is that the former is the sole province of internet meme groups, while the latter is quite close to actual policies in the tristate area under Robert Moses.

There's a psychic cost that urbanists miss: namely, that public transit replaces the labor of driving with a lack of agency.

I think in some instances this is probably true, but I feel deeply “managed” and stripped of my agency when waiting at a red light or stuck in traffic.

A car is not just a means of transport: it is a private space in the public space, so to speak. You can store a great deal of things without watching them, you will always have a chair, a radio, a air conditioner. You can eat and even sleep in your car! These are not qualities that are commonly associated with public transit.

I went on a trip recently and I have never felt the desire to have a car to get around places, not just for travelling, but for its restful quality and comfort.

We stray ever further into our personal experiences but this is another case where I’m sure what you say is true for you, but I just feel the exact opposite. The fact that a car is a private place in a public place is one of my least favorite things about it! It means my most valuable possession, and whatever possessions I might want to store in it, are outside of my house where I can’t keep an eye of them. Instead they sit on the street with the weirdos, and any time I want to go somewhere I have to hope none of the people passing by are gonna mess with it despite the fact that I hear about more car break-ins every week.

I don’t find cars very comfortable either, but in fairness I haven’t had nice cars.

Of course YMMV.

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