In Defense of a Car-Centered Society
Wanting personal space requires cars. I live in Texas. Now wait – lest you say to yourself, “Ah great, a good ol’ boy from Texas defending his right to own a dually Dodge Ram with a 10” lift that runs on coal”, I do not own a Dodge Ram, I drive a small electric vehicle. Also, in the last 15 years, I’ve spent 8 of those years outside of Texas (two years in a large city outside the United States, four years in a college town and two years in classic suburbs). I like Texas; this little ditty is informed by life outside of Texas. There are a lot of popular fantasies about living in a carless society. Frequently they use Houston as a punching bag. There is a particularly popular video on YouTube that attacks Houston for being dangerous and not walkable. It bothers me that the takeaway from the video is that because Houston made some mistakes in the 1800s and recently underinvested in sidewalks, all cars are bad and we should all walk to work and bike everywhere. Houston literally...