It’s time for Americans to embrace small cars

boem@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 1077 points –
It’s time for Americans to embrace small cars
arstechnica.com
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Or walkable zoning, lack of which is the fundamental cause of the car dependency.

The lack of continuous sidewalks drives me nuts. A developer might put in a sidewalk but the one next to them doesn't. Sometimes you are walking alongside a ditch or have to cross a busy road to continue on.

Almost like it's designed to be annoying and pedestrian hostile

As much as I'm inclined to agree with @MaggiWuerze@feddit.de, the real reason is typically that all new developments are required to include sidewalks, but existing ones aren't required to retrofit. So you get a patchwork of sidewalks installed over time as things get torn down and rebuilt.

The "annoying and pedestrian hostile" part is municipalities' unwillingness to infill sidewalks in front of old developments at taxpayer expense.