> If you go deeper into the country though, there are many places where car ownership is nearly mandatory, especially for people who can't WFH.
This is true, but it's also worth noting that it's true because small and medium-sized cities systematically dismantled their public transportation systems between the 1920s and 1960s, replacing them with infrequent bus services.
One of the things I do when trying to understand how so many of our smaller cities became car hells is to Google "$CITY streetcars 20th century." We had the infrastructure and chose to remove it.
Yes, my city is one of those. Sadly it leads to a death spiral. The bus sucks, so nobody rides it, so the bus gets no money, so they cut routes, so the bus sucks more, so fewer people ride it.......
This is true, but it's also worth noting that it's true because small and medium-sized cities systematically dismantled their public transportation systems between the 1920s and 1960s, replacing them with infrequent bus services.
One of the things I do when trying to understand how so many of our smaller cities became car hells is to Google "$CITY streetcars 20th century." We had the infrastructure and chose to remove it.