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Comment by EdTechAndrew | Hacker News Reader

I am glad there is a growing enthusiasm for walkable cities in the US. It's something I've become very passionate about lately.

For those that are interested in learning more about the topic, I highly highly recommend the City Nerd youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@CityNerd.

I find a lot of arguments for for walkability tend to be emotional or needlessly hostile towards car owners. City Nerd takes a much more analytical approach and shares the data he uses for his videos, I think that's something most of HackerNews can appreciate.

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I see arguments that are hostile towards a certain type of car owner -- the entitled sort that can't stand anything less than absolute car dominance of the roads. The kind who's opposed to new housing or badly needed bike or bus lanes because it might impact public street parking.

Hostility towards anyone who owns a car is rather more rare from walkability proponents. Not totally unheard of, but hardly mainstream.

Hostility may have been too strong of a choice of word. It's less the arguments or sentiments of anti-car advocates but more the language used online.

For example, r/fuckcars is massive. A large subreddit might not be considered mainstream, but it does have massive reach. A lot of people see this as one of their first exposures to car-free communities and do not feel welcomed by it.

I think it's somewhat of an optics issue, but it is very hard to find walkability communities online that aren't using terms like "car-brain". I know that these terms are targeted at a certain type of car owner, but without being familiar with the car-free community this is not always clear and can be a turn-off to car-owners who may be curious about learning more.

Yeah that's entirely fair.

And maybe unavoidable: the US in particular is SO slanted towards absolute car dominance in most areas, that you end up with this sort of rhetorical whiplash just by favoring movement towards transportation balance. I've never heard the term "car brain" before you just said it, and yet I know exactly what you're talking about, and that for many people it will be entirely accurate.

Are they hostile to car owners or is it the car dependency enforced via city planning / infrastructure? I almost always see the latter but hear the former as criticism which is laughable.

When you've only ever been familiar with privilege, fairness feels unfair.

Hostility may have been too strong of a choice of word. It's less the arguments or sentiments of anti-car advocates but more the language used online. For example, r/fuckcars is massive. A large subreddit might not be considered mainstream, but it does have massive reach. A lot of people see this as one of their first exposures to car-free communities and do not feel welcomed by it.

Fuck cars, yes. That says nothing about car owners. You're letting your feelings get in the way of the message.

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