In the spirit of the abstract, "While some people benefit from automobility, nearly everyone—whether or not they drive—is harmed by it." I would say many people have also benefited from cars existing in-directly. As in, all the folks driving to work every day in "rural" America potentially designing live saving devices. (inb4 wfh people rage me, yes, some people do actually need to be in the office)
BTW rural living uses a lot more energy per person and wastes a lot of time for commute. I don't think it's worth all the state subsidies it gets.
It definitely makes rural areas more comfortable and productive, perhaps making them more attractive to live in.
But without cars we might need more people in the countryside too.
Somebody needs to do the farming, and if the vets/doctors/teachers/mechanics that support them are less productive having to operate in a smaller area we might need more of them to support all the farmland.
At a macro level, most countries with low car usage have high amounts of rural living but there’s an awful lot of confounding stuff going on.
So without motorised transport, we'd need more farm vets per square mile of agricultural land in the country.Thus more farms vets in total employment and more people living in rural areas overall.
How do I know - because that's how European AND American countries developed when there were no cars.
BTW in ideal world you of course have cars, but the petrol cost includes all externalities so only people who really HAVE TO - use them daily. Other than that they are used for public transport, medical services, firefighters, etc.
The fact that the most popular car in USA (which has <5% farmers) is Ford F-series truck is absolutely insane.
Before cars, most Europeans and American lived in rural areas in agricultural occupations
(64% of US employment in 1850) https://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/20/us/farm-population-lowest...
I find it very weird how people in USA are blind to all the negative consequences of suburbanization.