Christopher Leinberger: Car-Free in America | NYT

A NYT forum on "Car-Free in America" includes essays by Christopher Leinberger, Marc Schlossberg, Witold Rybczynski. This excerpt from Leinberger.

This country is in the middle of a structural shift toward walkable urban way of living and working. After 60 years of almost exclusively building a drivable suburban way of life, which the market wanted and we in real estate built, the consumer is now demanding the other alternative. That alternative is for places where most everyday needs can be met within walking distance and cars are not a necessity for every trip out of the house. ...

[T]he bottom line is household economics. American families who are car-dependent spend 25 percent of their household income on their fleet of cars, compared with just 9 percent for transportation for those who live in walkable urban places. That potential 16 percent savings could go into improved housing (building household wealth), educating children or that most un-American of all activities, saving.