When I was a kid I dreamed that as a grown-up I'd live in a big suburban house with a fancy car.

I wonder if I would have still wanted that if I knew all the harm caused by that kind of lifestyle?

How many fewer people would still yearn for a car-dependent suburban lifestyle if rather than romanticizing it, we properly educated everyone on its costs to society in terms of public health & safety, environmental impacts, and social justice implications?

This isn't to vilify anyone who lives, by choice, a car-dependent life in the suburbs and likes it. My whole point is that our society probably made that choice the obvious and natural one for you. And now that you're invested in it, changing it would be really hard.

Yes, we romanticize urban and rural lifestyles too. However, the way the urban lifestyle often fits in the picture is that you live in the city and have your fun and then once you get that out of your system, you go live the American Dream with the big house and yard and car.

It blew my mind when, as an adult, I first learned that cities are more environmentally friendly than suburbs. I previously thought that suburbs were better for the environment since they have more nature (yards and such), whereas cities are filled with concrete.

Then I learned that humans are generally bad for the environment & it is best if we can limit the amount of developed land by concentrating it in cities. By contrast, sprawl is like vomiting everywhere in your house instead of keeping in the toilet. (Are cities toilets? #PRIMBY)

I also never realized until adulthood all the harm that cars and car-dependency creates. Everyone talks about carbon emissions but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

It's also air pollution and noise pollution, deaths from pollution, deaths and injuries from crashes, land use patterns hostile to other modes, segregation, reduced mobility and quality of life for those who don't drive, attaching a heavy financial cost to mobility, etc.

The fact that every time a new electric vehicle (usually w/ a design deadly for pedestrians) comes out, many people view it as a socially responsible car--that tells me that most folks do not have any kind of grasp on the true damage done by car-dependent suburban lifestyles.

Everyone's different and some people, even knowing all the facts, would still be drawn to car-dependent suburbia even if they had different options available. But I think a lot of people, especially kids, would think of another fantasy that doesn't hurt so many people.

Suburbs don't have to be bad. I know a lot of us live or have lived in them and have great affection for particular suburbs. We shouldn't be building new ones, but we have a lot of them so we need to work with what we have, retrofitting them to be healthier and more sustainable.

Obviously the barriers to education are tough ones--there are huge financial interests in keeping the status quo. Furthermore, change is hard and people often go into denial or become defensive when their worldview is challenged.

But even if we've made housing and transportation choices that are harmful, instead of doubling down, we should at least make it easier for others to make better ones.

"You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in." - Eliezer Yudkowsky