The Car Crowding Paradox

If you don't like cars, where should you live?

This sounds like a trick question. Most cities in the U.S. are heavily car-dependent, and the exceptions are well-known: New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, and so forth.

But it really depends on what you dislike about cars. I'm too lazy to check, but I'm sure there are more cars per capita in a city like Dallas than in New York City. And that makes sense, as it's expensive to own a car in New York City and relatively easy to get around by foot or by mass transit.

But (again being too lazy to check) I imagine there are a lot more cars per square mile in New York City than in Dallas. To walk down a sidewalk or bike down a bike lane in New York is to be surrounded by a sea of cars doing all of the things that cars do: making lots of noise, expelling lots of poisonous gases, and threatening to injure or kill you at the whim of the drivers. Of course there are places in Dallas that are like that, but there are also lots of places where despite the prevalence of cars per capita they are not nearly so daunting in terms of subjective experience. (If Dallas is a poor example in this regard, you can imagine leafy suburbs in Westchester or whatever.)

Now I want to be clear, this is a function of New York City being very dense, which is mostly a good thing. There is something perverse about alleviating the negative effects of cars by spreading a city out to the point that everyone needs a car. But the fact remains that in a lot of ways New Yorkers are more exposed to the negative effects of cars than most other U.S. residents are. And actually, Manhattanites are generally more exposed to cars than residents of the outer boroughs. (The contrast between my normal residence in Brooklyn and my current, temporary residence in midtown Manhattan is striking. Again, this must mostly be a function of density, although I also suspect Manhattan gets more people who are simply driving through.)

By the way, this is perhaps an underrated reason that people oppose development near where they live. Development usually means more neighbors, and more neighbors means more cars on the streets (again, even if cars per capita go down). Those cars are a nuisance and it's understandable that people would react negatively to putting more of them on the streets nearby.

From my perspective the solution is pretty obvious. New York should make it safer and more pleasant to get around by foot, by bike, or by transit, and should make it more expensive and more difficult to get around by car. There should be no free street parking and no mandatory parking lots for new development.

But in the meantime, if you don't like cars, probably the most affordable way to avoid their negative effects is to buy a car and move to a sprawled-out, car-dependent city.