I spent the first 26 years of my life car-free. A majority of the time, my parents didn't have a car either. I've allways associated being car-free with poverty myself. Im a major metropolitan area such as NYC or DC, it is possible to get by without a car. However, having to plan your walking routes around the worst neighborhoods gets annoying at time. There were times when I had to walk 16 blocks out of my way because the direct route would have taken me through a very dangerous part of town, where I would have been mugged/killed had I been on foot. It was not my part of town, and the locals made that very clear. I tried getting around car-free in Reston, VA for a while as well, and ran into the same problem. It seems that the Cholos and MS-13 really don't like each other, and apparently they spend a good part of their time on the local bike paths laying in wait for each other. I don't live in Reston anymore, and while there are times when I would like to go without the hassles of having to drive everywhere, I find urban areas where it is possible to be car free to be too dangerous to live in. It might be better in a small town, but then everything is sprawled so far apart as downtown gets moved out to new strip mall developments.
|