Quote:
Originally Posted by JSH
None of that just happened - it is based on decisions made over time - both collectively and personally.
Do Americans buy 24 or 30 rolls of toilet paper at a time because we have giant cars or do we have giant cars because we prefer to buy 24 or 30 rolls of toilet paper at a time. (Why do we use TP at all?)
Really it comes down to most Americans not knowing that how we "normally" live isn't typical not only in the developed world but even in our country over time.
People in the USA used to get groceries every day back when people lived in mixed use communities where shopping and housing were in the same place. Then we chose to throw out city planing and allow developers to build subdivisions miles outside of town so that people had to drive to get to work and shop.
The average house size today would be a mansion to people even 50 years ago. Our average new house construction today is 2700 sq ft! So again - do we live in huge houses because we choose to buy 24 rolls of TP at a time or do we buy 24 rolls of TP at a time because we live in giant houses.
Building giant houses also feeds into to the high cost of housing and the fact that some young people can't afford to live in their own communities. (Of course gentrification isn't new - it is just starting to hit small and rural communities)
So we have chosen to live in giant houses, away from work and shopping, and then drive everyday in very inefficient cars. And then we complain that energy is expensive because we have made our entire lives dependent on cheap energy.
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Speaking to the larger audience, most of this is simply leveraging economies of scale. It's very inefficient to have dozens of smaller grocery stores compared with a larger one. More time is lost daily shopping than completing fewer trips. Just in time consumerism tends not to be so efficient for many people in the US.
I'll have to visit Europe one day, because I tend not to take an interest in places until I visit. I just wonder how a typical European family of 3 goes camping, for instance. Perhaps europeans leverage trailers much more than in the US, but the Mazda CX-5 is minimum utility for my family of 3. It barely accomplishes the tasks I routinely need it for. The Prius had even better utility, but alas that wasn't an option. My point though is that a Yaris or any sedan wouldn't be a good fit.