Reply #147: Also: If you live within 5 miles of your work, buy a bicycle or use Mass Transit.

[Leopolds Ghost]

Even if you're not a granola crunching politically correct hippie.

You get exercise you will NEED as you get older.

You will also save money because of climbing gas prices and the like.

When poor people from other countries move to the US, especially home caretakers from places like Africa where there is no mass transit except jitneys, but communities are walkable, they often complain about how American citizens (including liberals in ultra-liberal towns like mine) actively pressure them to move "up and out" into totally unwalkable commuities.

When your spouse or kids pressure you to move into a "bigger, better home in the sticks" discuss the matter with them. Consider what their reasons are. There is a lot of fear and hostility towards people of lower income groups associated with living in inner-ring, working class neighborhoods. Are you purchasing a big house because "you've earned it"? Because "it's the American dream"? Because "nobody should have to live in a run-down inner area with poor schools, and we're finally getting out of there"? Because "when the yuppies finish fixing it up, the old neighborhood will be a good place to live again, but right now it's crime infested"? Consider your preconceptions. 90% of Americans absolutely refuse to live in a small house, and absolutely refuse to live near people of a lower income group, regardless of ethnicity. This is according to the real estate industry, which has tried and failed to persuade customers to do so. Those are the statistics. How do we change that anti-urban preconception, which, due to discrimination and defunding of local governments, has also infected small towns and ANYHWERE that is considered "cramped" because of "schools aren't good enough and there's inadequate parking"? Try staying put and encouraging your neighbors to do the same, and work with everyone in the neighborhood to better the community instead of desperately saving up in order to afford to live in the expensive part of town which has better services, bigger houses, and no mass transit.

Often, that BIG HOUSE consumes more resources than the car, and comparing cars to mass transit -- budget wise -- is meaningless if living as far from center as possible is a prerequisite (i.e. many well-meaning Americans say "I want to use mass transit, but we really need to live as far from the center as possible". This is whether or not there's affordable housing closer-in. The affordable housing crisis, in which urban areas are turned into second homes for the wealthy who park their SUVs in underground garages and turn 6-unit townhouses into 1-unit mansions, only makes it worse because then urban areas become only affordable to the very rich and very poor.

Anti-urbanism consumes a large amount of economic resources in Anglo countries like US, England, and Aurstrailia. It affects our bnudget and the time spent at home with family versus the time spent driving, or paying for our car, and then late in life (as in my family) it's too late to become an active walker or bicyclists, once you lose the muscles, it's almost impossible to get them back, even for recreation.