The country is part of the area, though. Without urban areas, there’s no meaningful distinction. The ‘country’ depends on urban areas, e.g. for medicals, shopping, and so on.
Acamon@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I’d say it’s more like, wanting a car is like wanting your own septic tank rather than a connection to municipal sewers. In an urban area it would be an insane waste of space to have individual septic tanks. But in the country the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure for just one household would be incredibly wasteful.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
Acamon@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
I’m not sure I understand? The country depends on urban infrastructure for sure. But population density plays a big role in how necessary services are provided. You have to be very remote and rural in most western countries to not have electricity, because it’s easier to connect wires than be fully self-sufficient in energy generation. But waste pipes are harder to scale over distances, and septic tanks provide an affordable local solution. I’d love for the local council to install and maintain pumped pipes for all waste, but it would be a huge and unnecessary expense for the community.
Similarly, wherever people cluster, you can make efficient transport solutions that serve the. But if someone lives hours away from the next habitation, it’s hard to create a soloution that’s more efficient than them driving to the nearest transport hub. And if we could get rid of 99.9% of cars owned by people not in that situation, I don’t think we need to worry to much about the few farmers who still need them.
newaccountwhodis@lemmy.ml 13 hours ago
Where are bikes in that analogy? Because they’d work amazingly in rural areas were it not for cars
Acamon@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I’d say, they’re like digging your on latrine. A totally effective solution, as long as your physically able and your needs aren’t exceptional.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Yeah this is a much better analogy, if you think cars are useless you probably don’t have relatives in places where the bus goes maybe twice a day if there is a bus going at all.
And if you think that commuting to your job within the city where there should be well built out public transport is acceptable then you are also mistaken
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
Cars are only rendered “useful” by deprivation of public transit as a common good from the people.
With buses that run multiple times an hour everywhere, the car is rendered useless. People will move to where there are connections.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
There is no economical way to run buses multiple times an hour to bumfuck nowhere.
Just like there is no economical way to run 4 lane highways through cities and having 3 lane roads in the city all occupied by cars.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
Do we need to make everything about “money”?
I feel like improving general wellbeing is more important. Having incentives to make people in rural areas live along ‘lines’ would also help, then bus lines are also handier. You can have smaller community buses, too.
Acamon@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
I basically agree with you, the more public transport provided, the less people need individual transport. But as a society, there are times when the right transport soloution for a specific household is pretty much a car. There’s no point in having busses driving out to my rural property multiple times a day, just for me not to use it most of the time.
That doesn’t mean it needs to be a private car owned by me. A government funded by taxi service would still be more cost effective than empty buses. When I lived in another part of the country, that’s what they’d replaced the busses with due to lack of demand.
But it’s a complicated transition. Currently I mostly use my car and trailer to get heavy building materials, and recover architectural salvage. Sure, I could buy a new staircase and have it delivered on a lorry, but is that really better for the environment than dismantling an old one and taking a couple of trips to ship it my property? There could be solutions, such as municipal vehicle rental. But sometimes a car or van is the sensible middle ground between a bike and a bus.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 hours ago
Buses can have different schedules depending on the time. Here buses for example drive more often between 6-9, 12-13, and 17-19 o’ clock. Many places also have buses that drive well into the night.