>Obviously, you do not just ban cars. You provide alternatives. Cities with
>jobs that do not require long commutes. Pleasant public transportation ....
>
>Jim heartfield wrote:
>
>> In message <l03130319b173a79a8c27@[166.84.250.86]>, Doug Henwood
>> <dhenwood at panix.com> writes
>> >Jim heartfield wrote:
>> >
>> >>What I am reacting against is the mood that sees working class
>> >>consumption as profligacy and waste, but middle class consumption as an
>> >>earnest and imaginative investigation of desire.
>> >>
>> >>Hence my attitude to the car.
>> >
>> >I'm not sure how you're class-angling the car Jim. "Middle class" people,
>> >whoever they are exactly, drive more vehicle miles than poor people. All
>> >those suburbanites in their sport utility vehicles - suburban assault
>> >vehicles, as they say - aren't investigating their desire, they're fouling
>> >the air.
>>
>> The objection to cars is their mass character. If cars were the preserve
>> of the rich (as they were, for example in the early century) then there
>> would be no anti-car movement. In Britain there are 22 million car
>> owners, which out of a population of sixty million is pretty impressive
>> penetration. In no sense is a car a luxury item in England, and, given
>> petrol prices, I find it very hard to believe that the same is not true
>> of the US.
>>
>> The class character of the anti-car movement here is written in their
>> home county accents. It is entirely characteristic that forms of working
>> class mobility should be the subject of middle class panics. A hundred
>> years ago outrage surrounded the bicycling gangs of 'East End
>> Scorchers'. Nowadays, mass tourism, travelling football (that's soccer
>> to you) fans and the car are the subject of upper class distaste.
>>
>> Also any student of moral panics could tell you that the metaphor of
>> pollution that you are drawn to is characteristic of anti-working class
>> sentiment. In nineteenth century England middle class reformers
>> preoccupied with the 'miasma' they thought was rising up off of working
>> class districts built the Victoria Park as a 'fire-break' against the
>> East End. The fear the ordinary folks are befouling the beautiful
>> countryside is the prejudice of the landed gentry.
>>
>> By any objective measure - that is as opposed to the subjective distaste
>> at the preponderance of flatbacks and recreational vehicles - levels of
>> air pollution in America and Europe have been falling for the last forty
>> years.
>> --
>> Jim heartfield
Automobile is probably the most 'regressive' mode of transportation available today. The monthly cost of keeping a low-end car is around $450 (including loan payments, insurance, gasoline, parking, maintenance and repair, etc.) or $5,400 per year. Assuming annual income $30,000 - about 18% of the annual income is the cost of commuting. Assuming $200,000 annual income - that represents less than 3%.
At the current prices about $54 per monthly pass for unlimited rides on public transit (Baltimore), the commuting cost is only 2% of a working class income .
So this is yet another explame of capitalist propaganda that uses working class cultural identity -- infatuation with cars as symbols of 'power' and 'idepenedence' -- to dupe the working class to pay a much higher share its income just to be able to get to work.
Regards,
Wojtek Sokolowski