zlacker

> it's just a lot easier for 1 well-off person to buy 1 car than for the entire town to get good public transit.

Sure, once the town is already built for cars. If it wasn't, having a car would be a pain with no parking and no space in the streets.

The question is why cities choose/chose to rebuild themselves for cars in the first place, and continuously in the third world as suggested by the OP and the book "Urbanism Imported or Exported: Native Aspirations and Foreign Plans" by Joe Nasr and Mercedes Volait.

>>thomas+(OP)
Even before cars existed, there was room for them; look how wide old streets in the USA are (because turning a team of horses takes some space!)

Or look how packed with cars Europe is, even in the tiny streets of Sienna they wedge little cars in everywhere.