After labor movements in the 1920s, people were shown beautiful housing that would allow them to drive personal vehicles into the city while maintaining distance from “urban elements.” The premise of the advertising was that people would be masters of their own destinies and would be able to control their own housing and transportation. Nowadays, rampant executive financial mismanagement and greedy elites have made owning homes and personal vehicles more trouble than they were worth. In the end, comfort has always come with the price of control, whether people choose to admit it or remain ignorant.
Those “beautiful” houses in the suburbs? Sidewalks might have existed, but the communities were built to deter busing, which was the premise of hyping up individual transportation. People who complain about children not playing outside fail to grasp that fewer parks and busy streets make “playing outside” a completely different experience. Even porches stopped being added to houses, making it impossible for parents to watch their children while doing other tasks. It seems pretty obvious why there is an obesity epidemic when huge communities were built to deter exercise and alienate people from group activities.
Cars are merely drivable purses that decline in value the second they are purchased, and way too many people look at them as “a way of life.” Believe it or not, there were centuries when people managed without owning their personal method of transportation, unless it was walking. Hundreds and thousands of dollars have been spent giving the delusion of “freedom” while people have been dependent on low gas prices and reasonable financing. Now, there are literally people starving because some idiots from the past never wanted to believe that a time would come that pouring money into a void would be impractical.
Homeowners had neighborhood associations, but now have HOAs that take away fees for unclear purposes, and people pay those fees to “live in a good neighborhood” while being constantly policed by those who lack boundaries. Cars used to be symbols of wealth, but now they are anchors around the necks of their owners. At one time, both of these symbols indicated that comfort was available if one was willing to pay the low, low cost of personal autonomy. Honestly, control has always been the price of comfort, and we now live in a world where so many people wanted to exist “without effort” that everyone is finally seeing the hidden effort required to keep the delusion of comfort alive.
Chasing A Dying Empire 