Caption: when you want the government to dictate that everyone live in cookie-cutter houses with cookie-cutter lawns and drive cookie-cutter cars
Image below: an image from the miniseries “Chernobyl” of a Soviet officer shaking hands with several people dressed up in protective suits, saying, “I serve the Soviet Union”
Note that this meme is meant to make fun of NIMBYs who spread the conspiracy theories about 15-minute cities being some evil communist plot to take away their freedom
Note that this meme is meant to make fun of NIMBYs who spread conspiracy theories about 15-minute cities being some evil communist plot to take away their freedom. The irony being that they often support the sorts of laws — restrictive zoning, parking minimums, Euclidean zoning, etc. — that essentially mandate car-dependent suburban sprawl.
Funny thing is, given the choice this lot would happily take a tower block in their back garden over someone taking their god given right to drive a chunk of metal around at 70mph
NIMBYism isn’t consistent, it’s just one aspect of a gamut of selfishness
Yeah, they don’t care about freedom, they care about having their personal preferences prioritized. All of conservatism can be summed up with selfishness or fear.
I have the freedom to choose my transportation options. I wanna take the bus to work, better yet a quiet train? I can.
I dont have to worry about drinking and driving because I won’t be driving.
If my taxes raise, that’s ok because I can choose to ditch my car, which costs a lot more than I thought it did!
It would cost nothing to add a bike rack here, or include a sidewalk. And it would let more people spend money at this business, more often!
There are many leftist approaches to talking about class and social issues without using theory dork words like Bourgeoisie. Talking to the everyman about how our solutions will solve their problems or not disrupt their desires is the most important skill for us.
Also, one thing that I think is a good indicator that your solutions are the right ones is when you can argue for the same solution from wildly different value systems. Ending car dependency? I can just as easily argue that from a free-market libertarian perspective as from a socialist perspective. Whereas to be in favor of car dependency, there really is no way to argue for that under either value system without being wildly ideologically inconsistent.
Plus, as you say, actually arguing for these solutions using the language and value systems of our traditional opponents can do a lot to reach people who are on the fence. And it’s not even dishonest to do so because I genuinely believe ending car dependency is the more pro-freedom stance. It’s just about knowing your audience and putting things in the terms they’ll understand best.
Pretty easy to make a socialist argument for cars IMHO.
It’d go something like, “the only way to ensure the right to mobility is equally distributed is to ensure every individual has what equates to a bus station in their own home.”
Using an ideology to support a desired outcome isn’t as hard as it should be.
If my taxes raise, that’s ok because I can choose to ditch my car
What about the ones who didn’t want their taxes to be raised? Taxation is involuntary servitude, and no end can justify robbery.
OP asked for arguments that could help convince normal Americans
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That song captures such a mood. Love it.
We have way better taste and ideas than anything the USSR put out. But social housing in some former-bloc countries is pretty innovative. Still not fitting American values.
I’d say just show them rowhouses of Philly, the duplexes of… Vancouver? Or actual building plans for high density housing.
Americans are highly allergic to copy-pasted buildings (ahem… Except in the suburbs) and thats a good value to uphold.
evil communist plot to take away their freedom
This is why I disagree with people who want all or nothing, people who think in binary and expect to perfectly achieve their version of ideal. It doesn’t happen
It helps that I experienced this directly: lived in a great place where everything was convenient by walking, with an unlimited train and bus pass so I had freedom to go anywhere any time (that the trains were running). I still “needed” my car. The best way to encourage more people like me to go carless is to accept the reality, and include a place to stash cars long term. Feel free to make it inconvenient, even. Just let me keep a car until I’m ready to give it up. Give me the freedom to choose on my own terms.
I’ve even experienced this in several small towns, where you have a walkable downtown but need to drive everywhere else. My ex in-laws lived in a farming town of a thousand or so (because 400 college kids)and they had these great old fashioned streets with alleys behind. The streets were quiet and walkable, people hung out on their front porches , there were small town shops and restaurants, they seemed to know everyone they passed …. If you needed your car, you walk out back to the garage and drive down the alley. If you were coming from a farm, you’d park in the lot behind a pub or restaurant and walk to other places in town. Great combination of a 15 minute small town, still allowing for cars but out of the way
People often point to the Netherlands as being a car free utopia and while they definitely have some of the best car independent infrastructure, they haven’t fully given up on car infrastructure either, but rather recognised it’s most prominent use cases and accommodated it appropriately. I believe that this is the best way to pull off this dream. It satisfies everyone.
![[meme] How to reframe car-dependent zoning into terms that so-called Freedom-Loving Patriots™ can (hopefully) understand](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7f4e62bd-ea7c-4ce3-879c-c78d8332d82d.jpeg){kind=link}