alt Hacker News> You could say many of the broad and widespread mental issues we have in the US is the result of automobiles leading to suburbanization and thus isolation of people.
Yes, you could say that, though I'm not sure who would actually say that seriously.
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That's a really rude and dismissive take - the impact of cars has been immense, in particular the ways in which they've been given primacy as a mode of transport and the ways in which that necessity has interacted with our laws and infrastructure development (sabotoging of public rail transport, parking regulations and the creation of car-dependent suburbia, pedestrian safety, highway projects decimating communities of color, etc. etc. etc.).
To blithely state that nobody could make such a claim seriously is an attitude which actually has a really fitting term: carbrained.
I would say that seriously, so there you go, theres two.
Respectfully, without judgement, your perspective may be wildly skewed because you’re American (going by your post history). I suspect the negative externalities in a society built around cars don’t register with you because to you it is the normal state of the world. As a Dutchman, I grew up in a built world that is based around the human scale and to me your parent’s claim comes across as astonishingly obvious.