JCinWrappingPaper wrote:
I fully agree. There are SO many "what-ifs" and emergencies. If you don't know how to drive you will be unprepared for a lot of the things that life throws at you. What do you guys do when you leave your big cities?? What will you do when you plan on having kids? What do you do when you have to carry a LOT of things, or really BIG things like mattresses, loads of groceries, things from Home Depot?? Does this mean that you guys don't go on weekend roadtrips with friends and such?


Born, raised and have lived most of life smack dab in Manhattan, NYC here , so to answer your semi-hypothetical questions:

1. Hope I don't sound snobby, but I don't really leave big cities when I go on vacations. I always vacation in other big cities (e.g. Chicago, San Francisco, etc.), who have public transportation as well. If I were to go to a place without public transportation, it's because I'm visiting someone and THEY would be driving me around.

2. I do not plan on having kids, but if that were to change and I still didn't know how to drive, I would of course not move to a place that required me to drive. Living in surburbia is not required once you have kids, you're allowed to raise children in big cities.

3. That's what delivery is for. Either that, or I hire someone from Craigslist with a car/van to bring it from the store for me. Sorry, but really, how often are people buying mattreses, a power sander from Home Depot, etc., often enough where it's more financially sound to own a car to get this stuff home rather than pay someone the few times or so a year you are buying heavy things?
  
4. I'm sorry, I don't understand what does having a car have to do with going on a trip on the weekend?
I take a bus or train to get to where I'm going. Not driving has never stopped me from going someplace.

I think that some of you are who are so used to having a car, you don't understand that it's just as easy to use public transportation (if not easier, if you put in getting gas, parking, etc.) to get around.

With that said, I do eventually plan on learning how to drive, just because I do not want to live in this city for much longer and the majority of the US requires you to drive. But if I planned on staying here forever, I honestly wouldn't care about learning how to. Again, I've gotten along quite well without it thus far.
(And I do concede that NYC is not necessarily a good case, as it's really it's own seperate society going on here. )