But the biggest decline is in young people, which again is in large part due to their shrinking job opportunities, but also seems to be part of a larger rejection by the Millennial generation of the notion that car ownership is a critical part of adulthood. In an era of laptop computers and smartphones, the sense that you need a car to have access to the larger world is shrinking. They’re also well-known for having more communal values than the generations before them, which reduces the impact of the traditional hostility to public transportation, i.e. the collective American fear of having to be in a collective. Overall, the trend in America towards more acceptance of a carless or car-reduced lifestyle is one I applaud. These things have a way of building on themselves. Getting to know people who don’t drive and realizing they aren’t weird or emasculated can, in turn, convince other people that they don’t always have to drive. The more people walking and biking, the more cities have to accommodate them by building bike lanes and sidewalks, which in turn encourages more people to choose these options. By Americans Driving Less, Especially Young Men | The Raw Story (via dendroica)