Do you have any children? I can't imagine car free city is good when you have two or more young children. For one, groceries are a problem as you likely need to stock more food to cook. Sure you can go to the store every other day but that takes a lot of time and is more expensive. Plus you are on a lot tighter schedule. Most people with kids race home to pick up children and don't want to stop by the store and schlep back groceries.
Then you have just the stress of taking kids on public transport. You have to carry around a lot of things (snacks, drinks, diapers or change of clothes, toys and books, etc). You normally put that in a stroller but that's a huge pain to manage on a bus or subway.
I have children. 12 and 8, but we were also in Taiwan once earlier when they were 5 and 1.
It's very easy to get around. The MRT stations are nothing like the ones in the US. Bathrooms are incredibly well kept and clean at every station. If anything, I feel like it's easier than pulling strollers in and out of a trunk. That said, the sidewalks are very questionable in many parts of the city once you are off of the main roads so there is some danger for small kids.
But Taiwan may also be somewhat unique in that relatively few folks cook in their daily lives due to the low cost of eating out (really amazing place if you love food). Additionally, markets tend to be quite abundant so you are rarely going very far to get food. Houses tend to have smaller kitchens and smaller refrigerators as well so you don't store as much food as you would here.
The US is somewhat unique because of the high friction of getting food. Perhaps that's why we can have businesses like Instacart and we have such large refrigerators because the friction and cost of transport to get food is so high.
I still think it has to be more efficient to eat out and let economies of scale take over than for each of us to cook. I even say this as an avid home cook. It's incredible that in the US it costs orders of magnitudes more to have an efficient machine of humans and logistics produce the food
> Do you have any children? I can't imagine car free city is good when you have two or more young children. For one, groceries are a problem as you likely need to stock more food to cook. Sure you can go to the store every other day but that takes a lot of time and is more expensive. Plus you are on a lot tighter schedule. Most people with kids race home to pick up children and don't want to stop by the store and schlep back groceries.
Millions of people with children in larger European cities live without requiring a car to buy groceries, bring their kids to activities, etc. Also when kids are old enough the transportation infrastructure is available for them to be independent and go do their things by themselves.
I can't imagine how you cannot imagine that this already happens, in many places, and it's not an issue at all.
Well most kids would be productive human resource as soon as they are able to walk without support in that past. They would also keep themselves entertained with other kids on the street and may also get fed in neighbor's home plenty of times.
I grew up in the US in a small city. My parents owned a car periodically, but only one, and the vast majority of my peers were in car-less families.
We all did most of everything day-to-day just fine between walking, bikes, and busses. The kids over say 6 mostly transported themselves to wherever they were going without their parents. Of course, we also NEVER took our toys, clothes, or books outside of the house (wtf???) nor snacks (we ate and drank at meals) and only brought clothes somewhere if we were planning on staying the night there. If I needed clothes I'd carry them myself. I literally couldn't imagine my parents carrying around my clothes at a point that I was physically able to carry them myself. The thought makes me laugh. For babies there are diaper bags, my parents never needed more than a single diaper bag even though they had multiple kids in diapers at the same time.
Not having a car only was a problem for day trips, like the amusement park 60 miles away. We'd always make sure to bring friends and family who didn't have a car whenever we went to those sorts of places.
I live in a city with two young kids. We do very little driving. We live an easy walk to the grocery store and school. A bus stop is on the corner, with buses every few minutes. A car really isn't necessary, and the kids like taking the bus, though we don't do it often. For longer trips, a backpack gets stuffed with snacks and stuff, and we're good to go. The only thing we use a car for regularly is to get to swimming lessons, which is a bit off the beaten path. None of the things you bring up are a problem for us at all.
For me, getting to my parents would take me 2 hours vs 30m and I'd have to adhere to a strict schedule. inlaws would take maybe 4 hours versus 1.5, since there is much better transit to them. So basically my kids would see them a lot less often at a much greater expense.
Shopping locally would cost me an extra few hundred a month and take me maybe 20 hours extra a month.
If the kid is sick I'd have to schlep him to the doctor which would take 30m each way as opposed to a ten min car ride. Hope it's not raining.
I can also drive to more restaurants so I have more choices
Having a car is a convenience that makes my life considerably easier. I gladly trade money for time and convenience. And I can often even get both with more options form shopping
> You normally put that in a stroller but that's a huge pain to manage on a bus or subway.
Not in any bus or subway car build in the last 20 years.
In every EU city I rode mass transit in the last decade, all transit vehicles are "low side wagons", meaning you can just roll on from the platform/curb, the doors are wide and the area right behind the door is a large space for wheel vehicles.
People bring wheelchairs, strollers, bikes, ect. without any problems, without needing help getting on. The platforms have elevators, for the people not comfortable taking a stroller onto an escalator.
The only exception I can think of are historic drams, but those are rare.
In Manhattan, there was a supermarket on almost every block. Going to get groceries was only slightly longer than the trip to your refrigerator. I remember food being more expensive in Manhattan, but on a recent vacation to Paris, food was cheap and extremely high quality. Similarly in Italian cities a few years ago.
Things are structured differently in large cities around the world to accommodate a walking lifestyle.
As for schlepping baby stuff around, it's inconvenient but a relatively short period of your child's life in the scheme of things. But I do suppose it would be a grind if you have 3 or more children and going through that baby stage for many years on end.
I live in the US and I did the same when I was a kid - cycle, walk, or bus. Not everywhere, but many places. I even took the bus to the mall with my friends when none of us had any money because it was something to do.
I couldn't imagine being a kid and living in a location where the only way I'd be able to go anywhere was to have a parent drive me. No thanks, ugh.
Then you have just the stress of taking kids on public transport. You have to carry around a lot of things (snacks, drinks, diapers or change of clothes, toys and books, etc). You normally put that in a stroller but that's a huge pain to manage on a bus or subway.