The pattern of zoning and development that the U.S. has used for the past 70 years assumes that nobody wants to walk or cycle anywhere and that they feel so strongly about it that they want cities to be built such that people will die if they attempt to do so. I grew up in a neighborhood where the elementary school was about half a mile away... on the other side of a five lane highway with no crosswalk and no sidewalk on the other side. Zero chance to assert your independence as a kid. Zero chance to live responsibly as an adult.
A part of the reason people wish they had FSD so badly is because they want to be rescued from this fundamental failure of NA-style urban planning that necessities driving, all the time, across both short and long distances.
This is changing though. Cities are getting bikes and bike lanes. They’re building dense developments close to transit. ebikes + protected bike lanes + TOD might be the solution.
I certainly hope so, and I've since moved to a place that is much more friendly for cycling; however if you go back to where I'm from (which for the purposes of this topic really could be one of any untold hundreds of counties in the U.S.), there are no signs of improvement or change. It's just the largest urban cores that seem to slowly be getting it. There is a breathtakingly large amount of suburban sprawl where the conversation about this topic is completely broken, and for the people willing to admit there even is a problem, they believe that the solution is one more lane, or one more stop sign, or just educating drivers a little bit better and nobody wants to talk about things like traffic calming, or upzoning, or cycle paths or anything else that makes anything other than car trips safe and desirable.
A part of the reason people wish they had FSD so badly is because they want to be rescued from this fundamental failure of NA-style urban planning that necessities driving, all the time, across both short and long distances.