Americans are slaves to cars. We treat the ability to drive a monster truck to the grocery store as a sacred right and anyone who would dare impede our progress for a handful of seconds (pedestrians, yes, but ESPECIALLY those rotten tree-hugging cyclists) are to be scorned and intimidated at best, summarily executed at worst. We've hollowed out our cities for parking lots and leveled neighborhoods and green spaces to make room for ever-expanding freeways, but god forbid we invest in public transportation - the domain of socialists and poor people. And so many of us have effectively brainwashed ourselves into believing that all of this is right and good and not, in fact, utterly insane.
Interesting, because I have a theory that less dependence on cars would actually lead to fewer crazy, homeless people and more vibrant neighbourhoods: the reason being that lower income folks wouldn't have to spend so much time and money on cars. As tempting as it is to look away, we're only fracturing our society more by drawing lines between different income classes, if we don't invest in things like walkable neighbourhoods and public transport.
Gangs and homeless camps are generally endemic to urban areas, not rural ones, despite rural low income groups having a far greater need to rely on cars to get around.
Huh, this is even more interesting because I always thought that homeless folk gravitate towards city centers and not that urban areas cause homelessness. I'm not looking to contradict you, just saying it's funny how we look at the same things and completely reverse the cause and effects in our heads :)
My thinking is that homeless folks tend to move towards city centers because they are more noticed, have more footfalls go past them and hence is easier for them to get food/change etc. They would not be likely to go to the suburbs because they are harder to get around, there are fewer people around to help, and it's very easy to get the police called on you for loitering around someone's lawn.
