Surprising news: Italy, home of the mighty Ferrari and the sprawling Fiat empire, is now a country where people are buying more bicycles than cars. The numbers are a little too round (and close) not to take with a grain of salt, but according to the Detroit Free Press, last year 1,750,000 cittadini Italiani purchased bicycles, versus 1,748,000 who ponied up for a car. The first figure has not been higher than the second since World War II.
So what's behind the trend? Exciting bicycle commercials? A bold push into green living by the government? Citizens increasingly interested in their health? Sadly, the truth is darker: It's about economics. With Italian unemployment now above 10% and high petrol prices, a people-powered two-wheeler suddenly looks a lot better than a gas-powered four-wheeler. The rise of bicycles and the decline of cars in Italy is not the willful result of environmentalists, but rather, an alarming symptom of a diverging society.
"The middle class ...is basically disappearing," said Gianluca Spina, dean of the business school at Politecnico de Milano in Italy. "It is something really new for this country."
...Fiat's strength is in small to midsize cars for the European market -- precisely the cars that Italy's middle class buys. "For the middle class, there is really no money in their pockets," Spina said.
For all our wishes of a greener future where bicycles play a more important daily role in people's lives than cars, personal poverty is not the way we'd like to see that aim achieved. Is there a different way? Perhaps—stay tuned.
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Yes, taxes. The great leveraging arm of social change. Makes you wonder how things would be if the government was just a little less greedy, doesn't it?
Here in America (not sure where you are), in addition to sales tax on the car you pay sales tax on its parts, tolls, environmental fees on tires (even though they are shredded and recycled, at a profit), fuel tax, road tax (citations levied through police acting for the public "safety"), gas-guzzler tax, insurance, registration (state), vehicle stickers (local), parking fees, etc. The list goes on and on.
No one has any solutions because the government is too busy playing in the background and worrying about how it's going to get its (what was formerly known as 'mine').
The problem with government is that it's not a wealth creating entity, and is not run as such. There is no incentive to make things easy or cheap because financing is unlimited (taxes). The best solution would be if the government served as an enabler (not financial, merely regulatory - and a bare minimum at that) that allowed private enterprise to solve problems. If you told me that I could bid on even a local transportation project with the chance to make a difference and make some money - you can bet your ass I'd do it. Who wouldn't?
The world is full of opportunities, and government is what's in the way.
Also, buying fewer cars isn't necessary good news for the environment. Due to the bad economy, people are keeping their older less efficient cars longer. To make the purchase of a new car feasible, one has to take into account the sale tax which is large one time fee. Poor fuel economy doesn't hurt as much as it is distributes throughout the life span of the vehicle.
Speak for yourself, that's exactly the goal of the contemporary environmental movement. We've all be told since grade school that for the world's poorest to achieve our standard of living would be a catastrophe, what is such Malthusian doom-mongering except a desire for poverty to persist? That's exactly what Malthus was doing when he wrote his crackpot theory, he was a bitter low-level aristocrat making up excuses for the lower classes to be kept in their place.
There are some more conscientious greens who understand the basic fact that people only give a damn about the environment when they have adequate disposable income, and they're considered radicals or heretics.
No one works because they believe they don't have to (not hard, or for any duration), and the government regulates industry so much that it cannot be competitive.
So the price of gas should go down then, right?