Northeast metro area (NYC/NJ), haven’t owned a car in about 25 years. Mainly walk to places but I also take the train/bus as needed.

When I go out to the suburbs via train I do usually end up driving around with family. (their car)

Metro area is HCOL but not having a car has saved me a huge amount of money, people tend to act like the car is a separate expense not related to the rest of your bills like rent/property taxes, utilities, all that.

I’m in a rural area so no dedicated walking infrastructure but the side roads are very walkable anyway since there’s little to no traffic until you get to major roads. That’s where traffic is steadier with semi trucks.

3 miles to the town center where there is a school, fire station, town hall, gas station, park, dollar store and ice cream shop. Not an easy stroll from here but easily bikable

I live in Chicago, and have for over two decades. I have never owned a car here.

Within one block of my house, I have a nice playground park, a public library, one major and one minor bus route, and a great K-8 public school.

Withing two blocks I have a supermarket, a health clinic, two convenience stores, several fast food options including small independent shops, and a great highschool.

Within half a mile I have a coffeeshop, another elementary school with a gifted program, commuter rail to the suburbs, a brewpub, a public pool with a waterslide, and two more major bus routes one of which takes me straight to work and the other takes me to the Korean supermarket with the steamed bun stand.

Within a mile I have a two bakeries, a wine bar, a pharmacy, two large parks each with free preschool and playgrounds, another public pool, light rail into the city, a hospital, and another major bus route.

I commute by bicycle and Chicago is flat as hell. My route to work is fully along bike lanes, about forty percent of that protected by a concrete curb and another forty percent on a beautiful side street along the train track embankment covered in murals.

Cost of living? My house is 1050sf and cost $102K. I earn $55-60K annully and support a family of five on that. Without the cost of a car, it’s easy.

I live in a “walkable for the US” area. The best way to get to stuff is along a busy stroad that’s not fun to walk along. I can cut through neighbors’ yards to get to nice quiet backroads that are much more pleasant, and they don’t seem to mind, but it’d be nice if I didn’t have to.

I live in a fairly small town. Notably it was never bulldozed to build gigantic stroads or highways and grew slowly enough that there is a single stroad which the city has been slowly extending a sidewalk/bikepath along. For anyone who lives and works in town, it’s very walkable/bikable. Problem is it’s a small town of around 10-15k people so lots of stuff requires running to the nearest large city for medical appointments and shopping and whatnot

With remote work my family has been able to make it work with only one car, and I’ll bike to stuff in town so my wife can use the car when she needs to. There’s some logistical challenges at times but ultimately it’s really nice only worrying about the cost of a single shared vehicle

I can walk to the beach and to hiking. and there are some food trucks in walking distance, but no real groceries.

I live in a place with a totally free bus system!

It is fucking awesome, there is no stupid card, no people being hassled who can’t pay… and I find when I go out without driving I am just less depressed to the point that I will now go out of my way to walk and ride the bus since I feel less like a ghost fading away in a shockingly expensive metal bubble that is always breaking or costing money when I do…

I live 10 min bus ride from a very walkable ~50,000 person towncenter, it is a massive quality of life boost for me.

Seriously, move to Olympia! Or advocate for free public transit in your city/hometown! It makes everything so much more walkable especially not needing a card or other nonsense, just walk on and go.

Also when the US economy screams to a halt, the only service industry heavy places that will weather it will be places in local, accessible, walkable downtowns that are easy and pleasant for people to get to rather than ANOTHER process of getting in a car, driving 25+ minutes, sitting in traffic and scrambling for parking and then repeating the process to get home when you are tired.

Same thing goes for employment, jobs that employees can get to through public transit will be FAR more desirable jobs as even if an employee drives most days for the convenience, figuring out how to get to work when their car has problems is 1000 times easier when they can rely on mass transit as a sure backup even if it is annoying and not ideal. Getting a job that REQUIRES a working car every single day to access is a massive liability and added stress on an employee in comparison. …and before you say “but what about Uber?” the thing is… that ALL has to be priced into Uber costs too, it just hides all of that behind “somebody’s elses problem”.

People in the US are utterly cornered economically by the 1% and as much as we are hopelessly addicted to cars, THE ONLY place people in the US will have to budge in trimming down their costs will be getting rid of their cars… it really doesn’t matter that nobody is thinking about it or wants to or that US culture is still entirely based around getting a massive inefficient SUV/pickup as a symbol of making it… USians will simply not be able to afford having a car in the very near future, if they can even afford it now as it is. Then what? Walkability is suddenly an existentially necessary anchor for a community to even exist.

My neighborhood doesn’t have sidewalks, but there’s a grocery store that’s a 15 minute walk away. For anything beyond food or a haircut, you’d have to walk for at least an hour probably much more. We have busses, but they only have 3 stops in town, they’re mostly for going to other towns. There’s also a train station that’s a 20-30 minute walk away. Cars are essentially mandatory here.

If you are walking to a neighbors house, a dog, or for your health its very walkable. If you need to get food, you need a car.

It’s 10 miles to the nearest stretch of sidewalk, the main road is a 50 most people go at least 60 down.

People walk it, but it’s notoriously unsafe. On top of that, where I live is a popular drive spot for drunk teens, and more than one person has gotten hurt by them taking out mailboxes.