"punishment for those who defy it"

One of the best things about living in a Korean city, even a relatively small one like lurvely Daegu (pop. 2.5 million) is that excellent, clean, and cheap public transportation is readily available.  Speaking more bluntly as an American, you don't need a fucking car, ever.  It actually frustrates me that if and when I move back to America it's highly likely my first worry is going to be buying a huge piece of metal that will depreciate by 40 percent the moment I drive it off of a lot.  I shall then be expected to feed the thing expensive, environment-destroying gas, pay insurance for it (which literally subsidizes other drivers to behave like shit-heads), and wonder whether or not some kid will key my doors just for the fun of it.

Anyhow, this is a long-winded way of saying that American dependency on cars is completely by design, and it sucks:

"As I detail in a forthcoming journal article, over the course of several generations lawmakers rewrote the rules of American life to conform to the interests of Big Oil, the auto barons, and the car-loving 1 percenters of the Roaring Twenties. They gave legal force to a mind-set—let’s call it automobile supremacy—that kills 40,000 Americans a year and seriously injures more than 4 million more. Include all those harmed by emissions and climate change, and the damage is even greater. As a teenager growing up in the shadow of Detroit, I had no reason to feel this was unjust, much less encouraged by law. It is both.

It’s no secret that American public policy throughout the 20th century endorsed the car—for instance, by building a massive network of urban and interstate highways at public expense. Less well understood is how the legal framework governing American life enforces dependency on the automobile. To begin with, mundane road regulations embed automobile supremacy into federal, state, and local law. But inequities in traffic regulation are only the beginning. Land-use law, criminal law, torts, insurance, vehicle safety regulations, even the tax code—all these sources of law provide rewards to cooperate with what has become the dominant transport mode, and punishment for those who defy it."

For what it's worth, I actually enjoy driving.  And renting a car in South Korea is easy enough.  But I've just never had the need to do so.  (Admittedly, if I ever have kids that might change things).

And no, a rush-hour subway car in Seoul or Daegu isn't my idea of paradise either, but did I mention how I never worry about asshole kids keying my door or ripping off my side-view mirror just for giggles like I did living in a "nice" American neighborhood?