• Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    I’m just going to say if a small number of people have these problems maybe its a “lifestyle choice” but if a lot of people have these problems its because society has made decisions to make bad choices easier than good ones. The big ones I’d say are:

    • too much overinvestment on roads and vehicles in the US before the 1950s people would be walking not driving. Offices existed before 1950 but 30 mile commutes did not.
    • decades of unnaffordable housing lead to higher transportation times
    • laws requiring giant parking lots make housing expensive and increase sprawl lead to car dependence
    • decades spent subsidizing shipping of goods over local supply creates bad incentives for processed foods
    • poor workers rights lead to low levels of free time to do things like cooking, dating, outdoor hobbies
    • gun violence, homelessness and sprawl have lead to decreased investment in free public spaces, more polluted waterways (I haven’t heard frogs in years
    • car accidences, poor working conditions, poor long term health care, relatively good emergency care, and gun violence lead to the US to be one of the most injured populations outside like war torn third world countries.
    • higher reliance on the internet has moved high paying jobs away from extremely rural jobs (historically it had been somewhat reversed with delivery and natural resource jobs being fairly high paying).

    We like to pretend there’s a healthy way to live in modern society but imo its not realistic for everyone to do so and still pay rent.