Book Review; How to Live Well Without Owning a Car
When I went car-free in the first half of 2007 I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into (see post). Sure, I had owned the scooter for a while but I still had my car for shopping trips and other errands. One of my first purchases after going car-free was the book by former St. Louisan, Chris Balish, titled How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save Money, Breath Easier and Get More Mileage out of Life.
Balish’s book is not a preachy save the planet from doom type of book. Instead, it is a personal finance book, showing the reader how to save thousands of dollars each year simply by not owning a car. Instead of focusing on the environmental impacts of cars he narrows in on the toll car ownership can take on personal finances and how it often dictates much about your lifestyle. Balish argues, convincingly, that you can get rid of the car and improve your standard of living. Having lived it now for six months, he is so right.
Balish acknowledges that car-free living is not for everyone. The outside salesperson or carpenter that hauls many heavy tools around, likely needs a car. For many others, however, Balish lays out all the issues he faced when going car-free while living in St. Louis and later in Los Angeles. Throughout the book are personal testimonies from people from North America that are also car-free.
He is quick to point out that car-free does not mean you will never rent or ride in a vehicle ever again. Car-free, to Balish, is about not owning a car. Car-lite applies to say the family that reduces their ownership of cars (from 3 to 2, from 2 to 1), basically owning less cars than you have licensed drivers.
The book is full of great tips to help you plan your new life without a car. Rather than having transportation at the ready as with a car, going car-free requires doing some planning ahead, changing buying patterns and potentially changing the location of where you live and/or work.
The notion of place, where you live or work, is where the book falls short. When Balish lived in St. Louis he lived in the Central West End which afforded him many opportunities to walk to local stores as well as access to bus and light rail mass transit. Had Balish lived in say O’Fallon (Missouri or Illinois, doesn’t really matter) he would have had a difficult time being car-free. Chapter 9, ‘Should You Move Closer to Work?’, suggests that moving to within 2-3 miles of work will “change your life.” Well, that heavily depends upon the context of where you work. Someone might live behind the Galleria and work at the Hanley Industrial Court only a few miles away but getting back and forth between the two was a challenge even before the reconstruction of highway 40.
This is not to say that suburbs are bad and the inner core city is good. For example, a person that works in say Webster Groves or Ferguson and works nearby could likely function quite well without a car. With all the basic services within walking distance to adjacent residential neighborhoods (which are connected via a good network of streets) a person could live well without owning a car.
When Balish does a 2nd edition I’d like to see him have a chapter on things to look for when deciding where to live. Does the area have good sidewalks and curb cuts (for pushing the baby stroller)? How far away is the nearest market (not necessarily a ‘supermarket’, just market)? In the book he does devote a good amount of ink to suggesting that you look for local churches, schools, dry cleaners and so on when going car free. If someone doesn’t live in such an environment, they need to know what to look for and what to avoid. He does suggest locating near a transit stop when possible.
Balish breaks the chapters up into four basic sections: 1) Why you’re better off not owning a car, 2) getting to work without a car, 3) non-work transportation and 4) living well without a car. It is within this framework that Balish basically covers all the issues that a person will face going car free — from basics to getting to and from work, to handling social functions to dating.
Again, the book isn’t remotely preachy except that car ownership costs more than we all think — often twice the price paid for a vehicle after 5 years of ownership. The $25,000 car will likely run you about fifty grand after five years. Balish does the math for you showing how if you invested that same money instead you could save money for a kid’s education, a down payment on a house or retirement.
Another area the book falls short is with respect to families. He, like me, is single and therefore says a family can be car-free but he doesn’t really offer tips on the best types of strollers or other items a car-free family might need. The volume of toys, diaper bags and other items being toted around in a car for junior now is amazing. Without the SUV to permit the relatively easy transport of such items, parents would need to think on a smaller scale of what items do they need for a particular outing.
However, Balish does suggest that families consider going from two cars to one — shifting schedules and making other changes to permit eliminating one of the cars. I know many couples in the St. Louis area that have only a single car.
To me this is a great resource of easy to understand concepts about taking taxis, using transit, bicycling short distances and so on. The car is a wonderful tool that has given Americans mobility for years. As expenses rise and many now go into debate for 60 months or more to finance a car this mobility has turned into a requirement. Getting rid of the car does allow you live well as Balish describes and it gives you a new sense of freedom that no car can match. Highly recommended for anyone looking to be car-free, car-lite or perhaps just head that direction.
Resources:
- $12.95, Order from Left Bank Books, Ten-Speed Press, or Amazon.
- Official website which includes free downloads of a couple of chapters and additional reviews.
