You could say Gen Z “chooses” a lot of things. Gen Z “chooses” not to buy houses (we can’t afford them) Gen Z “chooses” to be mentally ill (not even 10 years ago, “autism” was just “the weird kid”) Gen Z “chooses” to rent Gen Z “chooses” not to buy food Gen Z “chooses” to let climate change fuck the earth Gen Z “chooses” to not have kids (although here we actually don’t want them, but also couldn’t afford them) and so on.
“Choosing” is doing some heavy lifting here when gen-z ain’t got no money.
I’m right there with them. I spent 7-8 years in a larger city and enjoyed not having a car the entire time. No renting a parking spot or fighting over who gets to block in who with the upstairs or downstairs neighbors. No snow shoveling or scrambling to park on one side for street sweeping.
I’m now temporarily in a place where buses are at an hour interval and only go to 1 place so I took one of the family cars. Despite the car being “free” I’m paying more than an unlimited transit pass on insurance alone, and I have a great rate at the expense of having to let my insurance track my accelerating / braking through GPS/accelerometer (at least for a few weeks before I can uninstall the app and enjoy the lower rate). I’ve had to pay for an inspections, tags, fixing a tint that was legal at home but illegal where I am now (over $100 even if I just had them remove it), and I’m still needing to spend on extras like oil to top up in between oil changes, new wipers, coolant, and it’s looking like it’s almost due for tire rotations, brake and transmission flush, and other regular maintenance which is just another expense.
The car was free and it’s so expensive still. I miss being able to hop on a bus and zone out too.