Book Review: A Guide to Giving Up Car Ownership

Third in an occasional series

How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save money, breathe easier, and get more mileage out of life

By Chris Balish

Ten Speed Press, 2006

This is the book that made me think I could do it.

Nineteen years ago, I resolved to live without owning a car for a year. As I’ve often said, it’s the only New Year’s resolution I’ve ever kept. I’ve renewed it every year since.

On occasion I’ve been tempted to yield to the prevailing culture and buy a car. But reason prevailed. I don’t want to participate in the degradation of the planetary ecosystem any more than I can help. I’d like to live in a social environment navigable by foot, bus, and bicycle. I don’t want to live at the mercy of gas prices and the availability of parking. These things haven’t changed.

But how does one accomplish it? There is a lot of literature about how we got here, how the private car reshaped the American landscape in its own image, how it enslaved us while promising freedom, and what we can do to mitigate the damage. All well and good in the pushback against the tyranny of the automobile.

But what can the average American, let alone the average Mainer, do about it? I suspect that many car owners would like to cast off the yoke, but do not know where to begin.

In How to Live Well Without Owning a Car, Chris Balish provides a guide. He eschews history, land-use planning, and politics. Instead, he focuses on individual human beings. And he makes a convincing argument that giving up car ownership can dramatically improve the average person’s life.

Balish is a journalist and television personality, and his book has the breezy manner of someone who works with sound bites and bullet lists. A section headlined “Things You Won’t Miss About Owning a Car” lists 62 items over three pages. It includes such things as “altercations with other drivers,” and “that feeling of dread when your car won’t start.”

Still, the message is sound and serious. Car ownership, Balsih asserts, is “the worst financial move most people make in their lifetime.”

Though he touches on environmental issues, he aims straight for the pocketbook. An early chapter encourages readers to add up the true costs of their cars. “Most people have little idea just how much their car is costing them,” he claims.

Balish provides a detailed, four-page worksheet of all car-related expenses for a year. In addition to the obvious things like gas, insurance, and tires, the list includes such things as snow scrapers, stereo installation, traffic tickets, and windshield replacement. Not every car owner will incur every expense on the list every year, but it’s good bet that “unexpected” car costs will come up periodically.

The operative word in the title is “Owning.” Blish argues that if you don’t need a car to get to your job, you don’t need to own one. Giving up car ownership does not mean renouncing all commerce with cars. A bit of rough math reveals that the annual cost of owning a car is equivalent to 80-120 daily car rentals. Delivery services abound. Friends may be willing to help move a couch or a dinghy or a load of firewood, provided you do something for them in return.

Balish makes a quality-of-life argument as well as an economic one. You will be happier and better off financially once you’ve figured out how to live without a car in the driveway.

He anticipates the objections of skeptics. Single when he wrote the book, Balish devotes a chapter to socializing and dating without a car. He addresses another chapter to married couples with kids and two cars and shows how they could manage with one. He discusses strategies for commuting by bicycle while keeping a clean and professional appearance.

Sprinkled throughout are stories from people Balish has interviewed about going car-free, or “car-lite.” Chapters are separated into smaller sections, with cartoons and quotes and lists and charts that make the whole book fun and easy to digest as well as informative.

What I like best about the book is its unpretentiousness. Balish doesn’t preach. Nor does he pretend that everyone can live without a car. But many of us can. How to Live Well Without Owning a Car convinced me that I am one of them.

Previous Book Reviews:

Asphalt Nation

Life After Cars