I had a friend at uni who was hardcore socialist. Like really hard core. She felt that the world's wealth should be shared equally. I pointed out, that at the time, if the world's GDP was divided equally among all the citizens at the time, we'd have about $7k USD to spend a year each. And although we did debate a little about whether idle or inefficient labour would mean that the world GDP would rise if nutrition and education was made available to the most poor, she was also a hardcore greenie, and was opposed to pumping up more oil or cutting down more trees for farmland/houses etc.
What was the point of all that? Well, my point back then, to which I still hold - is that for the poor to become rich, at least to some degree the rich must become poorer. China, despite its massive jumps in wealth, still cannot afford (and does not desire) one car for every adult. The world's biggest market for electric bikes is China, with India not far behind growing at a CAGR of 43%.
At the same time, the developed world will have to wean itself off moving 1.2-2.5 tonnes of metal and plastic to shift a 70kg (or if we make this about obesity, 140kg?) body, as cities become more dense, there's fewer places to park, and apparently - in Australia at least, owning a car is no longer the rite of passage it used to be, and it's an expense that the young can no longer afford. While the cost of cars have plateaued, the cost of running a car has not, and youth unemployment and underemployment with longer periods in casual and minimum wage/zero hour contract jobs were rising even before Covid.
And despite that article, and Boris' intention of making this about obesity... I think this is a trend that can only be delayed, not stopped. The old may complain they can't cycle, but the young have no excuse and no money for alternatives. And when they turn 40, 50, 60, and have been cycling most their life, they're not going to think too much about "But I'm too old to be doing my weekly shop on a bike". They would have grown up the past 20, 30, 40 years having done it already.
That said, I've been working in selling IT into government for the last 12 years, and the lower you go down the chain, the more true it is. Federal government will squeeze every last dollar of discount out of you, then demand more features after it's sold... Local councils - well, let's just say more than once, I've sold them over $100k of IT equipment, gone for the annual renewal fees a year later and found them sitting still in the box under someone's desk, with a blank stare from the engineer trying to remember which project they bought it for...
