Questions that needed to be posted
I、Consider what a car means to you. Which factor of car ownership prevails– utility or status? If
you don’t own a car, how do you get around? Please specify your geographic location in your
response and tie in the factors behind your personal transportation choices.
I’m currently living in Beijing, China, near a place where we used to call “the center of
universe,” and I’m a college student. I don’t own a car. When I’m in school, I walk; I use the
metro mostly when going outside the campus, sometimes the buses too, and in some
comparatively urgent cases, I grab a cab, but that seldom happen actually.
From my perspective, cars are a utility rather than a status, which function as a kind of
transportation that don’t significantly differentiate from others and I believe that many young
people think the same, as according to Joseph Schwieterman, a professor of public service at
DePaul University, “They [members of car-sharing, mostly 25- 35 years old] see their lifestyle
choices not only as a matter of just convenience, but as a rejection of the notion that a privately
owned vehicle is important” (qtd. by Greenfield n.pag.). Also in the same article, the author also
pointed out that “Younger people are starting to perceive cars as a utility rather than as a status
symbol, said Annie Bourdon, who helped launch San Francisco’s City CarShare in 2000 and is
the founder of CarShare Vermont” (qtd. by Greenfield n.pag.). Basically, I think there are several
