Like many of us, Atrios is still having fun with the hysterical WSJ screed against rental bicycles. Unusually for him, however, I think he fails to fully recognize the role of class in the whole discussion. He writes,

A very weird thing for me for a long time has been urban dwellers who fundamentally reject the actual virtues of urban life. I get that not everybody wants to live in Manhattan, but I have no idea why anyone would want to live in Manhattan and get around primarily by personal car.

OK, I think he’s missing a fundamental distinction here. Driving around Manhattan in your personal car unless circumstances totally compel it is completely crazy*; there are people who do it, but I think they’re weird. However, the Journal isn’t reflecting the attitudes of people who drive around Manhattan; it’s reflecting the attitudes of people who are driven around Manhattan.

The point is that even in Manhattan, there’s something to be said for getting places in your personal car driven by your personal driver, who drops you off where you want to go — no search for parking or anything like that — and picks you up when you want to go someplace else.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/our-driven-elite-trivial-and-time-wasting/