I'm 50, and an American. I've never owned a car. I can attest to the stigma of not traveling via personal motor vehicle, and the senseless barriers we've erected to getting through one's daily life by means other than car.

I'm cheered by these splashy blurbs, but I'm unconvinced they report a permanent trend: we still have a huge inventory of office park sprawl, strip mall wastelands, and residential "neighborhoods" with no sidewalks, with more being developed.