I know it seems very strange to many who aren’t Americans but in most American cities and rural areas, if you can’t scrounge up enough money for a car, that also means you can’t get or hold a job.

You see, the public transportation infrastructure outside of a very few major cities in the US is terrible to non-existent, and many employers if they discover you are using public transit simply will not hire you anyway.

Even if they do decide to hire you, using the paltry and pathetic public transit available just does not work.

For instance, I live about seven miles away from my office, in one of the densest areas in the state. It takes me about 15 minutes to drive to work. Taking public transit would cost me nearly three hours — one way. I could literally walk there faster, if the area had sidewalks. But it does not, like most of the US.

In this country, often one cannot get a job due to a lack of a car, and one cannot easily buy a car due to a lack of a job. And if your car breaks down and you cannot afford to repair it, you lose your job by default.

You can obviously see what a trap this leaves people in.

No, not a dystopia. Not a dystopia at all.