Those are all entirely reasonable objections. :) Part of the problem is that they're mostly things that can be solved at a large municipal level rather than an individual level; if I got rid of my car, that wouldn't stop all the stores from being clustered far away and my still needing to go to them. Of course, one can preferentially choose housing close to those clusters, which is what I did; everything I need is within a mile and everything I want except a big hardware store is within three. Of course, this means that campus is two miles away, but the buses do go there.

Hiring a handcart doesn't work if there aren't sidewalks. :) Regardless, I should look into bike trailers... Ooh, or maybe a bike rickshaw, so the next time someone said "I want to go, but I really don't want to deal with walking/riding there" I could just say "Get in the rickshaw, lazybones." I'd have legs of steel if I didn't die first!