A lot of what appeals to people about the past isn’t so much about returning to a golden age but recapturing authenticity. We rarely get the real thing nowadays.
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I'd say it a bit different....
We can't afford it, or at least don't want to pay for it. And quite often, attempting to give a significant fraction of the 9 billionish people on earth something authentic of the past would be an ecological disaster.
I don't disagree, but at the same time, building the same cars we did in 1960 now would ensure the atmosphere would be incandescent in the next few years.
If you look at things like US energy consumption per capita it leveled off in the 1970s and has decreased since, so it is possible, but we're not getting those thing we had during the days of insane energy usage.
Most people shouldn't own personal automobiles, because most people live in cities and cities shouldn't be built around the personal automobile in the first place.