Originally Posted by
jon c.
Given that cars have been an integral component in the life of everyone alive today, I would think it more accurate to say that cars have had a significant influence on the nation's political and social fabric. They are not an external agent to the culture, they are part of the culture and the present culture as we know it doesn't exist without the car. Yes, the suburbanization of America would likely have been reduced without the car, but it's equally possible that the technology that facilitates this remote discussion would not exist either. All of our technological progress stems from the automotive age and the society that grew with it. Technology and the desire to forward that technology shapes and in significant part defines our culture. It is part of who we are. The automotive age was about much more than just the car. But it does not exist without the car.
What do the technologies that make IT and media possible have to do with motor-vehicle and highway building? They are completely different technologies.
And the few conclusions presented in the article correlating such things as income and car dependence do not begin to prove causality. He really fails to establish any substantive link.
Causality is never proven by statistical research.
In retrospect, it isn't hard to make the argument that our society could have handled population growth and the accompanying growth of automotive in a better manner. Hindsight is always 20/20. But that doesn't mean cars have divided our culture. It helped to increase physical separation, but our culture was certainly no less divided before that occurred. Indeed, the automotive culture created the middle class, which arguably bridged cultural divisions (although it certainly didn't erase them). I'd certainly agree that we should have incorporated better public transportation into our infrastructure. The claim he makes is much more grandiose and in my opinion the evidence he presents in support of that claim is poor.
Suburban sprawl was overstimulated by people trying to escape cultural and economic divisions. People have been moving out to the country to get away from urban problems since at least the time of ancient Rome, but the culture of mass automobile reliance created a culture where people don't just move out the country/suburbs, they drive back and forth to the city daily, as well as to other areas, so you end up with sprawl in all directions. Plus the sprawl isn't composed of numerous more-or-less self-contained localities. Instead, employees are living miles and miles from their workplaces, and they are shopping and running errands in other places miles and miles away. It gets to the point where LCF within any single local area is like a form of isolation, and that is what creates driving-dependency. If you had sprawl where each local area has sufficient economic opportunities for people who live in that local area to also work and shop there, then no one is dependent on traveling miles and miles for things. They can if they want, but if they just stay within a couple miles of home biking/walking, they don't feel they're missing out on life and opportunities.