Driving Deterioration:

Transcription

1 Driving Deterioration: How the car culture contributes to escalating human misery Synopsis The author asks the reader to consider how the car in the last 100 years has been responsible for turning an area of natural landscape in the U.S. the size of Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania into concrete or asphalt. To consider that it has been directly responsible for injuring 250 million, nearly equivalent to the current population of the U.S., and killing more than have died in all the wars in which the country has fought. To consider that the widespread use of this same contraption burns 8 million barrels of oil daily, making the U.S. increasingly dependent on and entangled with a severely unstable world region. To consider that it kills one million wild animals every week. The automobile continues to be responsible for myriad negative effects that, when assessed rationally, far outweigh the benefits. And the rest of the world is close behind..

2 The Indictment Sara Brown, a physician assistant who doubles as cheerleader for the National Football League Charlotte Panthers states in her personal profile that the one thing she could not live without is her car. Most likely not given the amount of consideration some would say a question with such implication merits, it may be unfair to interpret the response as suggesting that her car supersedes other life essentials such as love, friends, or water. Conceding that it would not be an uncommon response in the United States today, however, sheds some light on exactly what is considered important throughout the population. Americans i love their cars. They love every aspect of the promise a car holds: making possible traveling long distances in a relatively short period; a latent force of rapid escape from any situation; a compartmentalized personal safe haven. The automobile has sparked a culture that is all about driving from taking a cruise to get away from it all, to the drive-in, drive-thru, and drive-up modality, to cult literary classics such as On the Road and a large chunk of Hollywood productions including Smokey and the Bandit, Natural Born Killers, and The Blues Brothers, all made by and on the highways and byways of the United States. Many American rock stars have defined their image by their ride, writing glowing tributes to that shiny piece of metal. It s often joked that Bruce Springsteen has never written a song without parking a car in the lyrics. ii Though a relatively young technology, asking most Americans to envision a United States society devoid of the automobile would bring stuttering stares, confusion, and an unwillingness to do so. Cars are so insinuated into how United States citizens see and define themselves that their profusion is oft equated with what constitutes the good things in life. In viewing the unprecedented provision of never-before-dreamt-of levels of personal mobility and its heavy-handed influence in pop culture alongside the millions of jobs the automobile industry provides iii, one imagines that only a malignant member of society could dare speak a negative word against this dream come true. Now consider that this same dream invention in the last 100 years has been responsible for turning an area of natural landscape in the U.S. the size of Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania into concrete or asphalt. iv Consider that it has been directly responsible for injuring 250 million, nearly equivalent to the current population of the U.S., and killing more than have died in all the wars in which the country has fought. v Consider that the widespread use of this same contraption burns 8 million barrels of oil daily, making the U.S. increasingly dependent on and entangled with a severely unstable world region. Consider that it kills one million wild animals every week. vi The automobile continues to be responsible for myriad negative effects that, when assessed rationally, far outweigh the benefits. It has been heavily complicit in dragging down the livelihood of the average American. As much as the U.S. receives just criticism for its controlling actions in parts of the lesser-developed world, it receives much less for a tragic downward spiral of life it has cultivated within its own borders. This violence may be less direct, but is certainly no

3 less sinister. Indeed, some would argue that it is more so, hiding behind an unflinching positivism and labeling of the lifestyle as the American Dream. Many factors in the modern American society have a hand in this charade. One of the largest and most deeply entrenched is the automobile industry, the inbred love of cars, and the equating of vehicles with personal freedom. Culture is defined as the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought. vii This exploration demonstrates how the culture of cars is playing a role in decreasing the level of contentment and joy in American life. Because cars are so ingrained in the American way, people are unable to see the social deterioration resulting from all that goes along with massive car use. The car culture can and should be seen as a form of structural violence. Though defining it as such may seem a stretch upon first glance, the reader will be exposed to a plentitude of information and a solid argument to shed light on how this mode of transport, which contained such promise and opened up all of America to many citizens, has outgrown this promise and now contributes to a lifestyle in the U.S. that is anything but peaceful. At the same time, these very Americans being dragged down are blind to the auto s dark side, and would heartily defend their right to this as the best means of transportation as they would their Constitution as the best set of principles to define a nation-state. Structural Violence A brief exploration of the definition of structural violence as a concept need precede proofs of the connection between the concept and the car culture. In progressing through the forthcoming arguments, links will be drawn between these and other aspects of structural violence. The concept of peace is most often thought of as something brought to a place or people where visible, physical violence is taking place between at least two parties. In this situation, peace negates the violence; hence, it is termed negative peace. Positive peace, on the other hand, targets a different form of interaction not characterized by overt violence, but in which people are nevertheless suffering. viii In fact, running deeper than simply being not overt, this type of violence is imbedded in the structure of social, cultural, and economic institutions as to have become part of the fabric of life. ix Therefore, it is termed structural violence. In cases of structural violence, there is clearly harm being done, though the victim(s) may be unable to finger a certain person or action responsible. Some examples of structural violence are slavery, apartheid, and oppressive marriage. x If by the end of the argument the reader can understand the car culture as a means of structural violence, I would suggest it fits even more fully into the definition than do the examples given. In these examples, people are directly involved in instituting or maintaining those structures. Although built into society, one can still identify a person at the delivery end of the

4 disaggregated instances of the violence. In slavery there is a master, in apartheid a group of oppressors, and in an oppressive marriage a husband and/or wife involved in making it such. Further, these examples all have very negative connotations. They are easily despisable. I would argue that a much more insidious shade of structural violence is found in some of the socially acceptable norms and behaviors, especially in the advanced, liberated, and politically correct structure of the present day West. In this car culture, nobody but everybody is interested in maintaining the structure. In this respect, the violence being targeted in this study may fit more comfortably into the definition of institutional violence, that type of structural violence which is found formally or truly embedded in the institutions and is accepted, or at least tolerated, with the complicity of the people. xi Structural violence is often manifest in long, highly ramified causal chains and cycles that often end in serious physical harm or death, but for which the culprit is rarely appraised as being the social structure. Physical harm related to structural violence in the developed world often stems from psychological or spiritual suffering xii, which can always be linked to some understood condition, be it even as grey as stress. Rarely are facets of the overarching structure found guilty. Galtung xiii cites 4 classes of basic needs survival needs, well-being needs, identity needs, and freedom needs and acknowledges that a 5 th could be added to encompass all of nature. The type of violence being recognized here falls against well-being needs, in contributing to misery and morbidity, and against nature, both from anthropocentric and biocentric viewpoints. Developing the Car Culture - A Relevant History City planning in the United States from the beginning of the 20 th century on has favored the proliferation of transportation above all else. In 1909, pieces of designs of various European city styles were brought together in what was to be known as the Chicago Plan, which dominated city planning throughout the U.S. until the 1960s. xiv Briefly, it emphasized creation of the suburb; the re-configuration of transportation systems to accommodate ever-growing populations; the zoning concept, which segregated land uses into distinct pockets, building in the need to cover large distances in order to accomplish a variety of tasks; and a central business district containing offices, depots, warehouses, department stores, etc., but little housing, further hindering the ability to live close to work. Planners were encouraged to prioritize aggrandizing the transportation system, as these plans were put through more quickly by governments than others since higher accessibility increased land values, heightening the development potential of properties. xv Following these redesigns, citizens use of their automobiles shot up. Not only was traveling in private transport more convenient, but now they could not afford not to drive. The various rail enterprises had to incorporate into the cost of a passenger s fare not only the immediate service being provided, but also the laying and maintenance of the track. The automobile industry, however, escaped the burden of paying for road construction by

5 persuading the government to do so. This was facilitated by some government representatives being either directly involved in the automobile industry or being in cahoots with key players. xvi Driving seemed like a much cheaper means of transportation through the illusion created by subsidies, a perversity still prevalent today and responsible for a variety of environmental and social woes. Today the social costs of driving, which have less to do with fuel use than with congestion, traffic, delays, accidents, roadway damage, land use, etc., have been calculated to approach a trillion dollars a year. xvii Had the automobile industry been made to incorporate the costs of the roads into the price of the car, the American landscape would probably look much different today. xviii To ensure there would be no significant competition to rival automobile manufacturers, General Motors (GM) began buying trolley systems throughout the United States. They eventually convinced other benefited companies to assist in financing the takeover. In all, over 100 trolley systems were bought by GM, their tracks ripped up and overhead wire systems ripped out. xix Buses, manufactured by GM, were installed in their place. Collusion was not only evident within the companies involved. When GM and the other companies were indicted on federal anti-trust charges, the judge levied the laughable sum of $5,000 on each of the companies, and made even more of a mockery of the trial by fining each executive involved in plotting and carrying out the destruction of American light rail $1 apiece. xx The rapid take-over of the United States by the automobile was masterminded by a select few. The creation of expanses of high-speed roads later found a friend in President Eisenhower who began the Interstate Highway System, into which $50 billion would pour annually. The best part is that it was built by invisible funds that came from gas tax receipts. Before the act, only 500 miles of urban highway had been built; after, the Highway Trust Fund would account for 41,000 miles of new road. xxi Mayors and politicians jumped on board after hearing that the financing of roads would be 90% federal and 10% state, and that half of the federal money would pass through their hands. Too late, Eisenhower is recorded as worrying that it was very wasteful to have an average of just over one man per $3,000 car driving into the central area and taking all the space required to park the car. xxii Far from resisting this manipulation, the American public was happy to comply. The automobile was cheaper, cleaner, and more socially impressive than horse-pulled transport or so they thought. xxiii The car soon became something a family could not live without. The archetypal violent structure has exploitation at its core. This means that it has the effect of keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. The underpinnings of the structure, or the systematization of maintaining the rich in an elevated position, are usually facilitated by the support of the poor. xxiv That the American public did not have to be coerced into soon seeing the car as necessity does not disqualify the possibility of exploitation. The people were hooked, and now set to go down the dark and winding path on which the car would carry them.

6 Social Discrimination, Deterioration, and Costs Community Life, New and Improved As the car culture truly began to assert itself, supporting the out-migration, or white flight, from cities to suburban developments, a type of discrimination was begun. Members of society at the bottom of the economic ladder - primarily low-skilled Mexican and African-American migrant workers - could only find low-income housing near their low-wage jobs in the cities. The manner in which suburbia was delineated by zoning principles and other techniques to keep out undesirables led to the poor and minority being ghettoized. xxv Henry Ford summed up the escapism adopted by the upper classes, saying We shall solve the city problem by leaving the city. xxvi In a self-stroking process of out-migration leading to city sections becoming slums leading to more outmigration, buying a car to escape to suburbia increasingly became the answer. In one of history s many ironic twists, the suburbs to which people escaped have become their prisons. Community design has primarily favored speed and automobile convenience rather than safety and pedestrian convenience. Cars moving at ridiculously high speeds only inches from sidewalks have resulted in making street and community life virtually non-existent. xxvii Towns where people feel comfortable walking anywhere are fewer and fewer. Many newly built towns have little civic or public space. xxviii Development has either ignored or eliminated the social integrity of neighborhoods. xxix Nowadays, even where it is viable, suggesting to a group that you go somewhere on foot, or revealing plans to do so, is met with confused apprehension as the other party wonders if you are joking. One more sign of a deeply imbedded violent structure, walking is seen as, well, pedestrian, stigmatized as being the activity of winos. xxx One of the most serious, and most difficult to measure, ways in which catering to the car has had adverse effects on the social state of American life is in the deterioration of society and isolation of the individual. Even in the beginning, evidence of social atrophy was noted. In 1890, families would spend Sundays and long summer evenings together with each other and with other families on front porches and lawns, sharing news, playing music, or singing songs. By 1920, this aspect of American social life was all but eradicated. The invention that exponentially increased individual mobility also threatened the tightly knit family and community. xxxi According to the late architectural historian Spiro Kostoff, "the street stands as the burial place of a chance to learn from one another, the burial place of unrehearsed excitement, of the cumulative knowledge of human ways. We lose this because we would rather keep to ourselves, avoid social tension by escaping it, schedule encounters with friends, and happily travel alone in climate controlled and music injected glossy metal boxes. xxxii The promotion of individualism, one of the core American values the auto promised to preserve xxxiii, has bred isolationism.

7 Re-programming The most private area of our lives mental thought is today perhaps less free from prying than ever. Once again, we can thank the car culture for the beginnings of this trend. As automobiles really began to catch on, particularly in southern California, fast food served to customers in their cars became the new craze that many entrepreneurs began to cash in on. In order to lure drivers passing by at high speeds, tasteful architectural designs were traded for large, flashy attention-grabbers of store front signs and billboards. xxxiv Today, the constant bombardment of the gaudy and invasive suggestions of billboards breaks up, or re-forms, the landscape and infiltrates the personal realm of private thought. This has now been transferred to every facet of our sped-up lives; private has become public domain. Possibly spending more time with billboards than families, the average Atlanta resident spends more than 12 hours a week stuck in traffic. xxxv Traffic congestion is often described as an urban disease. The social psychosis manifest in scenes of rage would place this descriptor not far from the truth. xxxvi Being behind the wheel on congested roads has the all too common effect of morphing the normally mild-mannered person into a monster. A driver stealing a parking space, not taking off from the light fast enough, or cutting off another driver can lead to responses of flashing lights, descriptive hand gestures, tailgating, or even drawing a weapon. Road rage can be triggered by many things, but is attributable to the structure on the whole. xxxvii In an increasingly stressful world, pent-up aggression may find its release on the road more than anywhere else in the car, the freedom, power, and anonymity is granted to express extreme and violent emotions that are suppressed in other parts of life. xxxviii Work to Drive to Work One of the instigators of this rage is surely financially induced stress stemming from the difficulty to get ahead or just maintain in a world of high cost living. The car culture is partially responsible for this burden. In a recent report xxxix, calculations revealed that the average American household in 2001 spent 19.3% of total expenditures on transportation, totaling $7,633 annually just to move around, a figure outdone only by housing. Growth in this figure followed a drop in the use of public transportation and the emergence of sprawl. With few transportation options available other than the car around half of American households reported having public transportation as an option in 2001 the expense becomes obligatory. xl The increasing migration from rural to urban areas should provide some form of public transportation to a larger percentage of households than just half. This may reflect the average citizen s car-infused thinking, not always recognizing the availability of public transportation when it is offered. Or it may reflect a perception of viewing common public transportation as something for the lower classes. For lower-income families, the expense of transportation poses a tremendous burden and inhibits wealth creation. The poorest 20% spend 40.2% of their take home pay on transportation, with 95% of this devoted to private vehicle expense. Devoting such a

8 large percentage of income to owning and maintaining a car may put home ownership, one of the most practical ways to create wealth, through tax incentives and the appreciating nature of real estate, out of reach. xli Not only is the car culture responsible for inhibiting home ownership through the difficult-to-escape expense placed on automobile ownership, but also in making affordable housing scarcer. One misconceived rule contributing to more and more land being designated for car use is a building regulation requiring developers to provide as much parking space for each shop, office, or apartment as would be demanded if parking were free. xlii Sprawl, largely facilitated by the auto uprising, made it easy to get away from problems like crime, pollution, noise, and urban decay. xliii After having ignored rather than dealt with such problems, the United States still has them to contend with, plus a slew of new ones. Physical Harm The most visible form of violence manifest through a car culture are the statistics of injuries and deaths resulting from automobile use. Though an overt form of violence, this is still classified as being structural violence as it is not intended harm on a person or group of persons by a distinct person or group of persons xliv, but more an attribute of driving, and an expected one at that. Accidents on the road kill more than 40,000 Americans every year, and injure an additional 5 million. The annual death toll is on the scale of that brought about by diabetes or breast cancer. xlv A disease responsible for this quantity of death-by-car would draw an abundance of funds and foundations for its treatment and cure. As it is so well insinuated in the American psyche as being a fairly natural construct, assessing the problem as a serious threat that warrants serious attention is more often than not met with complacency, and an understanding that the harm done is just the way it is. Due to the structural nature of the violence imposed by automobiles, death statistics, though substantial enough that they should be given much thought, are usually only glanced at and forgotten, much the same way a car wreck passing in and out of vision is briefly abhorred, lamented, then accepted. Maybe more consideration will be lent to forms of physical violence that are indirect, that do not happen in an eye blink, but over the course of years. These diseases may be more impressionistic because they are examples of humans dying slowly at the hands of progress. For example, emissions from cars have caused fantastic increases in emphysema, asthma, heart disease, and bronchial infections. xlvi When humans suffer from preventable diseases, structural violence is occurring. xlvii In the past twenty years, as development further encouraged the proliferation of the automobile as the sole means of getting around by building walking out of suburbs and parts of cities, restricting the mobility of those who do not own a car xlviii, scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have watched rates of obesity and chronic

9 diseases skyrocket. xlix Presently, around 25% of Americans are obese, or 30 pounds above their healthy weight, and 75% of the adult population is sedentary, suggesting they do not reach the U.S. Surgeon General s prescription of 30 minutes of moderated activity most days. l Results from a survey taken around 1990 state that although 54% of working Americans lived within 5 miles of their workplace, only 3% biked, and even fewer walked. li Not all is well in the Land of the Free these days. Not by a long shot. Punctuating the above information on obesity and sedentary lifestyles is the recent disclosure that a full 1/3 of Americans are currently sustaining themselves with antidepressant medications lii, tying back into the description of social disintegration and personal isolation presented in the previous section. A feeling of anxiousness and helplessness usually brings people to wonder what it is that is wrong them, not the system. Psychological alienation, like other forms of structural violence that often go unnoticed, works slowly to erode humanistic values and impoverish human lives. liii Of course the car culture does not bear sole responsibility for behavioral choices and a national philosophy that have brought on this disillusionment. One argument as valid as any is that the forever entwined siblings car culture and urban sprawl have introduced a disintegration of society through isolating the individual for more and more hours as (s)he drives long, aggravating miles through a sterile landscape, culminating in increasing hours in front of the television, or some other escape. After time, the escape becomes the norm, and any hope of healthy relationships with other individuals is compromised. The social fabric is frayed to the point of quietly tearing out the seams. The breadth of this breakdown is beyond the scope of this study. Suffice to say that the structural violence shouldered by the American public runs deep, and that the car culture is part of the foundation. Altered Environment Victor Gruen, an architect in the 1950s, denounced the automobile s landscape, noting we pass through the avenues of horror, stretching for endless miles through the suburban areas, flanked by the greatest collection of vulgarity billboards, motels, gas stations, shanties, car lots, miscellaneous industrial equipment, hot dog stands, wayside stores ever collected by mankind. liv The greatest collection of vulgarity may be overstating it for some, but the car culture has succeeded in composing a mostly-manufactured landscape. Plants and trees, which have been proven to be both physically and psychologically beneficial to humans, have been left out of the equation more often than not. To be sure, the automobile has mutated the average American s vista from primarily green to the concrete desert that has become the norm in American town plans. lv In older cities such as Boston or New York, close to 1/2 of the ground space is reserved for the sole purpose of moving and storing cars, and in newer cities such as Los Angeles or Phoenix, it is closer to 2/3. lvi As parking lots expand ever outward around the shopping centers they service, people also expand ever outward into new territory, swallowing up fields and natural woodlands, and making impossible the ability to step easily out of the

10 urban setting into the rural hinterlands. lvii This trend also has the habit of displacing family farmers who formerly existed in these territories. Of course this examination would be remiss without looking beyond the aesthetic change as the only one wrought on the environment by the car. The proliferation of this industry began to show its effects in the skies as early as the 1940s. In Los Angeles around that time, the skies would begin to look brown by noon, breezes from the sea being no match for the continuous pouring out of exhaust. lviii Today the automobile creates a din of noise and a cloud of pollution in all metropolitan areas, affecting sleep, concentration, and intelligence, making the air so unbreathable in some cities that children and the elderly cannot venture outside on certain days. It also emits ¼ of U.S. greenhouse gases, affecting agriculture and threatening to change the world s climate irrevocably, bringing climate disasters for future generations lix. Further, the often overlooked environmental service of cleaning the dirty air is debilitated as more trees are taken down to make room for more pavement. Cars ingest 219,000 gallons of gasoline per minute in the U.S. lx, quickly consuming to the brink this once-thought inexhaustible resource. Extensive paving, which swallows up millions of acres of land, also reduces infiltration of rainwater, throwing off natural systems and diverting many pollutants directly into lakes and rivers. lxi The assault on cherished natural places does not seem so drastic as they are eliminated one by one for car priority. The citizen is given time to forget between attacks. This insidious facet of structural violence is spoken to directly by Galtung. The car culture does not have as its intent the destruction of nature, rather it is a by-product of the proliferation of the culture. lxii While many major world figures involved in industrialization pay lip service to the protection of nature when possible, the truth is that said protection usually stands in the way of how they define progress. Protection is achieved when convenient; otherwise, the transformation of nature is excused by a worldencompassing commercialization that allows nothing to stand in its way. Americans are unwittingly destroying their home, as well as contributing heavily to global environmental deterioration. From a biocentric viewpoint, the car culture has wrecked the ability of nature to proceed as it has evolved to do. The process of adapting to changes is not quick enough to handle those brought on by cars, and thresholds are rapidly being reached. From an anthropocentric viewpoint, the car culture is bringing to bear on humans not only the inability to live a peaceful life, but if things continue on the pace they are now, it will bring an end to human life. Conclusions The car culture has secured itself firmly in the American s understanding of the world and of him/herself. People put more effort and excitement into picking out a new car than maybe anything else. It has spread its roots deeply into everyday life in high-speed, whimsical, and poignant contributions to cinema, literature, and music. Americans have woven themselves around their individual love of the car.

11 All the while, these same pieces of machinery for which they have such affection are eroding the possibility of peaceful living. From their shady institutionalized beginnings, automobiles have had a hand in societal deterioration, and add daily to individual unrest and suffering. Instead of choosing a mode of transport that frees time to relax, read, or even sleep, the U.S. population is tied to a mode that increases stress, instigates rage, and eats up uncountable hours of life that could be devoted to other uses. Potentially the gravest continual threat the car culture brings to life in the United States and the rest of the world is in its deleterious effects on the fragile balance of the environment. If a society s structures are the means and norms by which people interrelate through unspoken but widely recognized rules lxiii, the automobile surely fits into American societal structure. Structural violence does not only stem out from societal structures, but is also a part of them, developing within the society. In this respect, culture is intrinsic to structural violence. lxiv It becomes increasingly essential, as the American citizen sinks further into the doldrums of the car culture, and as the United States continues to occupy its role as world leader, with many nations taking their developmental cues from steps the U.S. has taken and continues to take, that the car culture is assessed as being part of a violent structure. Achieving positive peace requires an ability to see degradation of one s world for what it is, and a proactive creation of something that does not currently exist. lxv A shift is needed in American consciousness to understand that addressing land use issues, population pressure, and transportation independently is a disjointed and errant approach. Until a realization that these issues are highly interdependent and must be addressed as one uproots current archaic styles of development, a life of peace will remain a foreign concept, all but impossible to cultivate in American society. References About Healthy Places. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5 May (5 Novemeber 2003). Baird, Nicola. The Estate We re In. Great Britain: Indigo, Barash, David P. and Webel, Charles P. Peace and Conflict Studies. California: Sage Publications, Ltd., Birch, Eugne Ladner. Urban Planning and Technological Development. In Energy and Transport, edited by George H. Daniels and Mark H. Rose. Beverly Hill, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., Brunk, Conrad G. Shaping a Vision: The Nature of Peace Studies. In Patterns of Conflict, Paths to Peace, edited by Larry Fisk and John Schellenberg. Calgary: Broadview Press, Burden, Dan. Building Communities with Transportation. Distinguished Lecture Presentation to the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C, 10 July, Dictionary.com. < Fink, James J. The Car Culture. Cambridge: The MIT Press, Galtung, Johan. Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research, vol. 27, no. 3, 1990, pp Goff, Philip. Car Culture and the Landscape of Subtraction. Monocular Texts. < (1 December 2003). Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins. Natural Capitalism. New York: Little, Brown and Company, Kay, Jane Holtz. The Asphalt Ends. In Autopia: Cars and Culture, edited by Peter Wollen and Joe Kerr. Hong Kong: Reaktion Books, Ltd., 2002.

12 Kunstler, James Howard. Big and Blue in the USA. Orion Online, 10 September MacGregor, Felipe E., S.J., and Marcial Rubio C. Rejoinder to the theory of structural violence. In The Culture of Violence, edited by Kumar Rupesinghe and Marcial Rubio C. Japan: United Nations University Press, McCreery, Sandy. Come Together. In Autopia: Cars and Culture, edited by Peter Wollen and Joe Kerr. Hong Kong: Reaktion Books, Ltd., New Thinking for a New Transportation Age. Brochure for Local Government Commission Center for Livable Communities, Sacramento, CA, (29 October 2003). Principles and Guidelines for Sustainable Community Design, Transportation, Section 5.5 Transportation. (13 November 2003). Sargeant, Jack. Squealing Wheels and Flying Fists. In Autopia: Cars and Culture, edited by Peter Wollen and Joe Kerr. Hong Kong: Reaktion Books, Ltd., Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, Transportation Costs and the American Dream. A Special Report from the Surface Transportation Policy Project, July (5 November 2003). i For lack of a better term, this will be used to indicate people residing in the United States. ii Baird iii Hawken iv ibid v ibid vi ibid vii Dictionary.com viii Brunk ix Barash x Brunk xi MacGregor xii Galtung xiii ibid xiv Birch xv Birch xvi Schlosser xvii Hawken xviii Schlosser xix ibid xx ibid xxi Kay xxii ibid xxiii Fink xxiv Galtung xxv Kay xxvi Fink xxvii Principles and Guidelines for Sustainable Community Design, Transportation xxviii Burden xxix About Healthy Places xxx Kunstler xxxi Fink xxxii Goff xxxiii Fink xxxiv Schlosser xxxv Burden xxxvi McCreery xxxvii Baird xxxviii Sargeant

13 xxxix Transportation Costs and the American Dream xl ibid xli ibid xlii Hawken xliii Burden xliv Brunk xlv Hawken xlvi ibid xlvii Barash xlviii Hawken xlix New Thinking for a New Transportation Age l ibid li Hawken lii Kunstler liii Barash liv Kay lv Principles and Guidelines for Sustainable Community Design, Transportation lvi Goff lvii Kunstler; About Healthy Places lviii Kay lix Hawken; Baird lx Principles and Guidelines for Sustainable Community Design, Transportation lxi ibid lxii Galtung lxiii MacGregor lxiv ibid lxv Barash