The car dependency con: Moving beyond auto industry gaslighting to rebuild walkable communities
By Peter Norton
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This part you know already:
Exercise is essential to health. In the United States, sedentary living is a leading contributor to cardiovascular disease, the most common cause of early death. Physical activity can boost your quality of life – and extend your healthy lifespan by years. But if you’re like most Americans, you get a lot less exercise than you need.
But here’s the part you don’t hear about so often:
If you don’t get as much exercise as you need, it’s not because you lack willpower, or don’t have the grit it takes to maintain an exercise routine. Sure, willpower and grit matter. But no, they don’t explain why most Americans don’t get enough exercise. The real explanation is not only interesting – it’s also useful. It can point the way toward more physical activity – a way that can help even if you don’t have a consistent exercise routine.
People who work in public health seek ways to make the status quo better for all of us. History can help by revealing the origins of the status quo. For example, thanks to history, I can predict that when your great grandparents were the age you are now, they walked much more than you or I do today. They didn’t walk a lot because they had amazing willpower, or extraordinary grit. They probably weren’t fitness zealots. They probably did not have any regular exercise routine.
They walked because walking was literally normal – it was the single most common mode of everyday mobility. No one had to tell your great grandparents to get more exercise. Exercise was built into the world they lived in.
For most Americans, that world is long gone. Today most of us in this country depend on driving for nearly all everyday trips. The nearest grocery store may be miles away – and even if it’s close, you may have to cross six busy lanes of traffic to get to it. To walk to everyday destinations is likely to be long, dangerous and unpleasant.
How did it get this way?
How did car dependency happen? The answer matters. We’ve been fed versions of history that tell us that the status quo is the consequence of mass preferences. People preferred driving to walking – the story goes – and that’s why so many people stopped walking any further than the distance to and from their parked car.
If this version of history were correct, we would have to settle for telling people to get willpower. Develop an exercise routine and stick to it. This is just what we usually do – with disappointing results.
The truth is a lot more interesting – and empowering. The people who sold us car dependency were the same people who came up with the histories that teach us that we drive everywhere because that’s what everybody wanted.
They were smart. They knew that if they could make the status quo seem like the product of democracy, or free enterprise, or mass preferences, or American culture, they could make us conclude that we have to accept it. So they came up with versions of history that trace car dependency to these causes. The lesson was simple: If you can’t walk anywhere, it’s because we Americans preferred it that way. It’s bad history – but it’s good business.
If you dig deep into the historical record you’ll find that this story doesn’t stand up. Yes, Americans welcomed cars. But they resisted car dependency – patiently, persistently, and inventively. They were not against driving, but they were against losing all of their other choices. The people who fought for mobility choices were urban, suburban and rural, of all ages and from all walks of life. Most were women. They organized street blockades to demand safer conditions for walking, they planned community bike rides to publicize cyclists’ needs. This resistance was out of our histories because it didn’t suit the interests of the people who want to sell cars and roads.
History proves that Americans have always wanted walkable communities.
Americans fought for good mobility choices. Walking did not decline because people always preferred to drive. Walking declined because it was deterred, devalued and denormalized.
This hidden history is not only surprising and inspiring. It’s also useful. When an authority cites status-quo traffic data to tell us, “sorry but everybody prefers to drive,” it helps us know how to answer: “When people have no good choices, we can’t tell what they prefer.” When appeals to slow drivers down to making walking safer are stigmatized as the demand of a radical fringe, history can help is show that people of all kinds fought for walkable streets. If we want a future of more walkable and bike-friendly streets, we need the honest histories that prove car dependency is a historical aberration.
The structural change we need:
The structural change we need is not easy to get, but it’s cheaper than maintaining the status quo. If we relaxed strict zoning ordinances, small grocery stores could open up within walking distance of residences, and small, apartment houses with affordable rents could open in places that permit only single-family houses on large lots. With such reforms, more people could walk or ride a bike, and transit systems could serve populations more cost effectively. If we ended minimum parking requirements, space now wasted on underoccupied parking lots could find new life as lots for homes, businesses or parks. If we recommitted a small fraction of road toll revenues to public transportation, we could not only improve bus service, we could also ease pressures to build expensive new road capacity.
While federal and state policymakers have been ignoring these needs, many cities have been pursuing them. Several US cities – including my home city of Charlottesville, Virginia – have relaxed zoning requirements so that affordable housing can be built closer to everyday destinations, easing the pressure to drive. On the Parking Reform Network’s website, you can see a map showing the location of over 100 US municipalities that have lifted minimum parking requirements. Throughout the United States, community advocacies have been getting results. Look for the groups in your area. They need your help.
The individual action we can take:
The reforms we need take time, but we don’t have to wait for them. In small ways, we can renormalize everyday walking, without turning it into a grit-testing regimen. If you drive to work, try parking a mile from your workplace. It can be a way to get better acquainted with your community. Your walk will become a normal part of your daily routine. At the supermarket, experiment with parking further from the store entrance. You’ll find it easier to get into and out of the parking lot that way. If you’re going out to dinner with friends from work, consider restaurants that are in walking range of your workplace. These habits, and others like them, can renormalize walking without turning it into a trial of willpower.
History shows us that walking in the United States did not decline because people preferred to drive. It declined because it was deterred, devalued and denormalized. Walking will recover when we welcome it, value it, and renormalize it. While we work together for the structural change we need, we can begin in our personal lives be integrating walking into our everyday transportation needs.
For those interested in examples of community power rising up against industry-powered car dependency, here are some sources to check out:
A Bloomberg article on the hidden history of American anti-car protests,
An episode of The Whole Podcast featuring Michael Kelley of BikeWalkKC sharing how advocacy, community outreach, and policy work come together to shape a more accessible Kansas City
A StreetsBlog article on state and federal zoning reform for sustainable transport
