Toward a saner conversation about driving in America
Cars seem to be an emerging front in the American culture wars. Consider the reaction to an essay by Carlton Reid, written for the website Works in Progress, arguing that ubiquitous driving does not necessarily create happy, healthy communities. “Cars may seem dominant in many towns and cities right now, but that’s because choices were made to allow such dominance,” Reid noted. “Choices can be remade; minds can be changed.” That quote generated a backlash among conservative critics, who argued that the worldview it represented would “force serfdom on America” and coerce people into “a pod in some blue cesspool.” Any revision to our existing land-use and street-design regimes, the thinking implied, would make the American way of life impossible.
