The Concept of Automobile Dependency

By Brenda Williams

Professors Peter Newman and Jeff Kenworthy have come up with an interesting concept that they call ‘Automobile dependency’ to explain the situation in the major cities of the world, mostly of the major cities in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. The idea is that the predominant use of automobiles in these cities severely restricts the freedom of people to move around in their own city. There is a culture of automobiles that has been developed leading to the extreme of an addiction to them. The number of automobiles is exponentially increases due to the increasing demand for them. It is almost as if people in these cities have become dependent on automobiles as a basic necessity of life. People with the financial resources are indulging in the luxury of acquiring more and more cars, resulting in diminishing returns that they derive out of each vehicle.

A whirlpool effect is created by automobile dependency. Due to the large number of vehicles, traffic congestions are common, which in turn demand the need for bigger roads leading to the reduction of signals, pedestrian crossing and other common road features. Although on an individual level these measures increase the pleasure derived from the vehicle, they are just another reflection of the income disparity common in these cities as features such as public transport and pedestrian facilities, which facilitate people belonging to lower economic classes, are reduced. Additionally, there is also a social stigma attached to people who use the public transport. The increased pleasure from driving the vehicle induces more volumes of traffic leading to more traffic congestions.

The culture of these cities is being changed to provide a greater convenience to car users. Parking lots have become an infrastructural necessity. Open-air markets and festivals are restricted to facilitate traffic. Public highways have traditionally been used for processions but laws are being enacted to prevent people from exercising their right to protest on the highways. Drive-throughs and drive-ins have become another common feature of urban centers. These can only be accessed by virtue of an automobile inducing more traffic due to these extra benefits and conveniences attached to an automobile. This additionally induces even more traffic resulting in another manifestation of the spiraling whirlpool effect we have been talking about.

The issue of environmental sustainability is a major concern in the notion of automobile dependency. Non-renewable resources are rapidly consumed by these automobiles. There is also massive pollution causes by greenhouse gases emitted, which cause global warming. Automobile dependency leads to global warming causing major harm to the environment. Approaches such new urbanism, transit-oriented development and smart growth are being adopted to tackle the problem of automobile dependency in urban centers. However, there are many skeptics who doubt the measures taken against automobile dependency as the viability of alternative transports is not available at the same degree of flexibility and speed. The technological advances in the automobile industry may tackle some of the problems caused; producers are manufacturing cleaner cars that will cause less harm to the environment. The reduction of greenhouse gases being emitted will prevent future global warming. However, automobile dependency is a social, cultural and environmental problem that is present in the world and needs to be tackled more strongly and holistically.

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