Why do we live in cities? This is not the same question as why did cities form? the answers to which lie in theories and historical analysis. To answer our question we have to look inwards. Unless you’re reading this blog at the library (anybody?), you are not broke. You own a computer. You have a job. You could move to a different city if you wanted to. We who are privileged get to choose where we want to live, and to base this decision on desire rather than circumstance.
For most of us, the answer is community. We value diversity–of background, of lifestyle, of opportunity. We value experiences–taking trains, talking to strangers, not knowing where the night will take us. Cities have more. More people, more places, more possibilities. And it all comes back to community: we like being around other people.
Cars are good for many things, but they are not good for communities. Human beings interact in shared spaces. Cars seriously inhibit both the availability and the functionality of these spaces. City planning revolves around accessibility by car, which means roads and parking are a central focus. This comes at the cost of other potential focuses like parks, plazas, and markets. What spaces we do have are overly concerned with being accessible by car, which detracts from their utility by limiting location options and overemphasizing parking.
Too often our city mindset devolves into a programmed routine of zipping from one commercial location to the next. We are either at home, or paying money to spend time somewhere else: restaurants, bars, cafes, movie theaters, book stores, bowling allies, etc. Communities then become organized around socioeconomic status, because we are forced to spend money to socialize, and we spend relative to what we earn.
The car is the mascot of this bad mindset. It exist to transport us from point A to point B with no consideration of what lie between. And it is only able to do so at the expense of others. Perhaps this post should be titled Individualism killed the city–but are cars not the perfect manifestation of the individualist spirit?
Let us imagine, briefly, a city not without cars, but without a car obsession. A city that would value community over commerce, equality over efficiency, humanity over property. Imagine sprawling bazaars connected by a network of walking paths. Imagine beautiful plazas with sculptures, fountains, and benches upon which anyone could freely sit or sleep. Imagine fast, free public transit.
That city could exist. Until it does, we must be creative in order to build true public spaces. Sustainable change is slow, and it is constructive. It is short-sighted to fight against what we see as wrong with society. We must work around the monolith of institutions to build the foundations for what will be after the fall.
I will spite the cars, but I will let them be. They will outlive their utility.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:34 am
My company recently announced that they’ll be building a new skyscraper (tallest in Cincinnati!), but that will require the demolition of my parking garage. I’ll be walking and taking the bus starting in July, so maybe I’ll learn a bit about life sans cars. Or maybe I’ll move in to the apartment next to my workplace (same building as Erin) and just hike down the block each day.
On a poetic note, cars make for an interesting metaphor to American individualism. They are also an interesting metaphor to the American illusion of control. How many people say that they’re not worried about driving into an accident, they’re only worried about the other drivers? Somebody is causing those accidents and nobody wants to admit that they’re not in control…
May 16th, 2008 at 2:03 am
I remember you telling me about that skyscraper when it was still a proposal. That’s wild! Trains and buses are actually some of the only truly public spaces I’ve encountered. Because public transportation–when properly funded–is actually damned efficient, you can encounter every type of person. I would choose my saddle over a train almost any day, but when I do find myself on the El it is extremely enjoyable.
I agree completely with your metaphor, and it could be extended even more. The relationship between Americans and cars is an interesting one. It makes sense, though, since our communities and our cars are both reflections of our character. That is, we tend to be selfish, and our communities are designed to facilitate selfishness. We tend to be individualistic, and our cars express this.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:13 am
So if you choose to live in a country where public transportation is relatively shitty and people are obsessed with being self-centered, when you could live in, say, Denmark, does that make you a masochist?
There are so many factors regarding where you live and why that you’ve left out it’s a little ridiculous. I understand you’re making a point, but people don’t live in cities because they choose to based on some romantic idea of listening to crazy people on the bus and getting excited about how unique it is to breathe diesel fumes and listen to really ‘raw’ music, they mostly live in cities to avoid the perceived (some rightfully so) difficulties of living in rural areas; many others live in cities because they can’t leave — they don’t have the wherewithal or the economic means by which to do so; people live in cities because their families live there; people live in cities because their job is there; people live in cities for a number of rather good reasons, and very few of them have anything to do with where they honestly want to live, oftentimes because the concept of having a choice doesn’t enter into the picture.
I also don’t understand your equation of selfishness and individualism, or, more specifically, your beef with individualism — why connect it essentially with selfishness? Individualism has nothing to do with selfishness, unless you buy into mainstream consumerist crap, which I know you don’t. It may just be in how you worded it.
Individualism didn’t kill the city, American Capitalism corrupted individualism, which is killing the city. Individualism is great, taxing individualism with a membership fee to get into the Me Club is decidedly NOT great. Social status will always be about the amount of power you wield, I think you simply have a beef (and understandably so) with the ways this power is expressed in this country: owning shit, spending money, being careless.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Interesting, Andrew makes some good points.
See the trouble is that cars are not a city problem, but a suburb problem. Suburbs carve up green spaces, disrupt habitats, spread out population as opposed to people living near one another and leaving some space to nature.
Density has advantages, one being less reliance on cars. Support and help and perhaps family close by, resources, and it is easier to share things which is better for the environment. LIbraries, for example, which can be far away in suburbs and rural areas- etc.
Many people have written about the merits of town living, looking at everything from bicycles to senior access.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:55 am
To clarify, cars are a problem EVERYWHERE, what I mean is that the desire to live in spread out spaces makes people dependent on cars, and poor planning makes this worse. Think of parking spaces, how much asphalt we have for cars.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Responding to Andrew on having a choice of where to live, I understand all your points. I must have failed to make clear that I was not speaking about all people, but only of, “We who are privileged get to choose where we want to live, and to base this decision on desire rather than circumstance.” I generally think this group of people overlaps with people who are reading this blog.
As for individualism, what I mean by that is a blatant ignorance of the interdependent nature of people, communities, and, well, all things. I agree this could have been worded better, but I am not sure what to call this. Obviously, as an anarchist, I am a huge fan of dictionary-defined individualism.
Responding to Lynn, I agree. Suburbs are only possible in relative proximity to larger cities precisely because they are not self-sufficient. This is possible without cars (see: Metra), but much less plausible. That is another way cars detract from the value of city life, because they enable the suburban lifestyle which essentially consists of privileged folks making money in the city, and then hording their resources in remote, isolated communities.
Anyway, thank you both for reading. I greatly enjoy this discussion.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Maybe it could be boiled down to “individualism != independence”
Let’s reiterate, though, that cars definitely suck.