Automobile Dependency: An Unsustainable Process That is Hurting Our Planet

        Over the past century, the vehicle has drastically influenced the lifestyles of Americans as well as changed the landscapes of the United States. As Jackson stated in his book The Death and Life of Great American Cities: “The vehicle fundamentally restructured the pattern of everyday life in America.” Through the automobile, urban sprawl was able to engulf the outskirts of U.S. cities thus creating suburbs. At the same time that the automobile has affected the geography of the country and altered the lives of Americans, it has also been hurting our planet’s atmosphere with carbon dioxide emissions. “The United States is the largest emitter worldwide of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Transportation (mostly vehicular transit) accounts for a full third of CO2 emissions in the United States” (Smart Growth America 2012). With this effect on the atmosphere, the vehicle is truly hurting our planet. Something has to be done to reduce these implications so that global warming can be diminished and human beings can live safely and happily for many more years to come. 
Workers drive their cars to get to work. Parents drive their cars to take their children to school. Teenagers drive cars to hang out with friends. All sorts of people drive cars for a multitude of different reasons. Cars may seem like harmless and convenient mechanisms that individuals can use to travel, but in reality they are negatively affecting all of our lives. In today’s society, automobile dependence is an unsustainable process that is not only altering the framework of our urban areas, but also harming the atmosphere of our planet. Cars run on petroleum. When burned within the car's operating body, the petroleum releases carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions not only get trapped in the sky causing an increase in number of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, but they also pollute the air immediately above residents in a city. This air pollution in effect causes people to have asthma and other respiratory problems (Martin 2008). Dependence on cars also leads to sprawl. The United States is a perfect example of this. In the 1950’s, the car became a lot more accessible to the middle-class in the country, and as a result people were able to move out of the city more efficiently and conveniently. The low-density, sprawling development that automobile use encourages allows for the consumption of valuable agricultural and conservation land. This consumption then puts pressures on resources and wildlife habitats (Capitol Watch 2011). Dependence on cars also makes other modes of transportation less important. With the availability and reliability of cars, destinations usually become farther away from each other. As a result, these destinations became difficult to reach if people are walking, biking, or using mass transit (Smart Growth America 2012). It is sort of like a vicious cycle. As places within an metropolitan area get farther and father away, we become more and more dependent on cars to travel to these places. All in all, as these accounts show us, our dependence on automobiles is an unsustainable process that is negatively affecting our lives. 
If we begin to think about it though, our dependence on automobiles is so strong that a world without cars seems almost disastrous and horrifying. People use cars nearly for everything, and a life without automobiles seems very inconvenient for most individuals. A world without cars would equate to humans not being able to travel as efficiently and quickly as they could. “Other transport alternatives commonly do not measure up to the convenience of the automobile. Private and flexible forms of transportation, such as the automobile, thus seem fundamental to urban mobility” (The Geography of Transport Systems 2009). In the United States for example, many products are transported to stores by trucks. The products that are being transported range from fruits to washing machines to even car parts. Without trucks being able to transport these items, stores across the country would be a lot emptier. These stores would be emptier because many of their products come from places that are not close to them. As these examples show, a world without cars would have negative consequences on the everyday systems within the framework of the United States.  
Even though our dependence on automobiles is vital to the functionality of our country, this process needs to be diminished and/or stopped. Many people have been proposing that cities in our world need end their sprawl and instead become more compact. Also, a person's everyday necessities within a city (which include stores, places of work, centers of entertainment) need to become more localized. One way to do this is to propose transit-oriented development within the communities of a city. Such development enhances a community (or group of communities) to focus land uses around a transit station or within a transit corridor. “Transit-oriented development results in the efficient use of existing land, infrastructure, and services, and supports the revitalization of community centers and neighborhoods by encouraging reuse and infill. TOD [transit-oriented development] fosters a sense of place through the creation of mixed-use centers that combine residential uses with economic activity. By requiring high quality urban design and safe, attractive pedestrian connections between uses, TODs create a vibrant sense of place” (Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs 2010). Transit-oriented development in communities across a city can allow more of that city to be accessible by mass transit, thus the car does not have to be a necessity for urban residents. Other ways to decrease our dependence on cars include behavioral changes like encouraging higher occupancy rates in cars through car-pooling or implementing car clubs. Cities could also apply incentives to residents to lessen the amount of vehicles on the road. A number of cities in our world have created tolls outside of their central business districts so as to limit and discourage people to travel there by car. Another alternative includes technical interventions by forcing automotive companies to sell vehicles with better fuel efficiency or to create cars that run on safer, cleaner fuels (Sustainable Development Commission 2011). Using the ideas of urban sustainability, it would be ideal to use a combination of these alternatives to conserven and then load. That is, cities have to limit the usage of cars and then load on new technologies and other innovative ideas for urban transport.
      Car dependence is vital to the functionality of the United States as well as many other countries. In a way, automobiles have come to dictate not only the physical framework and landscape of a city, but also influenced the way individuals experience their "urban lives." It seems extremely difficult to diminish the dependence on cars, but there are alternatives that could be put into place to decrease and/or even end this dependence before it destroys our lives. These alternatives can in turn allow our cities to become healthier, safer, cleaner, as well as more sustainable places to live in.