Life After Cars
Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile
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5.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
From the hosts of The War on Cars podcast, a searing indictment of how cars ruin everything—and what we can do to fight back
When the very first cars rolled off production lines, they were a technological marvel, predicted to make life easier and better for all Americans; yet a hundred years later, that dream is running on empty.
Instead of unbounded freedom, the never-ending proliferation of automobiles has delivered a host of costs, among them the demolition of our neighborhoods, towns, and cities to make way for car infrastructure; an epidemic of violent death; countless hours lost in traffic; isolation from our fellow human beings; and the ongoing destruction of the natural world. Globally, SUVs alone now emit more carbon than the nations of Germany, South Korea, or Japan.
That’s why we need Life After Cars. Through historical records, revealing interviews, and unflinching statistics, Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon, hosts of the podcast The War on Cars, and former host Aaron Naparstek unpack the scale of damage that cars cause, the forces that have created our current crisis and are invested in perpetuating it, and the way that the fight for better transportation is deeply linked to the fight for a more equitable and just society.
Cars as we know them today are unsustainable—but there is hope. Life After Cars will arm readers with the tools they need to implement real, transformative change, from simply raising awareness to taking a stand at public forums. It’s past time to radically rethink—and shrink—society’s collective relationship with the automobile. Together, let’s create a better Life After Cars.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Automobiles have produced far more cumulative damage in the world, in terms of death, illness, and environmental destruction, than nearly any other invention in human history," argue the cocreators of The War on Cars podcast, in this incisive account. Beyond the obvious, such as traffic fatalities, which claimed more than 40,000 American lives in 2022, and pollution, which contributes significantly to both global warming and cancer rates, the trio detail harms the car has wrought to interpersonal and social life, including exacerbating inequity and isolation. Reviewing how the car's dominance came to be, they find that in the early years of the American auto, pedestrian safety was intuitively prioritized (one of the very first Superman comics had the Man of Steel combatting reckless drivers and fighting for better traffic enforcement). Only in later years was this replaced by an outright hostility towards any measure perceived as changing the car's position in modern life—an emotional response that verges on the irrational, the authors argue, pointing to instances like when pro-parking advocates also denounce the installation of new charging spots for electric cars. The authors spotlight efforts to unwind the car's stranglehold—most crucially successful recent advocacy for eliminating the parking minimums that have dotted America with large, mostly empty parking lots. Part rallying cry, part strategy session, this will inspire anti-car activists.
