The Necessity of Cars

In 'The Context of Urban Travel', Susan Hanson describes mobility as “the ability to move to active sites”. Cars in this day and age have the best mobility, or hold the potential for the best mobility. In many metropolitan areas, walking from one place to another is too difficult for people to do in modern society. Places like Atlanta, New York, and Tokyo have grown to massive mega-cities that contain several smaller communities as well as the suburbs. People do not have the mobility to go to these areas on their own, but with the help of cars, these cities become less spacious because of the increased mobility by car. Compared to a bus, which makes several stops for several different people, cars are much faster and more comfortable because the driver has individual control over where he needs to go, where he wants to go, and how fast he goes to each place. Cars are not simply a necessary evil, but a wonder innovation of technology which have helped humans grow and spread out as the nature of cities have changed.

People are quick to accuse cars of being a leading factor in the destruction of modern community. They argue that if more people walked rather than drove, they would be more likely to meet their neighbors and build lasting relationships with people who live down the street. These so-called relationships may consist of a simple “good morning” between neighbors or several single-serving conversations with people who honestly and truthfully probably do not care about you at all, but as long as there is a 'sense of community' that neighborhood is better than the neighborhood where people simply go through their day to day procedures and mind their own business. Does the fact that a person drives a car change how social that person is with their neighbors? If anything, that car should be used as a tool for people to get closer to each other. On a personal level, my family became close with our neighbors because my neighbors used to give me rides from the bus stop back to my house. As a way of saying thank you, when I began driving I would return the favor and offer a ride to younger children walking the same route I used to. The fact that people need to drive cars to get to their jobs, to go visit friends, and to get their groceries is not an indication of the devolution of modern society, but rather, it is an indicator that humans have built society around the need for a car.

Cars have become almost necessary in every major city, town, or neighborhood. Susan Hanson illustrates the growing importance of cars in modern society with the example of Newark, New Jersey. She states that “relatively few suburban jobs can be reached by people living in central Newark without a car”. This example paints out clearly, the problem with modern society in relation to transportation. Many cities, rather than fully utilizing the space that they currently occupy, decide to simply spread out and create several suburbs. The jobs of these cities spread out with these suburbs, leading to a greater need for fast and easy transportation. Destroying and rebuilding modern cities so that they are more friendly to people who chose to walk is expensive and time consuming. Rather than wasting time, effort, and money on reconstructing cities and neighborhoods, people should be focusing on making cars more Eco friendly and accessible to people across classes.

Works Cited

Hanson, Susan. “The Context of Urban Travel.” The Geography of Urban

Transportation. 3^rd ed. Eds. Susan Hanson and Genevieve Giuliano. New York:

Guilford, 2004. 3-29.