Asphalt Nation

book review by Robert Pavlik, Free Press contributor

Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take it Back
by Jane Holtz Kay
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997

This is a good book to have with you in a traffic jam, or, better yet, on a commuter train or bus enroute to work or home. The catchy title and colorful cover are sure to inspire questions and conversation. Although everyone seems to agree that autos cause congestion, pollution, urban sprawl, visual blight, and accidents that take 50,000 lives every year, the willingness to abandon our auto cocoons in favor of mass transit wilts in the face of our hectic lives.

A perusal of recent articles in the Los Angeles Times bears this out. Columnist Shawn Hubler wrote of "the monster in the driveway" in March, detailing the humongous Ford Excursion, the "King Kong" of sport utility vehicles. In early May the Surface Transportation Policy Project reported that mothers of school-age children spend more than an hour a day driving the kids around town and running errands.

Our auto dependency is fueled by poor land use planning that encourages horizontal growth, the conversion of farm land and open space to residential and commercial development and the lack of adequate alternative forms of affordable, efficient transportation. Cheap fuel, comfy seats with cup holders and a zest for independence round out the equation.

Jane Holtz Kay, an architecture and planning critic for The Nation, is sick and tired of it all and wants to see the mania for more lane miles come to an end. She details the history of the auto's ascendancy and the decline of rail for moving passengers and freight.

The impact of all of those cars on the nation's cities, suburbs and countryside is particularly interesting, as developers quickly accommodated cars to the exclusion of other less costly forms of mobility. The role of the car in shaping our built environment is a strong suit in this study. Everything, from housing to street width, commercial, retail and industrial development, to even the shape and size of our cities and suburbs has been molded to the single occupancy vehicle.

Kay wants it all to change. She advocates a variety of alternatives: to land use, such as family residential units, transportation, and a better jobs/housing balance. It's an ambitious agenda, and one that land owners and developers, architects and auto makers, land use and transportation agencies, as well as politicians and the general public are slow to embrace.

The author remains adamant, however, that "we must alter our notions of mobility--and our lives. The routes are many, but the long journey begins with a single step--the walker's step toward the political process in favor of foot power, not horsepower." More power to you, Jane Holtz Kay.