Automobile dependency
Encyclopedia
Automobile dependency is a term coined by Professors Peter Newman
and Jeff Kenworthy to capture the predicament of most cities in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent, large cities in Europe.
Automobile dependency implies that cities where automobile
s are the predominant transport deny their residents not only freedom of choice about the way they live and move around the city but also that the culture of automobile use has produced a kind of addiction
to them. The analogy is made with addictions to harmful substances and activities because of the well-known law of diminishing returns in relation to increasing use or participation: the more that is used, the less of the desired effect is gained until a point is reached where the substance or activity has to be maintained to remain 'normal', a state of dependency.
When it comes to automobile use, there is a spiralling effect where traffic congestion
produces the 'demand' for more and bigger roads and removal of 'impediments' to traffic flow, such as pedestrians, signalised crossings, traffic lights, cyclists, and various forms of street-based public transit such as streetcars (trams).
These measures make automobile use more pleasurable and advantageous at the expense of other modes of transport, so greater traffic volumes are induced. Additionally, the urban design
of cities adjusts to the needs of automobiles in terms of movement and space. Buildings are replaced by parking lots. Open air shopping streets are replaced by enclosed shopping mall
. Walk-in banks and fast-food stores are replaced by drive-in versions of themselves that are inconveniently located for pedestrians. Town centres with a mixture of commercial, retail and entertainment functions are replaced by single-function business park
s, 'category-killer' retail boxes and 'multiplex' entertainment complexes, each surrounded by large tracts of parking.
These kinds of environments require automobiles to access them, thus inducing even more traffic onto the increased roadspace. This results in congestion, and the cycle above continues. Roads get ever bigger, consuming ever greater tracts of land previously used for housing, manufacturing and other socially useful purposes. Public transit becomes less and less viable and socially stigmatised, eventually becoming a minority form of transportation. People's choices and freedoms to live functional lives without the use of the car are greatly reduced. Such cities are automobile dependent.
Automobile dependency is seen primarily as an issue of environmental sustainability
due to the consumption of non-renewable resources
and production of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming
. It is also an issue of social and cultural sustainability. Like gated communities
, the private automobile produces physical separation between people and reduces the opportunities for unstructured social encounter that is a significant aspect of social capital
formation and maintenance in urban environments.
There are a number of planning and design approaches to redressing automobile dependency, known variously as New Urbanism
, Transit-oriented development
, and Smart growth
. Most of these approaches focus on the physical urban design
, urban density
and landuse zoning
of cities. Dr. Paul Mees
, a transport planning academic formerly at the University of Melbourne
argues that investment in good public transit, centralised management by the public sector and appropriate policy priorities are more significant than issues of urban form and density.
There are, of course, many who argue against a number of the details within any of the complex arguments related to this topic, particularly relationships between urban density
and transit viability, or the nature of viable alternatives to automobiles that provide the same degree of flexibility and speed. There is also research into the future of automobility itself in terms of shared usage, size reduction, roadspace management and more sustainable fuel sources.
does or can reduce problems of automobile dependency associated with urban sprawl
have been fiercely contested issues over several decades. The influential study in 1989 by Peter Newman and Jeff Kenworthy compared 32 cities across North America, Australia, Europe and Asia . The study has been criticised for its methodology , but the main finding, that denser cities, particularly in Asia
, have lower car use than sprawling cities, particularly in North America
, has been largely accepted, but the relationship is clearer at the extremes across continents than it is within countries where conditions are more similar.
Within cities studies from across many countries (mainly in the developed world) have shown that denser urban areas with greater mixture of land use and better public transport tend to have lower car use than less dense suburban and exurban residential areas. This usually holds true even after controlling for socio-economic factors such as differences in household composition and income.
This does not necessarily imply that suburban sprawl causes high car use, however. One confounding factor, which has been the subject of many studies, is residential self-selection: people who prefer to drive tend to move towards low density suburbs, whereas people who prefer to walk, cycle or use transit tend to move towards higher density urban areas, better served by public transport. Some studies have found that, when self-selection is controlled for, the built environment has no significant effect on travel behaviour . More recent studies using more sophisticated methodologies have generally refuted these findings: density, land use and public transport accessibility can influence travel behaviour, although social and economic factors, particularly household income, usually exert a stronger influence.
These findings led them to propose the paradox of intensification:
At the city-wide level, it may be possible, through a range of positive measures to counteract the increases in traffic and congestion that would otherwise result from increasing population densities: Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany is one example of a city which has been more successful in reducing automobile dependency and constraining increased in traffic despite substantial increases in population density.
This study also reviewed evidence on the local effects of building at higher densities. At the level of the neighbourhood or individual development, positive measures (like improvements to public transport) will usually be insufficient to counteract the traffic effect of increasing population density. This leaves policy-makers with four choices: intensify and accept the local consequences, sprawl and accept the wider consequences, a compromise with some element of both, or intensify accompanied by more radical measures such as parking restrictions, closing roads to traffic and carfree zones.
Peter Newman (Australian)
Peter William Geoffrey Newman is an environmental scientist, author and educator based in Perth, Western Australia. He is currently Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University and since 2008 member of Infrastructure Australia....
and Jeff Kenworthy to capture the predicament of most cities in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent, large cities in Europe.
Automobile dependency implies that cities where automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
s are the predominant transport deny their residents not only freedom of choice about the way they live and move around the city but also that the culture of automobile use has produced a kind of addiction
Addiction
Historically, addiction has been defined as physical and psychological dependence on psychoactive substances which cross the blood-brain barrier once ingested, temporarily altering the chemical milieu of the brain.Addiction can also be viewed as a continued involvement with a substance or activity...
to them. The analogy is made with addictions to harmful substances and activities because of the well-known law of diminishing returns in relation to increasing use or participation: the more that is used, the less of the desired effect is gained until a point is reached where the substance or activity has to be maintained to remain 'normal', a state of dependency.
When it comes to automobile use, there is a spiralling effect where traffic congestion
Traffic congestion
Traffic congestion is a condition on road networks that occurs as use increases, and is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. The most common example is the physical use of roads by vehicles. When traffic demand is great enough that the interaction...
produces the 'demand' for more and bigger roads and removal of 'impediments' to traffic flow, such as pedestrians, signalised crossings, traffic lights, cyclists, and various forms of street-based public transit such as streetcars (trams).
These measures make automobile use more pleasurable and advantageous at the expense of other modes of transport, so greater traffic volumes are induced. Additionally, the urban design
Urban design
Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times has...
of cities adjusts to the needs of automobiles in terms of movement and space. Buildings are replaced by parking lots. Open air shopping streets are replaced by enclosed shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
. Walk-in banks and fast-food stores are replaced by drive-in versions of themselves that are inconveniently located for pedestrians. Town centres with a mixture of commercial, retail and entertainment functions are replaced by single-function business park
Business park
A business park or office park is an area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. All of the work that goes on is commercial, not industrial or residential....
s, 'category-killer' retail boxes and 'multiplex' entertainment complexes, each surrounded by large tracts of parking.
These kinds of environments require automobiles to access them, thus inducing even more traffic onto the increased roadspace. This results in congestion, and the cycle above continues. Roads get ever bigger, consuming ever greater tracts of land previously used for housing, manufacturing and other socially useful purposes. Public transit becomes less and less viable and socially stigmatised, eventually becoming a minority form of transportation. People's choices and freedoms to live functional lives without the use of the car are greatly reduced. Such cities are automobile dependent.
Automobile dependency is seen primarily as an issue of environmental sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
due to the consumption of non-renewable resources
Non-renewable resources
A non-renewable resource is a natural resource which cannot be produced, grown, generated, or used on a scale which can sustain its consumption rate, once depleted there is no more available for future needs. Also considered non-renewable are resources that are consumed much faster than nature...
and production of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. It is also an issue of social and cultural sustainability. Like gated communities
Gated community
In its modern form, a gated community is a form of residential community or housing estate containing strictly-controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and often characterized by a closed perimeter of walls and fences. Gated communities usually consist of small residential...
, the private automobile produces physical separation between people and reduces the opportunities for unstructured social encounter that is a significant aspect of social capital
Social capital
Social capital is a sociological concept, which refers to connections within and between social networks. The concept of social capital highlights the value of social relations and the role of cooperation and confidence to get collective or economic results. The term social capital is frequently...
formation and maintenance in urban environments.
There are a number of planning and design approaches to redressing automobile dependency, known variously as New Urbanism
New urbanism
New Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually continued to reform many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use...
, Transit-oriented development
Transit-oriented development
A transit-oriented development is a mixed-use residential or commercial area designed to maximize access to public transport, and often incorporates features to encourage transit ridership...
, and Smart growth
Smart growth
Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a...
. Most of these approaches focus on the physical urban design
Urban design
Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times has...
, urban density
Urban density
Urban density is a term used in urban planning and urban design to refer to the number of people inhabiting a given urbanized area. As such it is to be distinguished from other measures of population density. Urban density is considered an important factor in understanding how cities function...
and landuse zoning
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
of cities. Dr. Paul Mees
Paul Mees
Paul Mees is an Australian academic, currently serving as a senior lecturer at the school of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning at RMIT University, previously at University of Melbourne...
, a transport planning academic formerly at the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
argues that investment in good public transit, centralised management by the public sector and appropriate policy priorities are more significant than issues of urban form and density.
There are, of course, many who argue against a number of the details within any of the complex arguments related to this topic, particularly relationships between urban density
Urban density
Urban density is a term used in urban planning and urban design to refer to the number of people inhabiting a given urbanized area. As such it is to be distinguished from other measures of population density. Urban density is considered an important factor in understanding how cities function...
and transit viability, or the nature of viable alternatives to automobiles that provide the same degree of flexibility and speed. There is also research into the future of automobility itself in terms of shared usage, size reduction, roadspace management and more sustainable fuel sources.
Automobile dependency, urban sprawl and smart growth
Whether the smart growthSmart growth
Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl and advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a...
does or can reduce problems of automobile dependency associated with urban sprawl
Urban sprawl
Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a...
have been fiercely contested issues over several decades. The influential study in 1989 by Peter Newman and Jeff Kenworthy compared 32 cities across North America, Australia, Europe and Asia . The study has been criticised for its methodology , but the main finding, that denser cities, particularly in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, have lower car use than sprawling cities, particularly in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, has been largely accepted, but the relationship is clearer at the extremes across continents than it is within countries where conditions are more similar.
Within cities studies from across many countries (mainly in the developed world) have shown that denser urban areas with greater mixture of land use and better public transport tend to have lower car use than less dense suburban and exurban residential areas. This usually holds true even after controlling for socio-economic factors such as differences in household composition and income.
This does not necessarily imply that suburban sprawl causes high car use, however. One confounding factor, which has been the subject of many studies, is residential self-selection: people who prefer to drive tend to move towards low density suburbs, whereas people who prefer to walk, cycle or use transit tend to move towards higher density urban areas, better served by public transport. Some studies have found that, when self-selection is controlled for, the built environment has no significant effect on travel behaviour . More recent studies using more sophisticated methodologies have generally refuted these findings: density, land use and public transport accessibility can influence travel behaviour, although social and economic factors, particularly household income, usually exert a stronger influence.
The paradox of intensification
Reviewing the evidence on urban intensification, smart growth and their effects on automobile use Melia et al (2011) found support for the arguments of both supporters and opponents of smart growth. Planning policies that increase population densities in urban areas do tend to reduce car use, but the effect is a weak one, so doubling the population density of a particular area will not halve the frequency or distance of car use.These findings led them to propose the paradox of intensification:
- Ceteris paribusCeteris paribusor is a Latin phrase, literally translated as "with other things the same," or "all other things being equal or held constant." It is an example of an ablative absolute and is commonly rendered in English as "all other things being equal." A prediction, or a statement about causal or logical...
, urban intensification which increases population density will reduce per capita car use, with benefits to the global environment, but will also increase concentrations of motor traffic, worsening the local environment in those locations where it occurs.
At the city-wide level, it may be possible, through a range of positive measures to counteract the increases in traffic and congestion that would otherwise result from increasing population densities: Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany is one example of a city which has been more successful in reducing automobile dependency and constraining increased in traffic despite substantial increases in population density.
This study also reviewed evidence on the local effects of building at higher densities. At the level of the neighbourhood or individual development, positive measures (like improvements to public transport) will usually be insufficient to counteract the traffic effect of increasing population density. This leaves policy-makers with four choices: intensify and accept the local consequences, sprawl and accept the wider consequences, a compromise with some element of both, or intensify accompanied by more radical measures such as parking restrictions, closing roads to traffic and carfree zones.