xiv Introduction
automobile-dependent and which are multimodal. I then discuss how to
test whether automobile-dependent cities are different from multimodal
cities, and how to compare the importance of multimodality against the
other elements of the model.
In chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11, I use the model to take a close look at the
relationship multimodality has with outcomes in four areas of urban life:
public health, environmental quality, economic inequality, and quality of
life. The model lets us compare the associations between the urban out-
comes and multimodality to their associations with the other components of
the model. I conclude Part 2 by describing the deep strain that automobile
dependency creates on urban social life.
Part 3 ends the book with an argument for how we should proceed in
order to develop a more sustainable, resilient, and fair society in the mid-
21st century. It consists of a single chapter that outlines what will be neces-
sary to move beyond automobile dependency.
Every book ever written on the problems of urban sprawl and automobile
dependency has suggested one or more urban design tactics and strategies
from a well-known toolbox for developing more sustainable cities: support
and prioritize transit, improve walkability, tax cars and fuel, eliminate free
parking, put in bike lanes, “calm” traffic, increase urban density, streamline
bus service, force development to integrate with the existing urban fabric,
change zoning regulations, “make places,” target investment, switch one-
way streets to two-way streets, shift to a human scale, etc. The complete list
is as long as it is insufficient.
Social scientists, transportation advocates, and urban designers all know
what to do; in fact, we have known for well over 40 years.* All these fixes
are useful ideas that can reduce our reliance on cars. Embarrassingly, few
people seem to recognize that knowing what to do is not enough. None of
these fixes have (nor, in fact, have all of them combined) shifted us away
from the persistent pattern of automobile-centered development toward the
production of more multimodal cities. None of them can. Chapter 12 out-
lines a plan for such a shift.
REACHING THE PUBLIC
There are several important differences between this book and other
books on the subject of physical mobility through cities. One difference is in
describing how I came to find the evidence I present in this book, my meth-
ods. Most authors simply present the results of their research, and write a
* Urban critic J. Howard Kunstler argues that we have known how to build good
cities for thousands of years, but simply forgot how (“We threw all that knowledge
in the garbage”) sometime after 1945.
