America Was Built for Cars

Описание: America didn’t become car-dependent by accident.
Over the last century, U.S. cities were deliberately redesigned around the automobile — through policy, planning, and power. What began as an attempt to manage early traffic chaos evolved into a system where driving became a requirement for participating in daily life.
In this video, we trace how American streets shifted from shared public spaces into traffic machines, how highways fractured cities, how zoning and parking mandates spread distance, and why car dependence persists even when alternatives are possible. This is not an argument against people who drive — it’s an examination of how driving became mandatory.

We explore:
-How American cities functioned before cars dominated
-The early backlash against automobiles and the invention of “jaywalking”
-How traffic engineering prioritized speed over safety
-The role of federal highways in reshaping cities
-How zoning, parking minimums, and suburban policy produced distance
-Why car culture is real — and why compulsion changes its meaning
-Where choice already exists, and what redesign can look like

Cars remain useful. In many places, they’re essential.
The question is whether they should be the only way to access work, food, healthcare, and community — even in places where alternatives could realistically exist.

Because real freedom isn’t owning a vehicle.
It’s having a choice.

Historical videos sourced from The Library of Congress and Public Domain Review

📚 Sources & Citations

Early Streets & Pre-Car Cities

-Clay McShane, Down the Asphalt Path
-Peter Norton, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City
-Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier

Jaywalking, Traffic Engineering & Street Reframing

-Peter D. Norton, “Street Rivals” (Journal of Urban History)
-Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities (1938)
-Miller McClintock, Harvard Bureau for Street Traffic Research papers (1920s)

Highways & Federal Policy

-Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956
-Raymond A. Mohl, “The Interstates and the Cities”
-Robert Caro, The Power Broker (chapters on highway construction)

Displacement & Racial Impacts

-Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Root Shock
-Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law
-Congress for the New Urbanism, Freeways Without Futures

Zoning, Parking & Induced Demand

-Donald Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking
-Anthony Downs, Still Stuck in Traffic
-Duranton & Turner (2011), “The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion”

Transit, Safety & Public Health

-National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) crash data
-CDC WISQARS Injury Data
-World Health Organization, Global Status Report on Road Safety

📖 Further Reading & Watching

-Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
-Jeff Speck, Walkable City
-Strong Towns — articles on induced demand & parking
-Not Just Bikes (YouTube) — international comparisons
-The War on Cars (podcast)