Livin’ in a Car’s World
by Lia Schifitto
How have cars shaped our shared social geographies?
We often refer to cars like there isn’t a human behind the wheel. Yet, when we are pedestrians or cyclists on the road, we tend to see drivers as the enemy, rarely shifting blame onto the much larger and more powerful systems behind the danger of motorist-privileged landscapes.
The topic of automotive landscapes is deeply rooted in urban planning and public health discourse, but within this conversation are layers of cultural and political nuance that we participate in, knowingly and unknowingly. From crosswalks to sidewalks, to parking garages and city parks, what spatial clues can we observe in understanding the value municipalities place on motor vehicles over community wellbeing? How do larger systems of inequality exacerbate this pattern and how can we pay better attention to how we move through the world?
The Ties that Bind Us
What do we know about cars? We know that consumerism is a big reason cars dominate the landscape today. Housing development and big oil profited quickly and massively from the increased interest in having a vehicle of one’s own, particularly beginning at the end of World War II. A blind devotion to capitalism and the privatization of resources made cars not only desirable, but also required to attain freedom of movement and access to good schools, homes, stores, and green spaces.
Attachment to car landscapes differs depending on where you have lived, the options your spaces have provided, and your ability to navigate beyond the worlds your civic infrastructure enforces. I grew up in a suburb where the only way to get around was with a car. Then I moved to a big city, where I could take the train, subway, bus, streetcar, and bike lane, and arrive at my destination, usually unscathed. I decided cars were one way to get around, but not the only way. But for people who grew up in places like Los Angeles or rural Tennessee, driving around and through the landscape was a cultural right of passage.
The tricky thing about cars is that they are entrenched in our sense of self.
Cruising – Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993)
The ultimate car cruising scene from Dazed and Confused, director Richard Linklater’s depiction of 1970s suburban Austin teens on their last day of school. Driving gives the characters a sense of freedom and expanse in their sometimes suffocating town. Linklater makes driving feel as natural as walking, emphasizing to the viewer how central cars are to the space he presents.
Los Angeles Review of Architecture (March 2024)
Local designers and artists were asked to identify a favorite piece of architecture in their city. Half the interviewees chose to write about a part of the city’s freeway system.
Crossing the Street
If you want to investigate how infrastructure demonstrates care for people or cars, a good place to start is crosswalks. I reside in one of the more walkable areas of Los Angeles, Highland Park, which due to its history of streetcar, railway, and commercial corridor planning, allows for main streets and connecting stairwells to still exist in the neighborhood today. The other week, two of the four stop signs by my closest neighborhood intersection had crosswalks added, making the four-way stop a fully equipped pedestrian crossing area. I initially felt a sense of pride for this act of elevated pedestrian visibility, but then, a few days later, a senseless collision occurred at the intersection, reminding me that the new crosswalks were added because of the high volume of drivers rushing to get to the 110 freeway entrance three blocks south.
I happen to live near two elementary schools and began to notice the crossing guards at major intersections around me, changing the semiotics of cars’ movement at certain times of the day. Drivers had to wait, which no one in LA seems to have time for. But if you were walking, you got to experience the elusive privilege of the orange vested guard, halting drivers and allowing you a safe journey across the street. It was one of the first instances in my three years living in Los Angeles that I connected to a pedestrian spirit in the city. Because it’s simply not in the culture to walk. Only about 13% of residents don’t have a car according to LA Metro, and most choose to drive versus use public transit.1
While kids have been walking to school for centuries, the increased number of motor vehicles on the road began to make it a risky endeavor. In the 1930s, designers started experimenting with additions to intersections to signal to drivers that pedestrians share the road. In 1951, the crosswalk design as we know it was implemented in the town of Slough, 20 miles outside the London area.2 The first crossing guards were hired not long after the first crosswalks appeared, in the 1950s, after a steady increase of car-related traffic and injury.
I am slightly embarrassed to admit that until recently, I wrongly assumed school crossing guards were volunteers. Most of my life I have only encountered female-presenting guards, further imprinting in me the twisted notion of youth safety being a maternal role, not a civic responsibility. When we look at crossing guards, we see a celebration of self-reliance and rarely question the root cause that necessitates their presence. There is a human responsible for young people making it safely to school and home. And though they are part of the civic infrastructure as city employees, there is something so reminiscent of a ‘bandaid’ in their role. Why do our youth risk injury or even death without a crossing guard present?
Safety To and From School (1946)
This pedestrian safety video from 1946 claims a child’s biggest threat to his or her safety is their own carelessness. The fact that sidewalks or crosswalks don’t seem to exist in their town is not in question.
Crossing guard for over 45 years celebrates 90th birthday
Maggie Poston’s legacy represents the impact crossing guards have had on youth safety and mobility in busy urban areas like Brooklyn, NY.
cityLAB, an architectural research center based at UCLA, has been thinking deeply about the power structures behind street design for several years. In 2023, its Urban Humanities summer cohort focused on youth mobility in the ethnically and economically diverse Westlake MacArthur Park neighborhood of L.A. In the project Contextured Streets, students and partners mapped out the streets surrounding Lafayette Park, observing social and cultural spatial clues like ‘speculative crosswalks’, ‘youth hubs’, and ‘danger zones’ which influence how young people move through their neighborhood. See more of the map and their related work here.
“The tools of the state, including urban planning and design, have been leveraged to both contain the movement of people and determine their status in relationship to other people, to the state, and to the space they occupy. As a result, mobility inequities are deeply ingrained in our civic institutions and spatial practices. ” – cityLAB
Segregation and redlining play an active role in crosswalk safety in the United States. To see sections of a city side by side illuminates how ethnic makeup and income affect pedestrian infrastructure. To educate folks on why certain areas feel and look different, artist Tonika Lewis Johnson began Folded Map Project, using Chicago as her backdrop. Watch the Address Pairs video of the 6900 block of North Ashland in Rogers Park and the 6900 block of South Ashland in West Englewood. Take note of the crosswalks, traffic, and noise pollution between these neighboring intersections impacted by racialized urban design. Folded Map Project seeks to connect us back to the larger systems at play, moving the blame away from citizens, and more directly to the governing entities which shape our landscapes.
Parks for Cars
Pre-car cities tended to invest in city parks in ways we do not see today. Parks were meeting places, pedestrian thoroughfares, and often, the beating hearts of densely populated areas. One can readily find different kinds of urban designs outside North America like marketplaces, piazzas, and narrow streets—all signs that the city’s design predates the impact of the automotive industry. So what happens when parks try to adapt to the needs of cars?
Pershing Square
There have always been folks in power, every step of the way, pushing car landscapes forward, and Pershing Square is a part of this story. The land for this park was set aside by LA’s then-Mayor, Cristobal Aguilar, in the 1860s, and for several years, acted as a grazing field for cattle. By the late 1800’s, Los Angeles had grown in size and there was increased interest in developing an official city park. Downtown Los Angeles being the epicenter of society and culture at the time, Pershing Square became a popular place for city dwellers to enjoy nature, socialize, and connect in a public space.
Like many American downtowns, the expansion of suburbs and transit options moved DTLA away from the spotlight, especially with the growth of the film, oil, and aviation industries. By the end of World War II, downtown was firmly beginning its eventual decline. Pershing Square became a place for folks out of work or down on their luck to rest and even became a gay cruising park in the mid-1900s with coverage from the park’s greenery at folks’ disposal.
To the commercial and business districts surrounding the park, this would not do. The park became seen as an obstacle for good business. The once-beloved oasis needed to change, and the car was the tool to create this change. The park’s clear open space was ripe with opportunity for a car’s best friend: parking. How were people to shop downtown if there was nowhere to park?
In the early 50s, a parking garage was added beneath the park. Most of the lush landscaping was removed to deter unhoused and unemployed folks from seeking respite among the canopy of trees and shrubs. Thus began the saga of redesign after redesign, all seeking to meet the demands of the car metropolis while attempting to provide a central city park. The city’s determination to surveil while also prioritizing car mobility tarnished the soul of a once bustling Pershing Square.
Watch John Moody’s short documentary, Redemption Square, to observe the palatable need for this public space, and follow the journey to its almost unrecognizable design today. Project for Public Spaces even added Pershing Square to its Hall of Shame. Some details of the park’s design have been modified since the 2005 write-up, but its description of the spirit of the place is even more accurate today—it is a cold, uninviting, concrete mess. I wonder if the folks who pushed so hard for the parking garage would be happy with their choice if they saw the park now. Another redesign is currently underway (see the project model here). Originally slated to be a much larger greenery project, its current construction work remains focused on installing glass elevators to the parking garage.
To explore how much space your own locality dedicates to parking, search major U.S. city maps with Parking Reform’s Parking Lot Map tool.
Queen’s Park
Car-centric forces can also be found in the center of the University of Toronto’s St. George Campus. Queen’s Park, home of the historic Ontario Legislative Buildings, has been around for almost 150 years. Today, the park’s design divides the campus’s mostly pedestrian paths with a one-way sprawling roundabout surrounding the park, creating fast-moving car and bus traffic.
While I attended U of T, this major student crossing (pictured below) did not have a crosswalk or street light, and we depended on loosely followed yielding rights, with more success when other students were waiting alongside us. I even had a friend get hit by a car at this crossing (she was fine, but the danger of the intersection was clear).
During my time as a student, the park was never truly a safe space, even within the confines of the pedestrian pathways. Isolated from other social gathering spaces on campus, many students opted to walk an extra 10-15 minutes around the park once the sun set to arrive at their destination. I sometimes think about how different the park would be without the city street engulfing it. How would it better serve not only the student community but the city at large? This feels especially pertinent as Toronto sorely lacks green space and continues to face rapid development.
Dreaming Beyond the Anthropocene
Scholars sometimes refer to human history as the Anthropocene, a period we are currently in, that centers on human existence, development, and impact on the environment—with immense consequences like the warming of the Earth’s temperature due to the burning of fossil fuels. It can be hard to remember that our shared landscapes existed long before us, and will likely exist long after us.
Highways unnaturally disrupt how mammals, reptiles, birds, and insects move through space. Wildlife crossing infrastructure (including overpasses, underpasses, and tunnels) feels like a breath of fresh air in this car narrative, yet it also remains vulnerable to the pressures of the automotive industry. The motivations behind these wildlife crossings vary. They help ensure human/vehicle safety and avoid collisions, while also seeking to protect wildlife and preserve natural migration patterns. They are expensive and time-consuming projects. However, studies already show impressive and hopeful results regarding car safety and restorative migration.3
Over the past few years, social media and related press have resurrected a car commercial created in 2003, produced by the now-defunct Saturn Company (a subsidiary of General Motors). If you have never seen it, it’s worth a watch.
The commercial was shot in the Downtown Los Angeles neighborhood of Bunker Hill, a space transformed from a historically diverse residential area to a sea of high-rise developments with the installation of the Hollywood Freeway in the 1960s.
The video reveals the dramatic amount of space cars require and the multitudes of roadways, parking lots, and freeways that favor vehicle movement over basic human mobility. The goal of the commercial was to build an emotional connection with their audience, promising a sense of responsibility to their consumers (‘we see people, not cars’). But the irony is that their consumers need better streets, better crosswalks, more green spaces, and more efficient mass transit options to truly thrive—not cars. Moreover, to apply the topic of wildlife crossings, we desperately need to think beyond our ‘human’ needs in this conversation.
I had the unique opportunity of experiencing a freeway like the actors in the Ion commercial this past summer at the 2023 Arroyo Fest, which closed the 110 Freeway from Lincoln Heights to Pasadena for one day. The festival was held ten years prior and it took about that long to plan the 2023 iteration, as closing a major highway is no easy feat. I started to tear up when I walked towards the sea of people walking and biking along the typically swirling highway. I felt like I was seeing my neighbors for the first time; we could reach out to one another and flow together. It was both joyous and odd to be walking where only cars are usually allowed. As the morning and afternoon came and went, the highway reopened for car traffic at dusk, and we all returned to the confines of metal and plastic.
And yet despite this push and pull of cars versus people (and wildlife), I can’t help but feel a bit of affection for our car landscapes too. Because behind the wheel of the car is you and me, and it is a way we experience the world. I have driven across the U.S. a handful of times, and I believe it changes how you understand the country—a place that is so wide and so varied that the only way to truly see it is to drive it one state at a time. Countless books are written on the power of walking in urban spaces, but when it comes to making sense of the immense rurality between densely populated areas, driving cross-country opens you to a different kind of cultural experience. If you have never attempted the journey of coast to coast, Joni Mitchell can give you a taste with her 1976 album, Hejira, which tells tales of beautiful barren lands, a woman alone at the wheel, nowhere to be, and everywhere to go.
Driving is a link between the estranged mother and daughter in Greta Gerwig’s semi-autobiographical film, Lady Bird (2017). A sometimes reluctant but shared love for their city, Sacramento, is felt most deeply when driving.
We can love car culture and hate it too; we are allowed to feel both. Moreover, I think car culture requires us to retrace our steps before we can begin to move forward, deciphering what systems have left our streets unsafe and underresourced for human and animal movement. It is so much easier to present band-aid solutions for ingrained societal issues, but it is our right and our responsibility to pay attention to the landscapes we share and begin to recognize how we contribute to the maintenance of car-centric worlds.
Further Reading & Exploring
A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
Historian Lizabeth Cohen’s book on the evolution of mass consumerism and its effect on car culture.
John Margolies’ Photographs of Roadside America (The Public Domain Review)
Architectural critic and photographer John Margolies (1940–2016) captured the eclectic beauty of roadside architecture and signage in 20th-century America.
Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles (1972)
A documentary on the car metropolis of LA from the perspective of a British architecture critic.
Smooth City: Against Urban Perfection, Towards Collective Alternatives, By René Boer
The new Jane Jacobs reader. Global perspectives on the importance of built landscape diversity.
Center for Urban Pedagogy
People should shape the civic decisions, policies, and institutions that are important to them. CUP uses art and community engagement to explore collaborative urban design.
@everyverything
UCLA architect grad student, lecturer, and writer Shane Reiner-Roth’s spatial memes Instagram account.
- https://thesource.metro.net/2016/08/30/how-we-roll-aug-30-how-many-people-in-our-region-can-really-go-car-free/#:~:text=It%20shows%20that%20about%2013,a%20car%20or%20cars%20available ↩︎
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/short-history-crosswalk-180965339/ ↩︎
- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/31/climate/wildlife-crossings-animals.html ↩︎
