How does our reliance on the automobile affect who we are as a culture?

Question

How does our reliance on the automobile affect who we are as a culture?

Answer 1

So I guess somebody has a take-home test for their cultural anthropology class.

Answer 2

Physical landscape - running highways through neighborhoods and destroying them, edge cities, parking lots isolating buildings, pollution

Personal interactions - spending more time alone in the car, wasting more time on commutes and less with family, favoring big-box stores over small shopping areas,

Body issues - Getting fatter because we don't walk as much, rate of accidents, a convenient place for teens to have s*x or a way for people to get to far-away motels

Basically there isn't a single aspect of our lives that cars haven't touched, I think!

Answer 3

Good question, I recently lived in San Francisco and found that my car would sit in the garage for weeks on end.

Public Transportation is cheap in San Francisco and the minimum wage is over $9 an hour. The result is that there are no WALMARTs or KMarts. Small businesses abound. It's like living in the 1950s, you shop at the Butcher Shop, the Produce Store, The Bakery. Most people only buy enough for a day or two. There are plenty of cheap Resturaunts (not fast food) people eat out and take a doggie bag home. Even the Supermarkets are moving out. I loved it but I had to move on.

It reminds you of how Real Estate Developers and Chain Stores have destroyed the fabric of America