The Social Effects Of Life Without Cars

The car has been one of the most massive cultural influences from the time it become popular in the early 1900’s up to today. It found a way to revolutionise the way people got from point A to point B and it has affected countless aspects of our lives, especialy where we live in a community. But what if that is all over? For the first time ever, we are seeing the car becoming less popular and the percent of the population who have a drivers licence getting smaller. This drop in intrest for cars could be due to people and governments realising the benifits of a automobile free lifestyle. Many places around the world today are experementing with the possiblity of life without cars and possibly providing a window into the future of what life
Vauban, a town in Germany, prohibits its resedents to own a personal garage, drive on the streets or bring their car anywhere neer their home. As a result, the vast magority of resedents there do not own a car. The streets are filled with pedestrians and people on bikes, every store is within walking distance from resedential districs and only rarely does one hear the sound of a cars engin in the distance. Vauban has been a experement to see if a life without cars is possible, and according to Vauban citizens it is. This is part of a movement called smart planing, trying to make communities more dense and efficiant, leading to a decrease in the need for private transport. Smart planning started in urban citys but has now started to spread to the originally car dominated
The second largest green house gas supplyer in the world is your cars tailpipe, second only to power plants. Smog produced by cars can drastically damage living standards for resedents of highly affected areas. A modern example of a city that took action in dealing with its high smog was Paris, France. Paris had the most polluted air of any western european city and placed the blame on the citys high congestion with cars. In an attempt to reduce smog and traffic, the government banned the use of cars with odd numberd lisence plates on one day and even numberd plates on the next and continued this trend for a week. The city implimented fines for drivers who did not respect the ban and made the citys public transportation free. Allthough many complained about the inconvience, the city saw a huge drop in pollution in the air by the end of the week they were implementing the ban for, back to safe levels for its citizens. After 7 days they were able to lift the ban and return to allowing all cars to drive in the city on any day. The pollution will return in time with the ban lifted, but it has givin the french and the world a preview of what life could be like with reduced reliance on