Notes from the Class I Teach

These are the notes from a class I teach for Columbia College. Just thought I'd plop it down here in case you're curious to know what garbage the commie academics like me are forcing down the nubile throats of the nation's youth. This article is meant to be spoken, and to foster discussion, so pretend to hear my voice (it sounds like Kermit). Some of the links won't work without credentials, but I'm working on a way around that and will update some time in the future. 

History of the Streets

• Since beginning of time streets have been made for transportation but also commerce and public discourse. Up until 1920s it was expected that children go play in the street. 
• Streets were bumpy and muddy, so cyclists began the "Good Roads Movement" in the 1890s through the 1910s. 
• Interestingly, the Good Roads Movement coincided with the Women's Suffrage Movement. Cycling, in general, promoted a number of reforms and social changes for women. Check out this Bustle and Bloomers Academic Article.
• When cars were introduced, people, especially children, started being killed in large numbers by motorists which could move fast on paved roads. There was much public outcry: http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/murder-machines/
• Citizens were outraged, and so municipalities started enacting laws against cars. Some municipalities tried to ban cars altogether. 
• Understand, the people in favor of cars tended to be elites. Cars were/are expensive and the industry around them was/is huge, with a lot of capital tied up in motoring interests. So, the motoring population organized into a cohesive propaganda collective known as, "Motordom"
• See more academic articles on Motordom here, at columbia's library page.
• Motordom embarked on a massive, country-wide propaganda campaign designed to re-define what streets are and how they're used. Coopting social trends also bolstered the social significance of their cause. Here're some videos so you can see what I mean:

• Central to their message was that cars aren't to blame, people are. If people merely acted rationally and with cognizance, deaths could be avoided. Implicit in this argument is a measure of covert victim-blaming. Basically, people die because they get in the way of cars. See this, this, and also this.

• Streets began to change. Here's before:

During:

And After: 

• In addition to propaganda, the organized motoring body began putting pressure on politicians to enact laws to cement the car's place in the streets. "Jaywalking" was originally a term used to describe idiots walking around cities with their mouths open. By 1930, it had become a legal term.
• They also changed the rhetoric around car issues. Car crashes became "Car Accidents" – an intentional language shift to push away blame. This language is encouraged by insurance companies to this day. 
• This, coupled with the falling prices of cars and the increase in available credit helped shift public opinion and mass voting numbers over to motordom's view point. But never forget, their initial goal was to make money and enable the expanded privilege of the powerful. 

Some positives of Motordom

• To certain disaffected populations, like those banned or limited from public transportation, the car was a valuable resource. In the "Jim Crow South" the Green Book arose to help black motorists find non-bigoted lodging, mechanics, food, and other road necessities. 
• Post-depression and post-dustbowl migrations enabled social change and an agricultural revolution. Productivity greatly increase in the country with the advent of the car and truck. My grandfather said the happiest day of his life was when they invented the rubber tractor tire in 1933, because that meant he didn't have to walk his crops and cattle to market. 

The continuation of Automotive Supremacy

• Once cars became legally entitled to the roads, a whole host of negative social consequences ensued. 
• Case Study: the Dan Ryan Expressway. The DRE cut the city in half, not-coincidentally along RedLines. This created a permanent physical racial divide in the city of Chicago. Also, many displaced people who lost their homes and businesses to road construction were forcibly moved into 'the projects'. 
• Dan Ryan also allows for the creation of Suburbs. This is too big a thing to get into now, but in short the suburbs increased segregation and greatly damaged cites for decades, which we are only now fixing. 
• Cities begin to be devoted to cars. For example, 14% of L.A.'s usable land is devoted to parking. PARKING!!! RENT FOR A STUDIO APARTMENT IS $2000/MONTH AND WE'RE GIVING ALMOST A FIFTH OF OUR CITY SPACE TO STORING UNUSED CARS!!!! FOR FREE! WTF!!!!
• To continue keeping Automotive interests above others, car companies bought out and dismantled transit companies. See this and this. True, streetcars were in decline, but that was because cars made them unable to navigate city streets. 
• Car companies fought against alternative transportation. In fact, the very term "alternative transportation" comes from the car world and the idea of 'alternative' creates a hierarchy in which cars remain the "conventional".
• Car lobbyists continue to discourage non-car transportation with "Bicycle Helmet Laws" and "Safety Town" for children, among other things.

Obstacles to democratic road usage

• Cars are a HUGE part of our economy. (We did bail out the auto industry to the tune of 49.5 billion dollars a few years ago) and Auto Interests account for a large percentage of political campaign contributions. Cars keep a permanent station in marketing too; about 15% of TV ads are for cars. 
• More insidiously, in Illinois new vehicles account for the majority of Sales Tax revenue. Nationwide, auto sales account for 2% of taxed revenue, just behind corporate taxes in terms of importance. 
• This means that the motoring interests have a lot of sway in politics, and are pretty much unbeatable in our current economic and political climate. 

Why this is a problem:

• Cars kill 30,000 people a year. For 2016, they're expected to kill over 40,000. That makes driving one of the most dangerous things you can do. And contrary to what the auto manufacturers say about cars becoming safer, they're actually becoming more deadly.
• Cars create pollution, duh. Electric cars are not a solution either, because Lithium batteries are extremely toxic and not recyclable. You can expect an increase in ground water poisonings as lithium batteries become more common. But did you know that cement manufacturing is also one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse emissions? It is. Just building infrastructure for cars is terrible for the environment. 
• Car commuting makes people unhappy.
• Cars are expensive, especially for the poor and disadvantaged. The fact that we NEED cars makes this even more of a tragedy. 
• Car infrastructure causes things to be spread-out, which leads to ugly terrain and unconnected people. This was not the original plan of the interstate, as proposed by Bel Geddes's "Futurama" exhibit. His idea was for highways to skirt the edges of cities, not go through them. Academic article

And YET!

• Car sales are up! SEE! This is especially true in the big truck and SUV market.
• This despite the fact that real wages are stagnant or going down. 
• People are valuing cars over many other aspects of life. 

Conclusion

• Though cars are useful for a lot of things, the automotive industry has used propaganda to give the car more value in society than it deserves. This over-emphasis on the car's importance has negatively affected our health, our environment, and our happiness. As a society, we need to look at what the car really means to us and our civilization, and what value it should have in the future. We should also be weary of the culture around automobilia, and what people are funding that culture, and why. 

And so, here is a look at the future of transportation.

HOMEWORK!

Read the George Orwell piece I handed out in class, "Politics and the English Language." 

  Write a 2-3 page essay about the reading. You may argue with it, agree with it, give current examples that support or reject it... That is all the instruction I'm giving except that a synopsis is not acceptable, and I won't read or grade summaries. Be creative, interpret my these parameters how you will.   

Turn in essays on moodle and/or in hard-copy. We will go over them next class. 

And here's a podcast about all that: http://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2013/08/1-growhtinfatalities_zps6758d34d.jpg