The pandemic is a poor excuse to elevate car culture

I’m not completely against the car, but reading this article from the NYT about how car culture is “renewed again” really drives home how dystopian this mode of transportation really is. It’s sort of a conundrum of American society that we’ve built cities and communities in such a way that the only way for us to see each other in some places is to drive there — which is why this article thinks car culture is back with a vengeance (hopefully it’s not).

While some might romanticize the photos shown here, I can’t help but think how oddly weird it is that we would box ourselves in even more in times of quarantine by sitting in a metal moving box with wide avenues and roads separating people, all for the sake of the moving vehicle. It makes no sense. Cars are indeed necessary, but as Americans, we’ve somehow boxed ourselves into a life that requires the car to do simple things like wish people a happy birthday. I mean…what?!