Analysis Of After The Car

‘After the car’ was written by Kingsley Dennis and John Urry in 2009. They both are sociologists, Kingsley Dennis is writing books about climate change and Planet issues and his last book is “Reflections – A Collection of Essays”. John Urry worked in Lancaster University from 2003 to 2015 as a Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research and is now Co-Director of the Institute for Social Futures. As the name of the book indicate the overall purpose is cars, but not only. Indeed even if at the first approach readers can think that it will be about car history or what technology will be after cars, it is not. Actually the book relate about car’s story in an original way because it also explain how cars appeared and evolved, how the entire social

Cars are a revolution for humans because it offers freedom and independency to their owners. However the book also describes bad sides of the car system. Indeed, this system completely changed the environment landscape through centuries and impact on the nature is frightful. It also describe how dependent people are about their car and how costly it is with roads infrastructures, hospitals, insurances and emotional costs. Furthermore according to Richard Rogers “cars eroded the quality of public spaces and have encouraged suburban sprawl, car has made viable the whole concept of dividing everyday activities”. Indeed ‘After the car’ shows how gradually people added distance from their home to their work and leisure’s and roll away from family

Indeed in the final chapter three different scenarios are exposed as possible post-car system. The first one is about living in a future based on reduced scale network of communities with jobs, schools, friends and leisure’s close one to another. However people will have a restricted mobility without long distance travel, indeed cars will be considerate as a luxury because of the scarcity resources. Secondly “regional warlordism” where people have to take care of themselves in a society in which violence reigns. Mobility will only be allowed to rich and powerful people. Finally the last scenario is about living in a supervised and monitored world in which the mobility will be possible but with an important loss of privacy. In my opinion these three scenarios are extremes and too stereotypical, they should have been nuanced, indeed the first one looks like a complete community system without thinking further it, the second one is about a self-organization finally the last one is an absolute monitored and controlled