ADDICTION TO AUTONOMOBILES – AND THE SETTLEMENT PATTERN THAT AUTONOMOBILES SPAWN – IS THE DRIVING FORCE COLLAPSING A SOCIETY THAT HAS BECOME DEPENDENT ON LARGE, PRIVATE VEHICLES FOR MOBILITY AND ACCESS.
General Motors filed for bankruptcy yesterday. This is only the latest in a string of events that document how the Autonomobile Industrial Complex in the US of A is suffering.
How can one explain why some of the largest and most revered Enterprises on the Planet got to this place? (See “Inexhaustible Icon: GM Has Left Its Brand on the Cultural Landscape” in today’s Wapo.)
The simple answer is:
• Households that can AFFORD a new Large, Private Vehicle already have one – or two or three. Not only that but many new cars have three or four years of free maintenance and a 100,000 mile warranty. If one lost 40% of their shelter ‘investment’ and 60% of their retirement nest egg in the past year, why would they buy a new car?
• Households who NEED a new vehicle cannot afford one now that loans do not grow on trees. What those Households NEED is a small efficient vehicle. They ALSO NEED settlement patterns that require far less driving. (See German / American comparison noted below.)
No major Autonomobile Enterprise is offering vehicles that match citizen needs and Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions are not yet evolving functional settlement patterns.
What manner of a Enterprise strategy results in a whole industry sector selling themselves out of a market?
The one that comes to mind is aggressive drug cartels. Sell, sell, sell – push the product until there is almost one left who is not addicted and broke or already has a big stash.
Autonomobile Enterprises have acted exactly like drug cartels. With the help of Agencies (voters LOVE Large, Private Vehicles so long as they do not have to pay the full cost) and workers (unions LOVE high wages), Autonomobile Enterprises have addicted five generations of citizens to cheap energy and big, status-establishing / ego-messaging Autonomobiles.
These Autonomobiles demand a disaggregated and dysfunctional settlement patterns to operate.
After 90 years of selling four wheeled drugs, there is no alternative for Mobility and Access for the majority of Americans.
When the economy hit a rough patch due to dependence on unsustainable growth, unsustainable debt and Mass OverConsumption, citizens found themselves without any need for a new car and / or trapped with settlement patterns that are the inevitable result of Autonomobile dependence.
Bottom line: Citizens of the US of A are addicted to Autonomobiles. (See again US of A / German comparison below)
Many citizens are coming to grips with the reality that they and their Organization have:
1. Created a Global Financial System that has turned investment into gambling
2. Fueled a feeding frenzy that resulted in the Wrong Size House / Wrong Location Shelter Implosion
3. Paid no attention to the imbalance of trade, the widening Wealth Gap or unsustainable debt – public and private.
4. Championed Mass OverConsumption funded by depletion of Natural Capital
In their May newsletter, Ecocities Emerging’s Kirsten Miller makes a nice case for Autonomobiles being “The Sacred Cow of consumption.” (EMR would say the Sacred Cow of Mass OverConsumption) Ms. Miller uses the impact of the Tata mini in India as a jumping off place.
Icons that are ‘sacred’ normally reside in the Social Sphere. The addiction to Autonomobiles is also an Economic Sphere catastrophe and a Physical Sphere impossibility. (See The Large, Private Vehicle Mobility Myth.)
Citizens need smaller, more durable, more easily repaired and FAR more fuel efficient vehicles to bridge the gap until settlement patterns evolve to require fewer vehicles of any kind.
That is not what the current administration is betting on to recover the billions it has invested in GM. They are talking about slightly less consumptive vehicles and no Fundamental Transformation of the settlement pattern. (See today’s WaPo headline: “U. S. Bets Billions on GM’s Resurgence. Also see the two stories under the full page banner headline: “Flickers of Hope for U. S. Economy Belie the Distance From Recovery” and “Obama Unveils Plan for Brief Bankruptcy, Nationalization.”
For a very good summary of why the US of A did not have to get into this predicament see the April 2009 study from Brookings “Making Transportation Sustainable: Insights from Germany.”
The report documents how the US of A could have used far less land for urban land uses and created a far smaller ecological footprint with increased quality of life for all – including the 12.5 Percenters.
The question is: Is it too late to obtain a sustainable trajectory? Without Fundamental Transformation of settlement patterns, conditions will only get worse.
The expectations are unrealistic. On the day GM filed for bankruptcy that gambling venue call the NY Stock Exchange jumped over 200 points on rumors and shadows. (See WaPo story above “Flickers of Hope…”
Oil is up again on the hope that consumption will increase.
There is also hope of economic recovery is based such solid indicators of economic rebound as a rise in the Indian stock market last week. That is not a reflection of the Blackfeet and the Sioux selling more cattle, it is the response to an election in India that some think will allow the citizens of India to ride the Tiger a little longer.
Irony of irony’s is that for every recession since WW II selling cars and houses has been the cure for economic pain. Now they are the root cause of the Great Recession (See Steven Mufson’s story “Once a Recession Remedy, GM’s Empire Falls” in today’s Wapo.
EMR