Every day we see them. Every day we hear them. Every day we interact with them. Cars have taken over the world. It was 1807 when the first combustion engine was created and it was considered a complete failure. It only took 200 years for the vehicle to revolutionize the way we live. Many use the car as a daily commuter, or to run to the grocery store or to travel across the country. With over 1 billion cars worldwide they are a big influence. The car has allowed urban sprawl to be possible. The economy has been affected by the car. The car has a bad side, it hurts our environment. So where does the car lie? Do the benefits out way the negatives? The definition of urban sprawl is "the uncontrollable expansion of urban areas." So how has the car influenced this? The Ford model T is known as the unofficial first success of a car. With over 15 million unit produced it was bound to have an impact. The Model T could go 200 miles without having to fill up on gas and its top speed was 45mph. The city was the main hub for jobs during this time. No longer would you have to live in the city or close to it. You can hop in your Model T and get into the city relatively fast. As cars have advanced they have got faster and capable of going much further on one tank of gas. This has lead to the alarmingly quick rate of urban sprawl. It has such an impact that the jobs have moved out from the city because people are able to travel great distances because of cars. But why move out to the urban area? There a couple reasons, one being it is usually cheaper to live in urban areas. Land is a lot less expensive. Many people enjoy being able to have a lawn and space between you and your neighbor, which is nonexistent in the city. W... ... middle of paper ... .... The economy has boosted because of the car. It created jobs and it produced giant trade markets. In the big picture the car is a great invention. It challenges designers to build smart, strong, and reliable. It has enable humans to travel like never before. The car will only progress and get more useful. One small idea can change the way we live. References: "The Unpopular, Successful Auto Bailout." The American Prospect. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. Gimbel, Barney. "The Richest City in the World." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 12 Mar. 2007. Web. 02 May 2014. "Enviromental Impact of Cars." Impact of Cars on the Environment. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2014. Amadeo, Kimberly. "How Gas Prices Get High." About.com US Economy. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2014. Hartman, Dennis. "The Effects of Cars on the Economy." EHow. Demand Media, 26 Jan. 2010. Web. 02 May 2014.
In Christopher Wells’ book Car Country: An Environmental History he starts by speaking about his experience over the years with automobiles. He describes how happy he was to own his first automobile. Mr. Wells goes into detail about the inconveniences of driving in towns where everything is fairly accessible, and the necessity of an automobile in major cities. Although Mr. Wells enjoyed his first car, his local surrounding helped shape the attitude he has towards motor vehicles to this day. Mr. Wells also argued that car dependence in America is connected with the landscape. Wells rejects the notion that America ‘s automobile landscape emerged as a byproduct of consumer’s desires for motor vehicles or as the result of conspiracies to eliminate
The impact of the automobile between 1900 through 1945 was immense. It paved the way for a future dependency on the automobile. To paint a better picture, imagine life without an automobile. Everyday life would be dull, cumbersome, and tedious. An individual's mobility would be very limited. Basically, the life without an automobile could not be fathomed. The importance of the automobile is often taken for granite. Society may not know what appreciate the impact of the automobile and effects it has created. The impact of the automobile had both positive and negative effects on America between 1900 through 1945. Automobile provided an outlet for individuals and spread the freedom of travel among all classes of people. It also helped to introduce rural dwellers to the aspects of urban life and vice versa. One of the negative effects was that automobiles helped to put of big decline in the use of railroads. Over the course of the paper, I will try to expose the huge impact of the automobile an early twentieth century life.
Car culture had caused some serious headaches for city planners in the 1950s. They had not anticipated the added traffic when building cities and were forced to adjust their plans with mixed results. There were many side effects to the restructuring of the city, and most were not good for the city center. Business and customers were no longer funneled into the now crowded city center in favor of the more spacious and convenient periphery. Community life as well as business in the city center really suffered as a result of suburbanization caused by the car. Jane Jacobs says in her chapter called "Erosion of Cities or Attrition of Automobiles" in the book Autopia, "Today everyone who values cities is disturbed by automobiles (259...
In the July 1997 issue of Commentary, James Q. Wilson challenges the consensus among academia’s finest regarding the automobile in his bold article, Cars and Their Enemies. Directed towards the general public, his article discredits many of the supposed negatives of the automobile raised by experts, proves that the personal car is thriving and will continue to thrive because it meets individual preference over other means of transportation, as well as presents solutions to the social costs of cars. Wilson emphasizes that no matter what is said and done in eliminating the social costs of the automobile, experts are not going to stop campaigning against it.
One of the main reasons that the automobile has changed America for the better is because of its effect it has had on transportation. For example, with the invention of the automobile came a need for highways this allowed easy travel for people to get to work or to go on vacations. It also had a huge effect one the war. The automobile allowed soldiers to haul weapons food and other supplies. The automobile also allowed soldiers to get from battlefield to battlefield quick and easily. with the invention of the automobile gave a whole new mea...
What would this country be without the car, or any type of motor vehicle for that matter? The automobile has transformed the country and the world. The first car was manufactured in 1769 it was a steam powered engine that could go eight miles per hour (Dreyer). But everything escalated when Henery Ford figured out the trick to pushing out cars at a fast rate for the common man. It has created many opportunities; it has made new sports and has made getting from point A to B easier. As a result of the automobile, culture flourished, jobs became easier to come by, and the environment was positively and negatively impacted.
This sort of rapid growth entails exactly why the automobile has impacted many societal norms that people are familiar with in American culture. From its creation, there were sudden changes in societal structures and an increased culture relevance that rushed through American society. To begin with, the automobile was first a luxury only achieved by the wealthy. *Find a source* what a difference a few decades makes. At the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Ford proudly unveiled the latest edition of MyFord Touch, an in-car communication and entertainment system available in most of its models. An amazing technical achievement, the system can do fun things — like seamlessly integrate a smartphone or mobile media player with the vehicle’s audio system to facilitate hands-free operation.Now, we have roads to drive on everywhere, so an increase infrastructure and travel became a societal norm. Construction of roads made travel easier and faster, and in the 1950s, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the federal Interstate Highway System, which once completed, allowed citizens to take their increasingly stylish and roadworthy cars on long trips to other states or even across the country. The new normal quickly became “driving” and
...hing, more prominent than the effect on the farms. The automobile has radically changed city life by accelerating the outward expansion of population into the suburbs. The suburban trend is emphasized by the fact that highway transportation encourages business and industry to move outward to sites where land is cheaper, where access by car and truck is easier than in crowded cities, and where space is available for their one or two story structures. Better roads were constructed, which further increased travel throughout the nation. As with other automobile-related phenomena, the trend is most noticeable in the United States but is rapidly appearing elsewhere in the world.
Since the development of the steam engine people had been interested in creating self-powered vehicles, this manifested during the industrial revolution as the train. However, as time went on people became interested in creating a vehicle that wasn’t confined to tracks. The earliest attempts were moderately successful but served little practical purpose. Automobiles first began to truly spread with the invention of the electric motor which created cheaper, more powerful, and safer automobiles. Still the automobile still had numerous problems and were mainly in the hands of the rich. It was the development of the internal combustion engine and the assembly line that was truly able to create a practical vehicle that could be used by all and propelled the automobile into the heart of American culture and made it one of the most significant inventions of the post-industrial revolution era, resulting in a complete revolution of society.
... the world. From humble origins in the late nineteenth century, the auto industry grew explosively in the early and mid-twentieth century’s, scattered and decentralized, and reconstituted its work force. The impact on everyday life, from where people live to what kind of work they did cannot be underestimated. The hard work people put in to making the assembly line helped almost all companies succeed in making more cars. Just imagine if the assembly line was not created. It would take years to make a car and the cost of a car would be very expensive. Those changes were especially visible in Detroit which was the capitol of the auto industry automobile nation. The automobile industry would not be where it was today if it wasn’t for all the hard work people put in it in the 1900’s. Ford, Chrysler and general motors’ help create what we call today as the automobile.
Automobiles play a major role in today's society. Almost every American owns at least one motorized transportation vehicle. Some say they make our lives better by reaching places faster than before. Others say they are a harmful to the environment. Have they made our society better or worse? They may be fast, but do we as humans want our environment to suffer because of time. Face it, cars pollute. And they release destructive chemicals into the air. Air pollution can threaten the health of many subjects in the environment including human beings.
Automobiles play an essential role in American society. As if being the major means of transportation was not impressive enough, automotives can be seen on T.V., in movies, in magazines, and can sometimes be indicative of a person’s wealth and social status. On average, Americans drive nearly 40 miles and drive for just over 50 minutes driving per person per day (http://www.bts.gov). That means a person spends roughly one-sixteenth of a day driving. It would make sense, then, to make such an essential part of society as efficient, cost effective, and clean as possible. However, that is not the case. As the years have passed cars have actually begun to move away from efficiency. Hawken writes, “[The automobile] design process has made cars ever heavier, more complex, and usually costlier. These are all unmistakable signs that automaking has beco...
So what was the original thinking behind the car? Well to get a person and their family from point A to point B in a faster time than a horse. And it has evolved greatly ever since, even starting to loop back to Edison’s original plan for an electric car. So its safe to say that that the automobile is one of, if not, the most influential inventions on the United states.
The first automobile was invented in Europe, however the automobile industry had an enormous favorable impact on the United States economy.(Brown,
To begin the negative effects of automobiles are very mild and should not be taken too seriously although it sounds bad the positive outweighs the negative. Automobiles deplete a good amount of natural resources such as steel, aluminum, copper, lead, zinc, and rubber (The Environmental Impact of Automobiles). Because of automobiles air pollution has lost wheat, corn, soybean, peanut crops about one point nine to 4 billion dollars in crops (The Environmental Impact of Automobiles). The U.S alone uses over 10.8 million barrels of oil each day just to keep automobiles running (The Environmental Impact of Automobiles).