154. Daniel Knowles on the History, Economics, and Culture of Cars—and Envisioning a World without Them

In the Midwest, we love our cars: fast cars, big cars, small
cars, loud cars, quiet cars, different cars for different
occasions like shoes. Car culture, in other words, is often
indistinguishable from Midwest culture, and has been for so long
that it feels natural. But what if it's not?


On today's show, Daniel Knowles makes the case that cars are
ruining the world while making us unhappy and unhealthy—the
subject of his new book, Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse
and What to Do About It. Talking with Tom Knoblauch, Knowles
outlines the rise of cars around the world, their economic and
health impacts, how this warps the design of cities, and what it
might look like to envision a future reliant on public
transportation.