The worst consequence of a car-heavy culture, to me, isn't the pollution (or any other externalities we don't normally account for because cars!). It's that a

The worst consequence of a car-heavy culture, to me, isn't the pollution (or any other externalities we don't normally account for because cars!). It's that a car-heavy culture takes the choice away for everybody for any other transportation. I'm sure driving around Houston is great, but say I don't want to, for whatever reason (I want to drink a lot to celebrate something)...or say I can't, because of a health condition... because of the car culture, I now have no choice. There should be a way to structure cities to return choice to people, instead of giving up 35% of our usable land to streets that force people to move about in personal vehicles; freedom should mean the freedom to choose one's transportation, not just the freedom to own and maintain a vehicle.