Is the west falling out of love with the car? For environmentalists it seems an impossible dream, but it is happening. While baby boomers and those with young families may carry on using four wheels, a combination of our ageing societies and a new attitude among the young seems to be breaking our 20th-century car addiction. Somewhere along the road, we reached the high point of the car and are now cruising down the other side.
The phenomenon was first recognised in “The Road Less Traveled”, a 2008 report by the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, but had been going on largely unnoticed for years. Japan reached it in the 1990s. They talked there of “demotorisation”. The west had its tipping point in 2004. That year the US, UK, Germany, France, Australia and Sweden all saw the start of a decline in the number of kilometres the average person travelled in a car that continues today.
What could be driving us off the road? Fuel costs and rising insurance premiums may be a factor. And urban gridlock, combined with an absence of parking places and congestion charging, makes an increasing number of us look on the car as a dumb way to move around in cities where there are public transport alternatives. Demographics are another possible explanation. It is surely no accident that “peak car” happened first in Japan, which has the world's oldest population. Pensioners do not drive to work, and many don't drive at all. There is also the rise of “virtual commuters” who work from home via the Internet.
Besides these new employment patterns, leisure lifestyles are also changing. Social scientists detect a new “culture of urbanism”. The stylish way to live these days is in inner-city apartments, not the suburbs. Richard Florida, an urban studies theorist at the University of Toronto in Canada, points out that the young shop online, telecommute, live in walkable city neighbourhoods near public transport and rely more on social media and less on face-to-face visiting. Given those changes, they can think of better ways to spend their money than buying a car.
Some think car use will revive if and when economies recover. But it looks like something more profound is going on. Florida calls it a “great reset” in society that will have profound consequences – not least for the environment. Even our most treasured consumer aspirations can have a peak. Enough can be enough.
(Adapted from Compact Advanced by Peter May)