Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World

by Henry Grabar

The most important environmental consequence of all that pavement is all the driving it incentivizes. Transportation is America’s largest source of greenhouse gases, with drivers in Texas alone accounting for half of 1 percent of global carbon emissions. Ground-level air pollution causes hundreds of thousands of deaths every year and is linked to a number of public health problems including lower test scores in children and Alzheimer’s disease in older adults. Sprawling settlement patterns are associated with higher levels of obesity. Cars crashes are the leading killer of young Americans and injure three million of us every year—including many pedestrians and cyclists, among whom minorities and low-income Americans bear the brunt of the damage. Not surprisingly, car-centric environments lead to the most injuries for both drivers and pedestrians.