Auto-Centric Dependency: How Transportation Affected North American Cities

In today’s North American cities, the pattern and layout of the urban fabric is dictating to the needs of the automobile. Why are we designing and living in an environment which is not conductive to pedestrians activities but instead creates a hostile environment causing us to use considerably more in energy and time? What caused North American cities to so drastically alter the way they developed? As the modern car has been around for over 100 years, North Americans have been able to study and see the effect that it’s had on our built environment. This thesis responds to the auto-centric design of cities and proposes an alternative way in which we view auto-centric design that will not only benefit the future of our cities but also our social experience.