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THE END OF AUTOMOBILE DEPENDENCE How Cities Are Moving Beyond Car-Based Planning By Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy Washington, DC (August 11, 2015) — Cars have been at the heart of American life for decades, and sometimes it’s hard to remember it hasn’t always been that way. Cities will continue to accommodate the automobile, but residents and policymakers alike are realizing that when cities are built around cars, the quality of human and natural life declines. As urban rail is thriving, central cities are revitalizing, suburban sprawl is reversing, and walking and cycling are growing in many cities, numerous global cities are now experiencing peak car use. For more than 25 years, global transportation experts Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy have been predicting that the era of automobile dependence would end as people realized the strengths of communities not built around the car. In their new book, The End of Automobile Dependence: How Cities are Moving Beyond Car-Based Planning, Newman and Kenworthy explain how the end of automobile dependence has arrived, and sooner than even they predicted. This is the final volume in a trilogy by Newman and Kenworthy on automobile dependence. Like all good trilogies this one shows the rise of an empire, in this case that of the automobile, the peak of its power, and its decline. Newman and Kenworthy look at how we can accelerate a planning approach to designing urban environments that can function reliably and conveniently on alternative modes, with a refined and more civilized automobile playing a very much reduced and manageable role in urban transportation. They also explain how to better guide cities to the most productive and sustainable outcomes during this time of fundamental change. Grounding their analysis in the theory of urban fabrics and an extensive data set tracing 44 global cities, Newman and Kenworthy explain why the decline of the automobile is a hopeful development,
even in emerging economies. The End of Automobile Dependence offers an optimistic yet pragmatic analysis of one of the most important urban trends of our era from two of the leading minds on transportation and cities. Peter Newman is Professor of Sustainability at the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute (CUSP). He is a Lead Author for Transport on the IPCC and was awarded an Order of Australia for his contributions to urban design and sustainable transport. Jeffrey Kenworthy is Professor in Sustainable Cities in CUSP at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia and Guest Professor at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences in Germany. The End of Automobile Dependence By Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy Paperback and E-book 320 pages | Price: $45.00 ISBN: 9781610914635 Publication Date: August 11, 2015 http://islandpress.org/the-end-of-automobile-dependence Founded in 1984, Island Press works to stimulate, shape, and communicate the information that is essential for solving environmental problems. Today, with more than 800 titles in print and some 40 new releases each year, it is the nation’s leading publisher of books on environmental issues. But Island Press does more than publish books. It advances environmental science by nurturing the exchange of ideas across disciplines and sectors, and by helping to create a multidisciplinary literature on environmental problems and solutions. The knowledge created is spread far beyond the range of a limited marketplace through sophisticated communications initiatives that reach journalists, academics, policymakers, practitioners and the general public. Through these efforts, Island Press is driving change by moving ideas from the printed page to public discourse and practice. Island Press’s emphasis is, and will continue to be, on transforming objective information into understanding and action. For more information and further updates be sure to visit www.islandpress.org. ###