Do You Believe in Life After Cars?

This story originally appeared in our sister publication, Portland Mercury.

“Cars ruin everything.”

That’s the bold opening line of Life After Cars, the new book by celebrated transportation media figures Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon, and Aaron Naparstek. The writers make a case for that initial assertion, detailing the various ways cars—or, more specifically, car culture as we currently know it—ruin childhoods, destroy wildlife, perpetuate societal injustices, and kill people, to name a few particularly negative effects.

But, as its title suggests, Life After Cars also contains a hopeful side, asking readers to imagine how humans could thrive in a post- automobile world. Seattleites have a chance to hear about this directly, from Goodyear and Gordon, at an upcoming Town Hall Seattle rea