Op/Ed Draft: "Wait a minute electric car. We're making real progress here." - Hitesh Soneji

Wait a minute electric car. We’re making real progress here. - Hitesh Soneji

What happens when the electric vehicle hits the ground running? Will we drop our livable communities strategies and ride our lithium-ion horses into the sprawling sunset?

Growing concern over climate change has provided a crucial boost to the sustainable and livable communities movement. Around the nation, more people are walking, cycling, and taking public transit than ever before (ref). Local governments are encouraging this mobility shift by encouraging transit oriented development, live-work neighborhoods, and expanding the reach of their transit networks. Some municipalities have even had the foresight to envision reduced automobile dependency (ref).

Enthusiasm for the electric vehicle could put a damper on real progress. It would result in a tremendous wasted opportunity to revive the vibrancy and character of Main Street. The land of chains and sprawl has stretched our existence in time and space, weakening localized social relations. Envision instead the rejuvenation and creation of thousands of new Main Streets across the nation. These communities promise a richer living experience, increased social well-being, and improved health. Intelligently designed livable cities reduce pressure on near-by open space, parks, and farm land, providing recreational opportunities and natural habitat buffers so that flora and fauna can flourish. By the virtues embedded in their very structure, livable cities will politely ask us to live within more sustainable means while at the same-time increasing our well-being and happiness (ref?). Even the mythical car that runs on magic dust simply can't provide all that.

While I applaud efforts to electrify our automobile fleet, such a shift will put severe near-term strains on our nation’s electricity grid while only partially reducing green house gas emissions. Irrelevant of fuel choice, continued automobile dependency would perpetuate sprawl and deterioration of the quality of life within our cities. Reducing the need to drive is essential to improving livability, no matter the advances that technology might bring to the automobile. Let's take the opportunity that climate change has offered us to reinvigorate the American city so that it serves all our people, not the very traffic that chokes it.