Roadkill: Unveiling the True Cost of Our Toxic Relationship with Cars - Hardcover

by Henrietta Moore (Author), Arthur Kay (Author)

Explore the financial, social, ethical, and environmental impacts of our obsession with, and dependency on, cars. Learn how to change the way we use them.

Roadkill: Unveiling the True Cost of Our Toxic Relationship with Cars, by Professor Henrietta Moore and Arthur Kay, explores the philosophical implications of car culture, as well as the practical impacts it has on your money, your taxes, your neighborhood, your planet, your health, and your happiness.

While the car has been marketed as a symbol of "freedom", the authors convincingly argue that it has limited the flourishing of our cities and restricted our choices. How can we fix our toxic relationship with cars? The authors offer a new way of thinking that promises to multiply your choices, improve your city, and expand your freedoms.

Inside the book:

• Jaw-dropping, real-world examples of the human and monetary costs imposed by cars, including the fact that cars have killed 60 to 80 million people since their invention, more than the deaths of WWI and WWII combined.
• Philosophical arguments explaining how car-centric cities restrict the freedoms of drivers and non-drivers alike.
• A catalogue of ideas and approaches for urban designers, transport planners, policymakers, and mayors.
• Practical recommendations for all contexts: for you, your family, your neighborhood, your town or city, and your national government.
• Critiques of the myths around electric cars and autonomous cars, providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of the implications of this emerging frontier.
• Ideas on how we can re-frame our relationship with the car? The authors recognize they can be useful machines, when used intentionally, and thoughtfully invited into our lives.
• Over 45 figures, original illustrations, diagrams, and colour photographs.

Roadkill is a persuasive and illuminating call to action for city dwellers, drivers, environmentalists, urbanists, and policymakers--anyone interested in practical ways to improve your life and expand your freedoms.

Front Jacket

In Roadkill: Unveiling the True Cost of Our Toxic Relationship with Cars, Professor Henrietta Moore and Arthur Kay explore the philosophical consequences of car culture, as well as the practical, day-to-day impacts it has on our money, our taxes, our neighborhoods, our planet, our health, and our happiness.

The authors explain how and why the car has been marketed as a symbol of freedom. They present a persuasive argument that the opposite is in fact true. They suggest, alongside convincing evidence, that the car has limited the flourishing of our cities and restricted our choices. Moore and Kay also demonstrate a new way of thinking that promises to multiply our choices, improve our cities, and expand our freedoms.

Roadkill offers jaw-dropping, real-world examples of the human and monetary costs imposed by cars, including the fact that they have killed somewhere between 60 and 80 million people around the world since their invention. It provides well-founded philosophical arguments for the position that car-centric cities restrict the freedoms of drivers and non-drivers alike. The authors provide various ideas and approaches for urban designers, transport planners, policymakers, and mayors, and engage citizens to improve life in the city.

You'll examine insightful critiques of the myths surrounding electric and autonomous cars and learn why these technologies are not the panaceas they are made out to be. Finally, you'll discover how to reframe your relationship with the car, recognizing how they can be useful machines when used thoughtfully. Not the default way to get around, rather invited intentionally and integrated carefully into our lives.

Back Jacket

Praise for ROADKILL

"Bold, urgent, and utterly necessary. A must-read!"
--CARLOS MORENO, Author of The 15-Minute City, Associate Professor at the Paris IAE-Panth?on Sorbonne University, Scientific Director of the ETI Chair

"I love this book. A beautiful mix of philosophy, science, public health, and activism. A blueprint for a better world."
--DR. CHRIS VAN TULLEKEN, Physician, Television Presenter, and Author of Ultra-Processed People

"Beautifully engineered, high speed, elegant, fully customised demolition of our self-destructive and often irrational love affair with the car."
--LAURIE TAYLOR, Sociologist and Host of BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed programme

"This book makes the compelling case for a mindset shift about car dependency and the myths we've been sold about freedom. If reading it doesn't change your mind, you just don't want it to change."
--BRENT TODERIAN, City Planner, Global Advisor on Better Cities, and former Chief Planner for Vancouver, Canada

"Original, powerful, and persuasive."
--LORD NICHOLAS STERN, Professor at the London School of Economics, Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and Author of The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change

"The book we need now. Essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of our cities."
--PROFESSOR RICHARD FLORIDA, Author of The Rise of the Creative Class

"Eye-opening and engaging, this book will change the way you see every road, parking lot, and traffic jam."
--KONGJIAN YU, Dean and Professor at Peking University College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, "Sponge City" inventor, and Founder of Turenscape

Author Biography

HENRIETTA MOORE is the Founder and Director of the Institute for Global Prosperity and the Chair in Culture Philosophy and Design at University College London. Her work is focused on new economic models, Universal Basic Services, artificial intelligence, environmental degradation, decarbonization, displaced people, and the gender pay gap.

ARTHUR KAY is an entrepreneur, urban designer, and advisor building solutions for sustainable cities. He is a Director at Innovo, and the Founder of Skyroom, The Key Worker Homes Fund, and Bio-bean. Kay is a Board Member of Transport for London (TfL), the Museum of the Home, and Fast Forward 2030. He is an Honorary Associate Professor at UCL Institute for Global Prosperity.