With regard to cars, I'll point you to the recent excellent piece by Alex Steffen on WorldChanging My Other Car is a Bright Green City
Also read Jamais Cascio's older piece on cars: The Problem of Cars
As I state often, a car is often seen as a "own living room" territory (In France you need a warrant to search a car, or the presence of customs officers), meaning that for many, they leave their "own" home in the morning, looking at others through the windows of their "mobile living room", get to their work parking lot, meeting only the "tribe" of co-workers for the day long, then vice-versa... They have a tendency to get afraid of shadows in the street, of the "stranger" (diminishing socialization rituals), get more aggressive in defending he very private territory...
It's the loosing of the "public space" (what for?), the acceptance of suburbs (it's not so far!), the growth of denouncement (call the cops quick !), etc.
Who benefits from the killing of the "city"...? "What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.