A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next
Automobiles, airplanes, and locomotives made it possible to extend the reach of modern bureaucracy across geographic space.
Tyler Cowen • The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better: A Penguin eSpecial from Dutton
Cars can thus monopolize traffic. They can shape a city into their image–practically ruling out locomotion on foot or by bicycle in Los Angeles. They can eliminate river traffic in Thailand.
Ivan Illich • Tools for Conviviality
This may be true, for example, of driverless cars, around which there is currently enormous excitement being generated by their developers but no clear sense of just what social practices they will enable.