There Are No Cars in Wakanda

these visions deliberately exclude anything that might be perceived as an obstacle or that seem outside a very narrow norm, from regulatory impediments to the inconvenience of other people. This characterizes the worldview of those who can only see a future that continues to be designed for the car.

Wakanda is the stuff of fiction — but it doesn’t have to be. The success of Black Panther revealed a hunger for experiencing other narratives; cities need to tell new and different stories, and that will occur only when more people get to tell them.

What if we could rethink mobility to be not about the car, but about people? What if we thought less about technological innovation and more about connection and community, equity and access? Might it be possible to imagine a move away from petrol? From drivers? From cars?

For decades, the automobile provided a pathway to economic opportunity and upward mobility. But now the negative consequences — including a reliance on fossil fuels and increased emissions of greenhouse gases; a dramatic increase in the rate of deaths caused by cars[x]; the disconnection of local community and weakening of local economies; the rise... See more

what does the city look like, if everything is delivered directly to us? What does our community look like, if we never leave the house?

It would be a massive cultural and behavioural shift to radically recast the automobile as a symbol not of freedom, but of restriction.

Futurists, technologists, engineers, film directors, science-fiction writers, automobile execs, transportation planners, venture capitalists — almost all are majority white males, almost to a fault. And this is one of the primary reasons our collective visions of the ‘future’ feel so limited. They’re not collective at all, because so few have been ... See more

Among the many challenges in a capitalist society, it’s hard to imagine a way to profit from a car-free future. Governments don’t profit from providing public transportation to citizens. It’s a service, a reflection of our commitment to the social good. Private transportation — cars — are a different animal: hundreds of industries profit from it, f... See more

It feels nearly impossible to imagine what that might look like, but what we shouldn’t do is feel paralysed by FOBO (fear of better options). An emphasis on the local, on smaller, walkable neighbourhoods and more central job and amenity centres is a good place to start. It’s not just tiny villages that can reap the benefits of this spatial reconsid... See more