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How Cars are the Apex Predators
This week, I came across an interesting piece from Indi Samarajiva: If aliens were watching Earth, they would think that cars are the apex species. Here’s why: 👇 👇
Roads:
There are roads everywhere. The humans build roads to serve their 4-wheeled beasts.
20% of Earth’s surface is within 1km of a road and the rest is dissected into 600,000 patches.
Parking:
Where there aren’t roads, there’s parking.
Large swathes of land dedicated to house cars, taking up valuable space for humans in urban areas, yet still seemingly never enough parking spaces.
In LA, there’s more parking spaces than human spaces (housing).
It seems humans and cars are competing for habitat.
Predators:
The beasts of the road relentlessly prey on humans daily.
Cars are the #1 killer of young people (age 5-29) globally.
Then, there’s the emissions, as cars spit out toxic gasses, poisoning the environment.
Based on the observations above, I don’t blame aliens for thinking that way. Who would be in charge, the road killers or roadkill?
People want good healthcare, safe streets, affordable housing and convenient townships with green spaces. All this can’t happen in cities dominated by cars. A culture based on cars is pointedly a culture not based on humans.
Unfortunately, the Klang Valley sees this as the hallmark of an urban modernised city. As we prefer building highways, we cannot walk in our city, and are forced to fork out 7-year loans to buy cars and pay tolls daily. 👇
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