Pernicious effects of cars on communities
Cone blames the automobile for destroying communities, basically by allowing the wealthy to establish enclaves that they then protect with an increasingly complex and limiting network of laws.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Caesar Cone, January 7, 1983. Interview C-0003. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- CEASAR CONE:
I don't think much of Mr. [Ralph] Nader. He's
criticized the automobile for killing people and messing up the
countryside with all these roads, etc. I think the automobile has
damaged our society more than anything it could possibly do physically.
As an example, my father had the biggest house in town and was the
richest man in town. He lived right next to his mill, so he could walk
to work. And he lived right next to his mill houses, so his employees
could walk to work. They had a store, and they had their churches, and
they had the schools withink walking distance. As the automobile came
along and made people more mobile and they could live twenty miles away
and commute, it gave an opportunity to the
individual to process his baser instincts, if you please. "I
only want to live next to rich people in big houses, and I
don't want to live next to smoke or noise where
there's manufacturing, and I don't want to live
next to a school where there's a lot of hollering at recess
time," etcetera, etcetera. So zoning came along, and planning
came along, and government came along with all this mix. As a result, it
has created some of the problems, probably more problems than
it's solved. I'm talking about society-wise.