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The article Marquette law review II reveals some interesting facts about the author. The author clearly has problems with private transportation and automobiles.

He says the government "forces" people to buy cars. This is so far from the truth that its hard to continue reading the article.

People buy cars for the same reason they used to by horses and wagons. It gives them ability to go places and carry the stuff they want to bring along with them.

In medieval times, and even up to the industrial revolution, the very wealthy and the aristocrats had personal transportation, the peasant class was forced to walk or if they could afford it, ride a stage or other type of public transportation.

What made America different from Europe is that when people started emigrating here, they brought horses with them and they used them to get about. It was very egalitarian here, because anybody who could get a horse could have one-- the vast distances and lack of established transportation systems equalized everybody. You could buy a horse, or out west, catch a wild one and tame it for use. If you were by a waterway, you could build a boat to get you up and down stream with your farm product or other goods.

When the industrial revolution occurred, people moved into cities for work, but it didn't take long for them to want to have a way to get out of the city on their time off and visit the country and just relax. When the automobile came along it was city people first who bought them, precisely for the freedom of travel they afforded.

The tyranny of the automobile arises in part from a second tyranny: the tyranny of suburbia

So automobiles create a tyranny? This is very Orwellian, peace is war etc. No one is forced to buy a car. People buy cars because they like them. Kids go out and get their drivers licenses because they want to, not because the government is forcing them to. Its simply not true that automobiles create tyranny, in societies where the automobile is rare, you have tyranny. How many years did it take to buy an automobile in the old USSR? You could order one and wait 8 years to get it. Why did people pay the price and wait and wait and wait? Because the automobile gave them freedom. I would think many of the former residents of the USSR and eastern bloc countries would find this statement completely laughable.

Government has further rigged suburban life in favor of the auto by building roads for drivers but providing minimal public transportation to nondrivers.

If there were a demand where someone could make a profit for public transportation, then there would be public transportation everywhere. But the fact of the matter is, that it is not a constitutional function of government to run bus and train services. What if they charged the true cost to the rider for the rides they do get? Who would pay $40 for a 90 mile trip to San Francisco, when you can drive a car that distance for just a few dollars? To say conservatives should be promoting this idea, shows a misunderstanding of conservatism, I think.

we can take a significant bite out of both sprawl and big government by eliminating sprawl-generating highway spending.

This person is not just anti-car, but maybe anti-human. Highways have contributed to the nations wealth and commerce. The interstate system was one of the reasons America's economy took off like a rocket after WWII. Russia on the other hand has no interstate system. When the USSR dissolved, many Americans went to Russia thinking to make money and help them get their economy going. Those in agriculture soon found that even though Russia has vast tracts of farmland, there will always be shortages in Russia. Why? There are NO ROADS. NO HIGHWAYS. NO WAY to get produce to market in a timely fashion. To deny the American people a transportation infrastructure that allows ANYONE to participate in commerce by giving them a way to get their goods and services where they need to go, is cruel and destructive. No conservative or anyone who advocates free enterprise would ever ever want to shut the highway system, yet that is what is happening in this country because the sustainable developers know it will kill our economy and it won't take too long to do it. With California looking a billions of dollars to fix their criminally neglected roads and bridges, we are sensitive to the anti-human agenda behind the decay of our highway system.

If I were you, I'd re-read these articles carefully. There is an anti-human and anti-freedom agenda behind the "anti-sprawl" movement, and it shows in this article.

We are going to have to agree to disagree. I have known people who much prefer to walk and bicycle who have had to buy a car because life in much of the U.S. simply isn't doable without. When the author speaks of tyranny, he simply means that in general Americans HAVE to have automobiles to function in daily life.

I have lived in a European village and known the pleasure of being able to walk two blocks to reach the countryside, the grocery store, the train station, the bank, coffee shops, and restaurants. Your idea that such places squash individuality is laughable. I probably have never felt so free. In addition, most people had cars and enjoyed driving on the Autobahn. It was just that they didn't have to spend money on gas just to do their daily chores. They could enjoy fresh air and the exercise of walking as they did them instead, if they so CHOSE.

I also stayed in several Eastern European countries soon after the Iron Curtain fell. Believe me, I know the tyranny of the Soviet-style block apartments and being cut off from the farmland. The Smart Growth movement will lead there because it is central planning and has a definite agenda. I am advocating a return to a truly free market with an absence or minimum of zoning, so that those who want walkable cities will have that choice once again.

If sprawling cities and automobiles are so critical to freedom, then L.A. should be the freest, most "American" city. But when I drive by gated community after gated community there, it reminds me of medieval fortresses.

The "vision" of the planners of the 1950s clearly had some serious flaws, and it's time for a change. I don't know why allowing some cities to once again be walkable is so threatening. Government planners need to get out of the way, and let the market work.