A car is a powerful metaphor for the city. This tool can help understand and analyse the meaning of a city – its various purposes, components and behaviours that have been evident throughout the history of human settlements. This website’s name is derived from this metaphor: thinking of a city as a car is a rich but intuitive notion. Here are a few examples:
- Cars, like cities, require inputs to work, produce an output, and also emit waste from the exhaust. Where cars need petrol, our cities need people, capital, machinery, land and ideas. Where cars drive us, our friends and our shopping around, cities give us economic opportunities, social opportunities, security, companionship and happiness in return. Where cars produce carbon dioxide and other fumes, cities eject tons of effluent, industrial waste, garbage and pollution every day.
- You might not realise it, but the engine in your car is at the intersection of efforts from individuals, businesses and the government. To ensure proper function, you have the personal obligation to take care of your car’s engine. The manufacturer too has responsibilities for warranties and servicing. And of course, the motor authority regulates many aspects of an engine’s safety features, emissions and durability even before the car is built. In much the same way, a city is a confluence of the same agents of people looking after their own interests, businesses providing goods and services and the government seeking broader harmony.
- What do you use your car for? Shopping, socialising, going to work, the gym, and many even for work. A car’s engine develops power used for a multitude of purposes, and it is important in cities to engage its engine (people) for all manner of activities. This is a natural characteristic of a city that should always be encouraged. Not only do we have multi-functionality within a car, but we also have a huge diversity in car types. There are various types of cars since there are a variety of purposes that customers need them for: from small hatchbacks to sports cars, off-road 4x4s to luxury saloons, delivery vans to utilities and so on. So too do cities vary in size, shape and style based on their design and purpose. But if the car industry teaches us nothing else, it’s that the most popular cars are the ones that can do a bit of everything.
- Suffice to say that having the best engine in the world wouldn’t matter much if your car looked like a rusty skip. Looks and fashionability rank highly in people’s choice of a car and it is simple to see that urbanites value the same in their cities and suburbs. But there is always a balance between beauty and utility, and a city that is picturesque without an economy seldom prospers while an economic giant without a soul doesn’t attract many people either.
- Cars come in all shapes and sizes. The old ones are uncomfortable but charming, built of cannabalised parts and outdated methodologies. The new ones are sleek, purpose-built but will take some years before their character begins to develop. The same can be said for cities.
- Cars and cities have no will to exist on their own. They exist, are given meaning and are judged according to the individuals who step into them every day and decide what to do with them – whether it is something as utilitarian as going to work or as whimsical as driving down a road you’ve never seen before.
UNHabitat (a department of the UN focused on sustainable urban development) stated that city living is the best solution for dealing with the rising population since they concentrate human activity in a smaller area. If cities are properly managed and well-maintained, they become an efficient and economic settlement format for our species. Better yet, this concentration of people reduces our impact on the environment. Of course, the world’s population needs little convincing of this fact as the trend of urbanisation has skyrocketed over the last century. By 2050, 64% of the developing world and 86% of the developed world will be urbanised. These are vast numbers. Yet with the myriad of economic, social and environmental issues facing our cities today, not enough is being done to prepare ourselves. Businesses, governments and individuals all have a responsibility to our homes to work together, plan, implement, and above all think.