Car Country by Wells Christopher W.;Cronon William;Cronon William;

Author:Wells, Christopher W.;Cronon, William;Cronon, William;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Washington Press

CONCLUSION

The spread of Car Country changed American ecosystems—and American relationships with those ecosystems—in significant ways. Some changes, such as new roads and growing traffic in formerly inaccessible places, and the billowing smoke and polluted rivers near manufacturing facilities, are easy to identify. Others, like gravel pits, the changing distribution of plants and animals along roadsides, and logging operations in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, bear less obvious connections to the forces that called them into being and require some specialized knowledge to see the connections clearly. Still others, such as the various car-friendly, nonurban places that have been consciously designed and carefully crafted to celebrate close contact with nature, have a more ambiguous legacy. On one hand, they have subjected more and more places to car-based development, simplifying ecosystems and subjecting them to new pressures; on the other, they have introduced legions of Americans to a particularly attractive version of “nature,” often fostering feelings of closeness, awe, and even the desire to engage, especially through outdoor recreation, or to protect, especially through conservation measures and protective legislation. Yet these aspects also implicitly cultivate the illusion that, by climbing into a car and driving out “into nature,” individuals can escape, at least temporarily, the environmental consequences of modern urban-industrial society, and even of Car Country itself.

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