Automobile vs Automobility

Before we can really understand the way automation could improve a city, we need to recognise a distinction between “automobile” (the vehicle) and “automobility” (the system of using these vehicles).

The planner is warned that an improved vehicle from a safety, cost, or environmental perspective is almost certainly, on its own, insufficient to mitigate some of the problematic aspects of automobility — aspects such as congestion, ownership, and urban density.

Indeed, such aspects are more likely to be deepened rather than mitigated since the power of marketing and the nature of human consumption pushes us in prevailing directions.