car dependency
Needing personal vehicles
Car dependency describes urban and suburban development patterns that make automobile ownership effectively mandatory for daily life.
When jobs, shopping, schools, and services are spread across distances without viable public transit, walking, or cycling options, residents become dependent on cars: Car dependency makes life difficult for teenagers, elderly people, and anyone who can't afford a vehicle.
The term often carries critical connotations in discussions of urban planning, housing costs, and environmental policy.
- suburban sprawlUnplanned outward residential development
- sprawlExtend in disorderly fashion
- suburbOutlying residential district
- parking lotOutdoor vehicle storage area
- parking garageStructure for storing automobiles
highway · commute · traffic · gasoline · gas station · freeway · strip mall · drive-thru · cul-de-sac · zoning · asphalt · congestion · gridlock · road rage · single occupancy · carpool · school drop-off · garage
- outskirtsoutskirts, periphery, outskirt, fringe, environs
- transportation issuestraffic congestion, traffic jams, congestion, gridlock, road safety
- transport policyhighway funding, congestion pricing, fuel taxes, infrastructure funding, highway tolls
- urban planningcity planning, zoning map, master plans, zones, zoning reform
- obesity factorsfast food, junk food, soda, sedentary lifestyle, processed food
car dependencywalkability
Foot-travel suitability rating
transit-oriented development · cycling culture · carlessness · foot traffic
dependency, depend, dependent, dependence, independent, independence, independently, dependable, dependably