Jane Holtz Kay

The automobile is an integral part of the lives of most Americans. In the following viewpoint, Jane Holtz Kay argues that extensive automobile use has led to significant environmental problems such as air pollution, global warming, and the disappearance of open space to suburban sprawl. America’s dependence on the automobile is fostered in part by government policies that subsidize automobile use and fail to account for the automobile’s social and environmental costs. She calls for raising taxes on gasoline, investing in public transportation, and reforming land use policies to discourage the use of cars. Kay is the author of Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back.

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