Mass communication systems and the automobile reduced the necessity of urban walking

Evidence

The mass-produced automobile is usually assigned the major responsibility, but it is surely being aided and abetted by the areal expansion of the city (making possible wider, straighter streets, and itself engendered by the railroad and trolley), the telegraph, the telephone, and the establishment of relatively reliable government postal systems. As an aside, it might be mentioned that one of the more fascinating characteristics of the automobile is its ability to surround its occupants in a cocoon of privacy as they move through the public space of the city. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 395

Categorization

• XREF: The automobile’s cocoon of privacy is a physicalized civil inattention — directly extends Lofland’s own framework and the reader’s cross-reading of Cole’s detached observer. — connects to: Mass leisure and the Model T created a mass demand for countryside access — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 633; Communications shutdowns backfire in dense cities where informal street networks replace telecom — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 226