The dominance of motorised transport The 20th century is the 'motor age'. Driving is part of normal life for a majority of people as drivers or passengers. Transport planning and urban transport policy have tended to focus on vehicles rather than other modes such as cycling and walking. The planning and construction timescales are longer and the costs are greater for road-building than pedestrian schemes. This may be one factor biasing planning and policies more towards vehicles.
People move to and fro all the time.
But in all British cities the long term net effect of such moves has been for households, as their incomes rise, to move from dense, inner city terraced streets to greener and more spacious suburbs and then to country towns and villages. Such moves take them from places where essential services are easily accessible to places where longer distances need to be travelled and car ownership is needed. Once a car has been purchased, it will tend to be used to replace some trips formerly made on foot as well as by public transport and to make some completely new trips. The resulting car dependency becomes a self-reinforcing process as people adjust their behaviour to take advantage of the benefits of car ownership. It may also be that people drive rather than walk because of the convenience, shelter and security offered by cars, because they themselves are lazy, or because they see walking as being low status.