While there have been efforts in the past two decades to make cities denser, and better for walking, planners are now taking concepts to the suburbs. Residents of an upscale community in Germany have given up their cars, generating a revolutionary change.

Limiting car usage is "a good opportunity to take away stress and lower air pollution," according to businessman Carlos Arturo Plaza, a resident of Bogota, Columbia. After days of near-record pollution, Paris enforced a partial driving ban to clear the air of the global city. Paris typically has more smog than other European capitals, but thanks to the partial driving ban, congestion was down 60 percent in the capital of France. By reducing the amount of driving we do, we could decrease the amount of greenhouse gases we emit into our atmosphere, ultimately creating a greener, healthier enviornment for all of earths inhabitants.

An improvement in society is also being made due to the ambitious goals to decrase car usage. Parks and sports centers have bloomed throughout cities; uneven, pitted sidewalks have been replaced by broad, smooth sidewalks; rush-hour restrictions have dramatically cut traffic; and new resturants and upscale shopping districts have cropped up. The worlds love affair with vehicles seem to be cooling. When adjusted for population growth, the number of miles driven in the United States peaked in 2005 and dropped steadily thereafter, according to Doug Short of Advisor Perspectives, an investment research company. As of April 2013, the number of miles driven per person was nearly nine percent below the peak and equal to where the countr was in January of 1995. Part of the explanation certainly lies in the recession, because cash-strapped Americans could not afford new cars, and the unemployed weren't going to work anyway. But by many measures, the decrease in driving preceded the downturn and appears to be persisting now that recovery is under way. If the pattern persists it will have beneficial implications for carbon emissions and the enviornment, since transportation is is the second largest source of America's emissions, just behind power plants.

"All of our development since World War Two has been centered on the car, and that will have to change," said David Goldberg, an official of Transportation for America. By decreasing the amount of car usage, we could generate enough change to truly change the world.