Do you think you could live without your car, even just for a day? Well, in Vauban, a German suburb near the French and Swiss borders, they dont just live without them, they thrive. Vauban is the result of a test that proves planning a city in a way that compacts it improves life for everybody, from reducing the stress of drivers who fear collisions, to downright making cars undesireable. Heidrun Walter, mother of two says "When I had a car I was always tense. I'm much happier this way." After it's completion in 2005 Vauban began it's happy path to showing the world that cars are not a neccessary or even good thing. Automobiles are the main source of emission from familys that live in suburbs, this is because they don't have many options of transportation, and that is said to be a great impediment on efforts to greatly reduce greenhouse emissions.

In the U.S. it seems as though the car culture is coming to a close, as the number of miles driven hit it's peak in 2005 and dropped 9 percent per person by april 2013, equal to where the country was in 1995. According to Professor Michael Sivak at the University of Michigan's TR institute, car ownership per household per person started to come down two to three years before the downturn. If the pattern follows throughout the coming years, and many believe it will, the impact on carbon emission reduction would be outstanding. But how would this affect the car industries? Well, as stated by Ford and others, they've already started rebranding themselves as mobility companies, and no longer focus entirely on personal vehicle production, so you need not worry about their futures.

And with the decrease in personal vehicle sales comes a decrease in the next generations interest in personal transportation, as a large drop is taking place in the amount of registered drivers, between the ages of 16-39. Mr. Sivak (mentioned earlier) says his two children have yet to get their licenses, even though they live in places where one could benefit them. This shows promise for the future and how we handle the health of our world and plan our futures better, as less and less people pollute it. But many say this trend coud just be a small thing. Perhaps only time will tell if the culture of cars will end.