Cities will continue to accommodate the automobile, but when cities are built around them, the quality of human and natural life declines. Current trends show great promise for future urban mobility systems that enable freedom and connection, but not dependence. We are experiencing the phenomenon of peak car use in many global cities at the same time that urban rail is thriving, central cities are revitalizing, and suburban sprawl is reversing. Walking and cycling are growing in many cities, along with ubiquitous bike sharing schemes, which have contributed to new investment and vitality in central cities including Melbourne, Seattle, Chicago, and New York.
 
We are thus in a new era that has come much faster than global transportation experts Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy had predicted: the end of automobile dependence. In The End of Automobile Dependence, Newman and Kenworthy look at how we can accelerate a planning approach to designing urban environments that can function reliably and conveniently on alternative modes, with a refined and more civilized automobile playing a very much reduced and manageable role in urban transportation. The authors examine the rise and fall of automobile dependence using updated data on 44 global cities to better understand how to facilitate and guide cities to the most productive and sustainable outcomes.
 
This is the final volume in a trilogy by Newman and Kenworthy on automobile dependence (Cities and Automobile Dependence in 1989 and Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence in 1999). Like all good trilogies this one shows the rise of an empire, in this case that of the automobile, the peak of its power, and the decline of that empire.

Peter Newman is a Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University and Director of the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute (CUSP) in Perth, Western Australia.  Newman has served on the Board of Infrastructure Australia and as a Lead Author for Transport on the IPCC's 5th Assessment Report. He is the author of numerous books, including Resilient Cities, Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems, and Sustainability and Cities.

Jeffrey Kenworthy is a professor at Curtin University and a guest professor at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. He teaches and supervises postgraduate students in urban sustainability fields. He has authored numerous books and publications, including Sustainability and Cities with Peter Newman

"Logical, accessible, and at times devastatingly persuasive…[it] is a tightly packed yet readable marvel of comprehensiveness, clear interpretation of evidence, and accessible communication….The End of Automobile Dependence is a treatise rather than a primer, unlikely to be read by most of the people who need most to read it: a group roughly describable as 'everyone in a developed or developing country who'll be making transportation decisions over the coming century.' For urban planners, transportation specialists, public officials, architects operating on master-plan scales, and students of the built environment at any level of expertise, however, it's invaluable reading."

"This is another fabulous offering from Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, describing the move away from auto dependence in many contemporary cities. ... It is advised as required reading for all transport planning students and practitioners."

"A profoundly important and optimistic book on planning our cities. Newman and Kenworthy complete their trilogy on automobile dependence by demonstrating that global trends are turning towards a more sustainable future for many metropolitan regions."

"In these pages, Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy provide a definitive post-mortem for the era of car-dependence and a vision for safer, more sustainable and welcoming streets. From reinvigorated transit networks to smarter suburban development strategies to the downtown renaissance playing out in cities worldwide, Newman and Kenworthy have sketched a roadmap to an urban future powered not by internal combustion, but human ingenuity."

"The books of Newman and Kenworthy have opened doors for new thinking, new concepts and a new comprehensive theory. This book is a good basis for a paradigm shift and new orientation towards walking and transit urban fabrics."

"There is no comparable book." 

"The End of Automobile Dependence is an optimistic book...What the authors present is a world in which cars are not necessary for every trip, but clearly still have important uses. Ultimately, we are moving in the right direction, as cities that wish to thrive cannot ignore the physical, ecological and economic limits to automobile addiction."

"The closing volume of Newman and Kenworthy's epic transportation trilogy outlines multiple paths to a post-automobile addiction world. It demonstrates how reducing automobile dependence can help us make rapid progress towards more sustainable, economically secure and healthy cities and accelerate decarbonisation to reduce climate change risk."

"Newman and Kenworthy offer a framework for a true democracy of transportation choice. This realistically optimistic book augurs the emergence of cities that will truly optimize their transportation systems—economically, for resource efficiency, and for quality of life."

"Newman and Kenworthy have a track record second to none in homing in on the key issues in sustainable transport and pointing to the irrefutable conceptual and intellectual logic of 'doing the right thing.' They have now done it again and in a crisp, very clear analysis they demonstrate how the car is already loosening its grip on the mind-set of politicians and planners and we are now able to see the shape of the next phase."

"This is a book I would like to walk into a city council meeting and thump on the table before the council and say 'Read it.'"

"Chapters disentangle the economic, political, and cultural roots of [the end of automobile dependence]; analyze how transportation planning can change… and take a long view of 'what automobile-dependent cities might be like in a future free of carbon emissions.'"

"The key appeal of Newman and Kenworthy's work is that they have a positive message for the future of cities—that through innovation in funding and technology, and careful integration of land use development and transport, a multi-modal mobility system can be created that supports the social, economic and environmental sustainability of cities."