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One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility (Sporting) ReviewThis is an outstanding treatment of bicycles and their relationship to larger quality of life issues in the USA. The key idea s that of "automobility." The book is a powerful and tractable exposition, the only treatment of I know of that is not undertheorized with respect to its subject matter! (And I've read them all...)
His treatment is sociological and normative, not just descriptive and historical (assuming the latter is possible.) Apparently, this is confusing to folks. Building a solid case on a sandy foundation is always going to upset those, who, regardless of disciplinary pedigree, are only satisfied with unassailable assessments...but such is life.
Furness focuses on the *relationships* between bicycles, transportation, the built environment and the larger consumer culture (with its dominant "rugged individualist" psychology and economic "market ideology). He examines the role of the bicycle, both the role it has played and could play, in enhancing (or detracting from) the quality of life emergent among those relationships. In so doing, Furness critically helps point the way forward for bicycle advocacy, from an historically informed perspective on "automobility."
Contrary to the other reviewers, this book is not the least bit ideological. The claims of bias seem confused, even if predictable. Furness does demand critical inquiry, where third-party evidence is what matters, not the parroting of the received wisdom from various "stakeholders" in and around bicycle and transportation circles; and he assumes that ecological concerns should be primary in *any* historical or normative account of *any* technology in 2011; and he assumes that any "black box" discussion of the bicycle - as if the bicycle is ipso facto, an unimpeachable, cosmic good - is a malignant form of ideology all its own. (Which is sure to anger orthodox bicycle advocacy organizations.) These are certainly his assumed departure points. But they are methodological. Such assumptions don't undermine his thesis and discussion about the *politics of automobility* - they ground it. Every critique assumes a departure point. At least Furness' is evidentially, normatively and historically grounded. I would challenge anyone to indicate otherwise...
Furness's book will likely anger traditional bicycle advocates, especially those inclined to classically liberal political perspectives: again, his is not a reductionist treatment that isolates the bicycle in a "black box" as an unequivocal good.
Those who are interested in the decline of the quality of life in the USA; social and mechanical technology; distributed theories of learning and cognition; embodied aesthetics; transportation; the built environment; and social movements, will be fascinated and rewarded by this book. It is excellent precisely because it does not offer definitive answers, much less decontextual, ahistorical ones. It is useful and excellent precisely because so much of it is arguable!One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility (Sporting) Overview
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