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Shifting Gears
A THESIS ON AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES AND THEIR FUTURE IN THE PUBLIC REALM
by Jason Montejo
In an era where the capitalist mindset dominates, finding moments of spontaneity has become an increasingly rare joy. Lives have become scheduled, systematic, predictable, and automatic. Lacking disorder and curiosity, we fall into a life of robotic movements.
A century ago, city planning changed to accommodate the rise of the automobile. In Europe, following the Industrial Revolution, problems arose with residential zones being too close to smog-heavy factories. The automobile helped to spread city needs further apart, addressing the proximity problem. While cars seemingly solved one issue, they caused new problems to emerge. Streets, once social hubs that fostered spontaneous interactions, were transformed into systems governed by rigid rules. As vehicles became more central to city life, social and cultural activities began to revolve around this new mode of transport. Cities started to zone certain areas away from each other, leading to a dramatic decline in walkability. This new urban framework led to an over-reliance on vehicle-driven city planning.
1900
Mulberry St. New York
2025
Mulberry St. New York
Streets and public arenas becoming so rigid has led to a lack of spatial agency in the public realm, social fragmentation, and overly homogeneous living. In The Right to the City, Henri Lefebvre critiques urbanization for its lack of common spaces, which limits the potential for constructing a community. This rigidity is enforced through signage, restrictive rules, and the separation of urban programs. Lefebvre stresses that inhabitants have a collective right to decision-making over their urban environment and should actively assert that right. In addition, Byung-Chul Han, in The Disappearance of Rituals, highlights the importance of communal rituals in reconnecting individuals to each other and their surroundings. This commodity was overlooked before the automobile, as interactions once occurred seamlessly. Today, the lifestyle dominated by cars as the primary mode of transport has led to a decline in meaningful interactions with others. Continuing to prioritize this form of mobility will further perpetuate America’s obsession with efficiency and individualism. Richard Sennett, in Designing Disorder, contributes to this conversation by introducing the necessity of disorder within urban systems. The current order, which displaces human mobility and interaction, is fostering isolation and alienation in society. By embedding order and control into a city, we enhance homogeneity, diminishing curiosity, spontaneity, and heterogeneous activities. A new approach to creative design is crucial for fostering vibrant urban spaces.
The rigid capitalist mindset, which places human-driven vehicles at the forefront of city design, generates fear over losing spaces that enable spontaneous interactions. However, there is hope. The car industry is evolving, with autonomous vehicles now on the streets and proving successful. In a near future where vehicles are self-driven, congestion will decrease, accidents will cease, and the interweaving of human and autonomous vehicle mobility will occur. New strategies for designing spaces that afford heterogeneous uses, creative agency in navigating public realms, and rejecting the capitalist norm are some of the solutions this thesis proposes to redesign today’s rigid urban environments.
Henri Lefebvre, The Right to the City (1968).
Byung-Chul Han, The Disappearance of Rituals (2019)
Richard Sennett, Designing Disorder: Experiments and Disruptions in the City (2019)
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