Cars do not kill cities - urban planning without enough foresight into how cars actually interact with one another, and with cities kill cities.
A large portion of current urban plans date to Robert Moses - he essentially built New York, invented the ring of highways system used in DC and other places, and advised places like LA in constructing their major arteries. Moses was in love with cars, but never experienced traffic as his limo was chauffered with a police escort. He built highways and made them inaccessible to public transportation (see the West Side Highway) so that poor people could not use them. He had no real understanding of capacity utilization/maximization for transport and stopped learning long before he stopped designing. He never updated his understanding of the damages caused by simply adding more highways, but retained the power to keep building them.
The most pernicious impact of Moses's style of urban planning is not, however, gridlock or a lack of walkability. Moses decided that he could put roads wherever he wanted, and used eminent domain to put them right through vibrant communities - which he destroyed. He killed the bronx, parts of Queens, Brooklyn, and almost ran a huge raised highway across 34th street.
In any case, The Power Broker is an amazing book to read if you're curious about these issues and why cities are designed the way they are now.
A large portion of current urban plans date to Robert Moses - he essentially built New York, invented the ring of highways system used in DC and other places, and advised places like LA in constructing their major arteries. Moses was in love with cars, but never experienced traffic as his limo was chauffered with a police escort. He built highways and made them inaccessible to public transportation (see the West Side Highway) so that poor people could not use them. He had no real understanding of capacity utilization/maximization for transport and stopped learning long before he stopped designing. He never updated his understanding of the damages caused by simply adding more highways, but retained the power to keep building them.
The most pernicious impact of Moses's style of urban planning is not, however, gridlock or a lack of walkability. Moses decided that he could put roads wherever he wanted, and used eminent domain to put them right through vibrant communities - which he destroyed. He killed the bronx, parts of Queens, Brooklyn, and almost ran a huge raised highway across 34th street.
In any case, The Power Broker is an amazing book to read if you're curious about these issues and why cities are designed the way they are now.