Every month, Jakarta holds a Car Free Day. A growing number of Americans are following suit. (Photo... [+]
Ever since the end of World War II, Americans shared a similar aspiration: to own an automobile. But shifts in demographics and lifestyles mean that for the first time in 50 years, the number of families without a car has gone up.
The development comes from a study called Commuting in America 2013: The National Report on Commuting Trends and Patterns, by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. It's an interesting read on all the changes that are taking place in attitudes toward automobiles.
Pete Bigelow, associate editor at
But in 2011, the latest year for which information is available, the number of car free families stood at 9.3 percent, or roughly one of every 10 families.
To be sure, car free families are a distinct minority. The study shows that 34.1 percent of the nation's households own one car, 37.5 percent own two vehicles, and 19.1 percent are three-or-more-vehicle households.
However, a reversal in the decades-long drop in car free households is one more bit of evidence that people are rethinking the way they get around, which is the focus of my journalism project, Curbing Cars.
The finding that car free families are on the increase coincides with an overall drop in driving for much of the past decade. While some of that is due to the high cost of owning and maintaining a car, there are a variety of other factors at play.
As the study reports, "Changes in alternatives to travel, such as communication substituting for travel and renewed interest in and availability of options such as transit, bike and walk, helped dampen interest in expanding auto ownership," they wrote.
The study goes through an entire list of reasons for the rise in car free living. (Take a look at our gallery below.) But here are a few of the most important.
Lack of a driver's license. The lack of interest by young drivers in getting licenses is well documented. But the study points out a couple of other groups of people who are not driving. They include African-Americans and Hispanics, especially those who are over age 55. Overall, the greatest number of people with licenses are between ages 30 and 55, according to the study.
Access to other transportation. The growing availability of bus lines, subways, streetcars and other transit modes makes it easy for people to give up their cars (or in the case of young consumers, to put off acquiring them). Also, there's been an increase in the number of people who commute by bicycle, while bike sharing programs are rapidly expanding across the United States.
Cars aren't available. A fascinating part of the study discusses the fact that as population density increases, cars become less available -- a logical outcome of living in urban areas. About 30 percent of people who live in areas with 10,000 residents or more per square mile say they do not have access to cars. Likewise, pretty much everyone who lives in an area with fewer than 2,000 residents per square mile can get hold of a vehicle.
It's easy to walk places. Walkable communities are in hot demand, and if you are able to walk to places, you can live without a car. But that's less likely outside major cities and well-designed towns, according to this story from The Atlantic Cities. About 40 percent of Americans say they aren't able to access anything by walking.
Of course, the idea of living car free just isn't practical for most Americans. Nine out of 10 households own automobiles, and more than 80 percent of commutes still take place by car. But that one out of 10 families is making do without wheels.
