Cars in Cities: Challenges and Alternatives AP

Learn how cars impact the character of life in cities, and learn strategies cities have used to foster alternative modes of transportation.

What you'll learn:

Everyone who values cities is disturbed by automobiles,” wrote Jane Jacobs, a famous urban thinker. Parking lots go hand-in-hand with automobiles, and bring their own host of issues, including cost, increased distances between activities, and disturbed landscapes." In this course you’ll learn how cities in the United States and around the world differ in terms of their dependence on cars for transportation, as well as learning how cities have fostered transit, walking and biking as alternatives to the single occupant vehicle.

Note: This course is not hosted on the Starbucks Global Academy platform. After enrolling, the course content will direct you on how to complete registration for this content.

Meet Your Instructors

Deborah Salon

Assistant Professor, ASU School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning

Dr. Salon holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Davis, and is currently an Assistant Professor at Arizona State University. Before joining ASU, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Columbia University's Earth Institute and subsequently held a research appointment at UC Davis's Institute of Transportation Studies. Professor Salon studies transportation in cities with the goal of contributing to our collective understanding of how these systems work, and how policies and smart investments might improve them.

David King

Assistant Professor, ASU School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning

Dr. King has been an Assistant Professor at Arizona State University since 2016. He researches the codependence of transportation and land use planning along with transportation finance and economics. Of particular interest are transportation policies such as parking management, taxi services and microtransit. His current research focuses on taxi and jitney services, informal transit, street design, and how new technologies affect transportation finance and local policy. Professor King is a member of the Transportation Research Board’s Paratransit Committee and frequently consults with private firms and public organizations about challenges and opportunities in passenger travel, especially with regard to demographic and technological change.