Cars are inviolably and inextricably linked to freedom; and, with no less conviction, to solvency.  Of course they are:  you can hop in anytime and go anywhere you want when you have a car.  You can take the top down to let the sun on your face and the wind in your hair on your way to the beach or the country; or you can gear up with a sleeping bag and a camper stove and put the back seat down and live in your car.  And, regarding solvency, pick a payment plan; car and gas companies make it that easy.

There is mounting – mountains – of evidence to suggest that the kind of freedom that cars give us has a rather dark underbelly:  the catalyst for unforgiving and isolating and unsustainable environments among other things.  Darker still is the issue of solvency:  our car ways are financed…