Description
Book SynopsisSilicon Valley wants us to believe that technology will revolutionize our cities and the ways we move around. Autonomous vehicles will make us safer, greener, and more efficient. On-demand services like Uber and Lyft will eliminate car ownership. Micromobility devices like electric scooters will be at every corner, and drones will deliver goods and services. Meanwhile visionaries like Elon Musk promise to eliminate congestion with tunnels, and Uber help with flying cars. The future of transport is frictionless, sustainable, and according to Paris Marx, a threat to our ideas of what a society should be.
Road to Nowhere exposes the problems with tech's visions of the future and argues that we cannot allow ourselves to be continually distracted by technological fantasies that delay the collective solutions we already know are effective. Technological solutions to social problems and the people who propose them must be challenged if we are to build cities and transportation systems which serve the public good.
In response, Paris Marx offers a vision for a more collective way of organizing transportation systems which considers the needs of poor, marginalized, and vulnerable peoples. The book also argues that rethinking mobility can be the first step in a broader reimagining of how we organize our social, economic, and political systems to serve the many, not the few.
Trade ReviewThe last decade has been a trainwreck for Silicon Valley's dreams of mobility. Paris Marx's invaluable new book explains how and why big tech's utopian transit projects crashed and burned, why these disasters will keep finding funding if they are not opposed, and what the alternative might look like. The path to a better, more equitable future of transit begins with the
Road to Nowhere. -- Brian Merchant, author of
The One DeviceA lively summary of the ways Big Tech has distracted us from the urgent task of making our cities work for everyone. -- Jarrett Walker, author of
Human TransitAn astute and engaging critique of Silicon Valley's visions for transportation, Marx highlights the problems of technology being driven by the needs of capital and crafts a compelling vision of a world where technology is instead used to deliver social good -- Wendy Liu, author of
Abolish Silicon ValleyDraws a compelling picture of the evolution of the Western vision of mobility. -- Konrad Bleyer-Simon * Green European Journal *
I recommend
Road to Nowhere not only for what it says about transport, but for its approach to technologies more generally ... [it] is far ahead of the depressing pile of texts that put a 'left' gloss on techno-optimism -- Simon Pirani * Ecologist *
I know it is heresy, but electric cars are still cars and they won't save us. Marx has written a wonderful book that explains why, and is persuasive about that better, more equitable future we could all have if we looked to Main Street instead of Sand Hill Road. -- Lloyd Alter * Treehugger *
Road to Nowhere is a sharply rendered, compelling, and illuminating text that combines diffuse histories and complex processes into a clear narrative. Marx's work helps us better understand the past and contemplate the kind of futures we might bring about. -- Matthew Seidel * Protean Magazine *
As greenhouse gas emissions ramp up, housing prices reach astronomical heights, and we all stay stuck in traffic, Paris Marx's new book
Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation looks at how the quest for market share got us to this point and why visions of the future from California tech billionaires cannot solve these problems. -- Clement Nocos * Broadbent Institute *
[
Road to Nowhere] traces the historical echo between automakers' takeover of the North American continent and the present monopolistic powers of the tech industry. -- David A. Banks * Real Life Magazine *
You may find yourself driven to drink by the events recounted in this book, but Marx is a designated driver you can count on. -- Rob Larson * Jacobin *
Road to Nowhere stands as an intervention into broad discussions about the future of mobility, particularly those currently taking place on the political left. -- Zachary Loeb * Boundary2 *
The most concise, well-reasoned critique of that corner of the tech industry that most directly affects cities: transportation. -- James Brasuell * Planetizen *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1
1. How the Automobile Disrupted Mobility 9
2. Crafting the Ideology of Tech 36
3. Electric Vehicles and Their Dirty Secret 63
4. Uber's Assault on Cities and Labor 89
5. Self-Driving Cars Did Not Deliver 114
6. Carving New Paths for Cars 140
7. The Coming Fight for the Sidewalk 160
8. The Real Futures That Tech Is Building 180
9. Toward a Better Transport Future 202
Conclusion 228
