I totally agree with your statement about cars. but I totally disagree about suburban sprawl as a culprit. Sprawl is a side effect not a cause. It is a side effect of cars and Jumbo corporate culture where you have large cities. The solution is not putting people in shoe box condos and stack them 1000 ft high and call it a city, and force farmers out of the area and force all groceries to be shipped in over 60-100 miles or more. That is more about greed from cities and developers that want to charge more for less. The correct solution would be to get away from large cities and back to a rural setting where the small towns are king with populations ranging between 4-30K. Where food is grown locally, where goods are manufactured localy, were everyone has a yard or small farm to grow their own food if they choose. Where you telecommute or work within 3-5 miles of your home. Suburbs and Sprawl are a symptom of a larger cancer that people refuse to see and that cancer is the CITY. Even if you got rid of the cars the cancer will still remain.

Also people are fat because allot of Americans are spoiled and work to much and exercise to little. You put those people closer to work, they won’t ride a bike if you take their car away they will take mass transit because exercise is now to hard and remain fat. And now because they are closer to work the will stay at work longer. siting in front of the stinking computer not exercising. Your article only really hits on the symptoms of the problem not the problem its self. The problem is Cities and Corporate culture. And we have become to dependant on those cancers like people on crack.