FORA.tv Speaker - Peter Newman

Environmental scientist, activist and educator, Peter Newman is perhaps best known internationally for coining the term "automobile dependence" in the second half of the eighties to explain how the kind of cities we are building based on sprawling suburbs was inevitably leading to the growth in automobile use. Led to an international research survey with colleague Jeff Kenworthy of transport practices and structures (original data collected on 33 global cities). This global research effort took the form of a book, Cities and Automobile Dependence: An International Sourcebook, which introduced the concept of car dependence - now a feature of planning literature and policy. The two researchers later collaborated on a book Cities and Automobile Dependence which was launched in the White House in 1999, as the President's Council on Sustainable Development was moving toward a more urban focus. Newman has also served as a local government councilor, and continues to be personally engaged as a sustainability and transport activist.