This is a man's world.
- James Brown, "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World"
I have seen enough of America to disagree with the Godfather of Soul. Our great nation is a Car's World. No physical object, with the possible exception of the television, symbolizes American culture quite like the personal, gasoline-guzzling, combustible engine vehicle.
Whether it's a desert-blanketing used car lot near Phoenix, the Pepsi 400 NASCAR race in Daytona, a Hummer rally in Pennsylvania, a traffic jam in Manhattan, a Wal-Mart parking lot in Kansas, or all the easy motoring in small towns in between, the manifestations of this symbol saturate nearly every corner of our built environment.
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