Cars create an environment in which the pedestrian seems lost, inefficient, backwards, derelict. In the US, pedestrians on the side of the road seem in need of transportation. Just as a person who sleeps outside is homeless, a person who walks outside is "carless." In most of the rest of the world, where public spaces are older and thus planned without cars in mind, the car and pedestrian environments often have mixed without negating the role of the pedestrian. There, cars still seem to be the intruders, not the rulers. In North America, cars have defined place for over a century, and have almost completely edged out and demoralized pedestrian culture.
The short term reaction to pedestrian anxiety is to join the culture and use a car. The long term solution does not appear on the horizon. Perhaps overpopulation (resulting in density) or exploding gas prices will ameliorate this strange condition.
