So far this semester in my urban planning class at UNM, a topic that impacted me greatly was cars’ impacts on society in the twentieth century. In 1915, roughly one-twentieth (5%) of US citizens had cars. A short 15 years later, just over one out of every five (~20%) of people had cars. By 1980, that jumped up to roughly half of American citizens owning cars on average. With all of these personal vehicles came suburbanization and the rise of the Interstate System. The 19th century was not all smooth though, due to the Great Depression and World Wars One and Two. These rougher times were not all bad, however.

 

The Interstate System came about to allow the transfer of military vehicles and even emergency landings for planes. Citizens benefitted from this system by being able to use such infrastructure to drive anywhere, as they pleased. Cars and these highways in and near bigger cities enabled people to live farther from where they are employed and even move out of the city in which they work to nearby suburbs. Some people even moved to different parts of the country relatively easily for the first time in the latter half of the century. Cars were not alone in enabling this. The introduction of air conditioning made the southwest part of the country livable, by enabling people to cool off inside of buildings. The combination of capable cars and air conditioning did not cause people to decentralize, but it certainly promoted it.

 

I chose the topic of cars’ impacts on society because they are prime examples of how engineering affects our lives. Cars are one example of how engineering can have a major impact on social norms. Today, I appreciate the past work of engineers to have the infrastructure and means to easily travel anywhere. I probably would have been stuck in my hometown, where there nowhere near as many opportunities as any given medium to large-sized city, especially for engineering, if it wasn’t for cars. Cars have enabled me to see most of the western half of the country over the years, and I definitely appreciated air conditioning when visiting Phoenix in July. I have experienced living in bigger cities or in suburbs for brief periods of time while on vacation. They have also enabled me to move for school and get around Albuquerque easily. I am also always a three-and-a-half-hour drive away from home, and I can head there at moment’s notice instead of waiting for a flight or a train. Smartphones, computers, and the internet have dominated the early part of this century. I wonder what inventions will be as impactful as cars and phones in the second half of the 21st century and beyond.

 

Speaking of the future, I would like to reflect on some current technology developments that I think will have, at the very least, a moderate impact on society. The first one of these is electric vehicles (EVs). EVs will probably take over as the main type of car sold eventually. This will be huge because of environmental concerns and they will decrease our dependence on fossil fuels. Now, this can be the case if coal-burning power plants are phased out or cleaned up. By cleaned up, I mean the carbon dioxide emissions not being released into the atmosphere. Maybe companies can find another process that needs carbon dioxide and can use carbon dioxide to fuel said process.

 

If coal-burning power plants are replaced by renewable energy sources, engineers would need to develop a way to store power for when the renewable sources are not producing electricity. This storage is key for both renewable energy sources and EVs, as better batteries (or storage devices) can more efficiently store large amounts of energy and possibly make EVs lighter while storing more energy, greatly increasing the range of EVs. The rise of EVs would definitely affect urban planning because of the need for charging stations and potentially “smart” traffic systems, where cars communicate, and traffic signals can be timed so that efficiency is maximized. Another technology engineers are working on that may have a large impact on the future is 3D printing. I have a 3D printer and in the 3D printing community, I have seen engineers print functional organs. A Popular Mechanics article about the states that 114,000 people are on U.S. transplant waiting lists and describes the state of 3D printed lungs. The article also mentions that 3D printed lungs may be less susceptible to being rejected by the patient’s immune system. The ability to reliably 3D print organs will help heal countless people and immensely impact our lives.