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It's cool to be car-free |
Join a Minority: be a Microtrender Sociologists define a minority as a group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out for differential and unequal treatment by the rest of society. Maybe it's a moot point as to whether you can choose minority status - but if you can, not owning a car definitely qualifies: the UK government's Social Trends survey for 2007 shows that the percentage of households with no car fell from 48% in 1971 to 25% in 2004. The car-free Microtrender But maybe you should be thinking Microtrend, not Minority. A book published in 2008 defines Microtrends as, "Small, under the radar forces that can involve as little as 1% of the population, but which are powerfully shaping our society....Small groups, drawn together by shared needs, habits and preferences, are on the rise. They are powerful and they are hard to find."
The groups who comprise Microtrends are“relatively unseen – either because their actual numbers are small or because conventional wisdom hides their potential in the shadows…”
But as the authors remind us,
“Conventional wisdom is usually not wisdom at all.”
Not owning a car may be put you in the Minority. But it definitely counts as a MicroTrend and it definitely counts as wisdom.
Sources: Penn, Mark J & Zalesne, Kinney E, Microtrends: surprising tales of the way we live today (London, Penguin, 2008)
Social Trends, 2007 Edition, see website:
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