"Why don’t the Amish use cars?" asked a tourist brochure from western Pennsylvania. "The Amish believe that cars pull people apart, and that a car distorts its owner’s sense of self-importance in a world where humility is a necessary virtue. Besides, they haven’t adopted a belief that faster is automatically better. The Amish don’t believe that the internal combustion engine is inherently evil. Their primary aversion to cars is their belief that cars pull families apart".


Jane Holtz Kay, an author, journalist and architecture critic for The Nation, has written widely on the built and natural environment. Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America, and How We Can Take It Back. New York: Crown, 1997. p. 31, 32