Now that the world has reached the peak of oil production, the era of cheap oil is coming quickly to an end. It will not be long now before it is all used up.

People all over the world are realising that the private car as a means of transport was a bad idea ("a really dumb idea" as Alex Steffen writes). Linked with the car is the spreading suburbs of modern cities. The end of oil will also bring the end of the suburbs. Megacities, if they survive, will have to become more compact.

Some believe the end of oil will be the end of civilisation and that modern humans are unable to invent a life for themselves without cars and suburbia. We are not well-enough prepared for it. However Alex Steffen believes that we have the ideas and that we will be able to implement them. He believes we will be able to realise a life without cars and that we will not miss the polluted streets they bring, nor the illness they cause, nor the negative effects on life on the planet of carbon outputs.

"I think we'll get it by imagining a future worth fighting for, and cities worth building," writes Steffen

The ideas are there. We know how to make green cities and sustainable transport systems. We do not have to allow the automobile industry and its supporters to bring about the end of history. Human beings lived for millions of years without oil. It is possible to have a "second industrial revolution" and implement smart technologies for a humane future.