In the Midwest, we love our cars: fast cars, big cars, small cars, loud cars, quiet cars, different cars for different occasions like shoes. Car culture, in other words, is often indistinguishable from Midwest culture, and has been for so long that it feels natural. But what if it's not?

On today's show, Daniel Knowles makes the case that cars are ruining the world while making us unhappy and unhealthy—the subject of his new book, Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It. Talking with Tom Knoblauch, Knowles outlines the rise of cars around the world, their economic and health impacts, how this warps the design of cities, and what it might look like to envision a future reliant on public transportation.