Reality Check: Cars Didn't Save Our Cities From Being Buried in Horse Manure

"History loves smooth transitions," writes Brandon Keim in the new Nautilus, in an essay debunking one of the more endearing tales about technological transformation in American cities. According to this simple history lesson, cars saved our cities from horses. Until they came along, city streets were ankle-deep in manure. Thankfully, by eliminating the need for horse-drawn carriages, cars eliminated all that unsanitary waste, too.

In this telling, the motor vehicle was a kind of environment solution for another century's sustainability problem. That's a tidy narrative we've come to think of today, when cars pose their own environmental problems in need of yet more technological innovation.