ABSTRACT
The towns have grown in number of inhabitants and even more in number of households; a low density standard has come to be adopted; building is carried out on "mass-erection" lines, requiring extensive building sites. The easiest way to secure large sites is to get away from the town centre. Such a housing policy would have been impossible without the spectacular growth of mechanical transport. The functioning of modern conurbations, with dormitories and workplaces divorced, is absolutely dependent upon an elaborate system of transport services. Apart from facilitating economic change, the journey to work fulfils important functions also in a stationary society: daily travelling widens the labour market, making easy the choice of employment to the employee and the choice of employees to the employer; this increases the independence, in both private and working life, of the wage-earner; firms too are rendered less dependent on local labour in recruiting their workpeople.
