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Bottles explanation for why Los Angeles chose the car over mass transit does not appear to be particularly popular. Norton charges that urban transportation did not evolve in response to consumer preferences. He clearly does not approve of the notion that people could have preferred cars to mass transit or walking. Instead, he posits that consumers were apparently duped into accepting cars because of the public relations campaign by motordom that successfully reconstructed Americans understanding of the street. Norton’s thesis suggests that car buyers did not actually want to buy purchase their cars, but they were simply tricked into getting buying them. Norton completely ignores the idea notion that cars could have appealed to consumers because they did “celebrate [d] individual choice.” Norton’s personal views on cars are potentially blinding him to the unlimited possibilities that the car presented for an early twentieth American<ref>Norton, 333. </ref> Norton’s argument reinforces the notion that academics have traditionally railed against “the social, intellectual and artistic poverty of America’s middle class suburbs” because ultimately it was middle class Americans who created the motor age.

Norton’s philosophical view of cars blind him to the unlimited possibilities that the car presented for an early twentieth American. Norton’s argument reinforces the notion that academics have traditionally railed against “the social, intellectual and artistic poverty of America’s middle-class suburbs” because ultimately it was middle-class Americans who created the motor age.<ref> Robert Bruegmann, <i>Sprawl: A Compact History</i>, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 125.</ref>Fishman, Norton , and Bottles each seek to explain why both Americans and Angelinos turned over the future of their transportation system to the automobile. While Bottles conclusions are ultimately the most convincing, Norton and Fishman do make important valuable contributions. Norton has successfully demonstrated that motorists and pedestrians came into almost immediate conflict, but his argument only suffers when attempts to expand its significance. Fishman makes an extraordinary contribution by explaining why suburbs became the dominant model for urban growth, but his account of the Los Angeles bond vote is overly conceptual. Finally, while Bottles conclusions are the most logical, they do not appear to be watertight. Hopefully, scholars will continue to examine this debate.