"When the motorcar was new, it exercised the typical mechanical pressure of explosion and separation of function. It broke up family life, or so it seemed, in the 1920s. It separated work and domicile, as never before. It exploded each city into a dozen suburbs, and then extended many of the forms of urban life along the highways until the open road seemed to become non-stop cities. It created asphalt jungles, and caused 40,000 square miles of green and pleasant land to be cemented over." Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964