Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
A Simple Idea to Transform the Life of Our Cities
I am perplexed by the almost complete lack of pedestrian districts in North America. Why is it that car-free streets—designed for pleasurable strolling, shopping and hanging out—which have become as common as stoplights or McDonalds in European city centers, are almost non-existent here? 
It's not Europe, it's Calgary, Alberta, where folks enjoy a sunny day on the Stephen Avenue pedestrian district. (Credit: Marco Derksen under a Creative Commons license from Flickr.com)
I’ve only seen a few—a couple of blocks in downtown Boston, Rue Prince Arthur in Montreal, Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and short stretches of downtown streets in college towns like Boulder, Ithaca, Iowa City, Charlottesville and Burlington, Vermont. (A glance at Wikipedia turns up a few more, although I notice many on the list, like the Nicollet Mall here in Minneapolis, are not truly car-free.)
Look what we’re missing. The heart of many, if not most, German, Italian, Dutch, Scandinavian and, increasingly, South American big cities are bustling pedestrian zones that have become favorite spots for young people to gather, lovers to linger, kids to romp, women to show off their new clothes (and discreetly admire the looks of passers-by), men to admire the looks of passers-by (and discreetly show-off their new clothes) and everybody to feel part of the wider community.
Our one widespread experiment in reclaiming the streets—the downtown transit malls of the ‘60s and ‘70s—failed in most cases. That’s because they were usually desperate measures to cure sickly downtown shopping districts overwhelmed by competition from shopping malls proliferating across the suburban landscape.
Another factor in transit malls’ rapid rise and fall is that they were not actually pedestrian places—big buses rumbling up and down the avenue quashed the carefree, car-free ambience that fosters exuberant streetlife.
Finally last week, I discovered a genuine Euro-style ped street in the most unlikely spot: Calgary, Alberta—a sprawling city whose economy depends on the petroleum industry. Right in the center of its downtown, among all the glass-sided skyscrapers and traffic-choked five-lane avenues, you can happily wander five blocks down the middle of Stephen Avenue, passing sidewalk cafes and swank shops, playful public art and bustling public spaces, unencumbered by cars or trucks. It felt too good to be true.
And it was. I returned to Stephen Avenue for a twilight stroll when blue still brightens the June sky till after ten, and discovered cars cruising its narrow lanes. At 6 p.m., like Cinderella’s pumpkin coach in reverse, it turns back into a traffic artery--which makes no sense because the volume of cars and trucks downtown is easing up at that hour.
Why surrender this delightful pedestrian oasis to traffic when there’s no pressing need? I can only guess it’s the principle of the thing. In North America, the rightful role of roads is to carry traffic, so even if you want to pedestrianize a few blocks during the day for shoppers and the noontime lunch crowd, you are obliged to welcome back the Toyotas and Lincolns in the evening.
Still, Stephen Avenue proves: If you keep out the cars, the pedestrians will come.
The notion that cars are the Kings of the Road is a relatively new attitude. For almost all of human history, the city street functioned as a vital public space—it’s where youngsters played, teens flirted, dogs slept and everyone else chatted with their friends. That all changed between the 1920s and the 1970s, depending where you live, as motorists claimed these commons for their exclusive use. We are poorer today because of this—literally in some cases because to experience the instinctual joy of hanging out in the streets you must travel to some faraway spot.
Still, I am noticing a few signs this auto-cracy may be weakening, even in North Americia. The growth of traffic calming measures and bike lanes means that motorists are learning how to share the road.
And many of us are getting a foot back in the street thanks to modest pedestrian projects being created--a block here or a half-block there in spots like Rocheter, Minnesota; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
Don’t underestimate what can arise from these small beginnings. Even a short stretch of car-free pavement empowers peds to realize the road belongs to them too. Jan Gehl , the influential Danish urban designer who applies lessons learned in creating Copenhagen’s famous pedestrian district to cities around the globe, counsels people to start small and add to it bit by bit through the years.
Another hopeful trend is the emergence of ciclovias—when a road is closed to traffic for a few hours so people can take over the streets for merriment. This bright idea was pioneered in Colombia, where networks of city streets are closed most Sunday mornings, with as many as a million people flooding the streets in Bogota on a sunny day. The tradition is now migrating north, with El Paso, Texas; Las Cruces, New Mexico; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Ottawa, Ontario among the cities holding regular events. Minneapolis holds its first today.
40 Comments so far
Show AllHow about State Street in Madison, and Last Chance Gulch in Helena (MT)? Wonderful streets for ambling!
Good article. Back in the eighties I had the pleasure of living in a small New England town with walkable streets and old Victorian houses. But this was and old town built before the age of the automobile and the streets were narrow and originally built for walking.
A major stumbling block to accomplishing this in many more places is that we've built many towns and cities without urban cores. Here on the west coast sprawl is the way things are and without actual town centers its hard to do this.
The small city were I live now tried this in our old downtown area. An area spanning several city blocks. It was abandoned after only a few months because the businesses lining downtown saw a dramatic decrease in business. The primary reason being that the businesses that remained after the local mall went in weren't conducive to pedestrian traffic. Hard to walk a couple of blocks with an appliance.
We've lost sight of what livable cities should be for sure. But then I think we've lost sight of what's important in life. Family, community, human interaction, and just plain leisure time.
The notion that cars are the Kings of the Road is a relatively new attitude. For almost all of human history, the city street functioned as a vital public space—it’s where youngsters played, teens flirted, dogs slept and everyone else chatted with their friends. That all changed between the 1920s and the 1970s,
------------------------------------------
Someone who's unclear on the concept. I wonder how he thinks all the carts, wagons, carriages, palanquins, and similar traveled. They were the cars and trucks of the pre-petroleum age, and pedestrians constantly had to worry about them. Having an iron-strapped wooden wheel mash your foot into cobblestones was high on everyone's Don't list.
It's fun to ride a tram in one of the mediaeval districts in Germany, where the streets are so narrow that it's a constant wonder how the trolley manages not to knock down the signs hanging over the shops. Probably it was less fun for the folk dodging the wagons, carts, and horses 800 years ago.
I think there is flaw or an unexamined area of your argument. I live in the same rural community I grew up in and played ball in the street. Kids could but don't do that anymore. It's not because of increased traffic because there isn't any increased traffic. Why then aren't the kids outside playing? Perhaps because our lives are constantly based on increasing productivity and with mom and dad working two jobs and unorganized play considered less than legimate our kids are actually sitting at their computers networking with their friends and future contacts through social media while mom and dad work that second job, or they are shuffled off to airconditioned gyms to take part in organized structured play which will look good when they apply to the colleges or jobs of their choice.
Good points!
It seems this "children not playing" _is_ a major problem. I especially notice it in suburban areas - anthough the suburban area I grew up in (Fairfax, VA) certainly always has kids in the streets - we would even go sledding in the streets in winter.
So, when I moved into the old, ethnic (Italian), bottom edge-of-middle-class urban narrow-street townhouse neighborhood of Bloomfield (Pittsburgh), I was plesantly suprised to see kids in the streets - indeed kids playing, not traffic, was the most prevalent noise-problem on my street - the mixed ethnic/race gangs of kids often looked like a scene from the 1930's "Little Rascasls" movies. What seemed to drive most of it was that parents in the city simply did not suffer from the 6 o'clock news-induced paranoia that suburban parents seem to be afflicted with - even though there were rough neighborhoods nearby. We knew by living there that the hazards of the "inner city" are greatly exaggerated by the media. Nobody I knew was ever a victim of a crime, although a neighbor was killed on the sidewalk while walking her dog by a drunk driver from outside the city. A lot of the 'Burgh is "quaint" like that. but, such quaintness is on the decline, even there.
I grew up in different Chicago suburbs, and we all played in the streets, yards, and driveways as well. My children grew up in Florida in the 90s and they also played in the streets and driveways. I think it is not so much the 6 o'clock induced paranoia, as it is the advent of A/C, children targeted TV, video games, and the Internet. My street still has children playing in it, but these days there are not as many children around.
I agree AC is a big culprit. AC is highly addictive. In a recent 90F hot and humid spell, I found that streets were deserted of even much car traffic. People have come to treat ordinary above-average hot summer days as the equivalent of a bitter cold winter cold wave, and close themselves up indoors.
Good article with some good ideas.
But, completely car-free pedestrian areas simply are not practical except limited areas. However, 90% of the same desired walkability, livability and vibrance can be achieved more broadly by assuring the viability of neighborhood-level commercial districts - by having well-maintanied sidewalks, frequent street-level public transit (not subways) restricted parking (or simply maintaining the density and narrow streets to make driving less convienient than transit and walking), and most importantly, numerous, diverse, sidewalk-level stores that everyone uses (not just "boutiques"), cafe's, deli's and established mom-and-pop taverns and restaurants (not just expensive ones). In other words, simply preserving the way city neighborhoods used to be. This is the formula that allows the city of Pittsburgh which, except for the small Market Square, and a bridge during Pirates and Steelers games, has no pedestrian-only streets, yet has always earned top marks as a "livable city" over the past decade.
Another example is Bellingham, WA which I visited as a pedestrian last year. I found numerous safe and attractive walking trails cutting through the outlying residential areas to the commercial center; and on every street corner downtown was a traffic signal which seemed set up to give pedestrians priority, because I never pushed a button yet never had to wait more than 5 seconds for the Walk light. I didn't notice any drivers cursing me or gunning their motors in disdain either. It was so pleasant!
On a work assignment, I found myself in Olympia, Washington one nice springtime afternoon and evening. I found the downtown fairly walkable, but it was hurt by still too much space of each block dedicated to parking. A bigger city with a worse problem was downtown Salt Lake City everything way too spread out for pleasant walking - although at least thay had a remarkably good and frequent public transit. The key to walkability and livability is high density while at the same time keeping buuilding heights to no more than 3 to 5 stores. Of ccourse, everyone's favorite walking and transit oriented western US city is Portland Oregon, although my visits to Portland so far have been short and I haven't had the opportunity to explore it as much as I would have liked.
"hurt" by too much parking even though it is a pedestrian friendly place? In your ideal world what place then would cars have if any? Do you have any type of background in policy or planning?
I said "fairly" walkable - compared to a typical sidewalkless suburban strip, or the vast lifeless asphalt wasteland around a shopping mall.
Cars would have a place in rural areas and small towns, but that is about it.
You need to get out of you mind that cars represent some kind of progress, and crating urban spaces where cars aren't needed at all is some kind of regression. The car is rapidly becoming an anachronism that is totally incomparable with social and environmental progress and sustainability.
The average city resident spend much less time in transit to work or daily chores before the car was introduced than the average suburbanite does today with a car.
So if cars are such a problem what about cities, towns and sign of humans being more than tree dewelling chimps?
Why stop at your average "Eurotopian" fantasy of essentially a 19th century city. Why should people even have town houses or apts? Maybe they can all live 12 to a room and share a bathroom with 30 other people? The basic issue with this is that you are applying a subjective standard to things and assuming it is somehow set in stone. I don't think any one even you average right wing wacko is in opposition to sidewalks however you seem to be pushing the same idealogical zeal.....
Also, so who exactly are you to tell me how I should live?
i am not telling you how to live, but I am strongly suggesting that you find a way to live that is not destroying the habitability of the fucking planet. And if you did - by moving to a modern, transit-served, walkable city, you would realize how much the car robs you of an enormous amount of joy in life.
The is nothing "low tech" or 19th century about a car-free city served by sleek, fast electric public transit network. It is the car that is the anachronism.
The rest of you argument is nonsense that doesn't warrant a response.
Your "strong suggestions" sound more like you telling me how to live....
My car and how I use it is not destroying my life nor anyone elses for that matter either.
My issue with your arguements is that they seem to be nothing more than presumptous buzz words more than any thing else. For instance if I were to label crude oil "organic" "fair trade" I am certain you would get a hard on for it.
The other issue I have with this type of smart growth rhetoric is that it more or less ignores externalities and competing factors. You for instance assume that people all want to live in some type of neo-urbanist landscape. I and a good deal of other people don't and do not mind the inconvience of a slightly longer commute. How would you stop me? How would the fact that a good half of the population would never go along with your game plan effect your little eutopia? And as I had mentioned in a world, where for instance we are not using fossil fuels to power our buildings and cars why not?
Also, what is to say that this "carless utopia" can not be exploited by the corporate element to make for convienient ghettos for slave workers who conviently never need to stray very far from the work/dorm axis of their lives and hence convieniently be controlled? (thats how they do it in asia). Also, if you are so concerned about environmental impact why as I had mentioned before, and you failed to answer, why should we stop at new urbanism? Why should'nt every on live in an "eco dorm" with a 1000 other people and sleep on the floor?
My basic point is that your "strong suggestions" are really in fact you wanting to push your lifestyle on me and every one else. The stereotypical American liberal has this problem in that they assume a smug superiority over everyone else when they in fact often have little or no clue. The reality of your fantasies would at the end of the day be just about as destructive to human welfare and the Koch bothers. My suggestion to you is that you figure out a slightly more realistic solution to actual problems rather than by creating some fantasy world and living in it.....
It is clear that you have never lived or even visited in a viable, vibrant city in your life. You are operting from a collection of uninformed stereotypes.
If new (or old) urbanist spaces are so undesirable, why is their biggest problem the demand-driven skyrocketing costs of homes and rents?
The idea that not having a car for day-to-day use means that you will be forced into some kind of slavery is ridiculous. You very well could have more transportation options in a car-free city - and would always have access to a car (rental or loaner) if you needed one but you wouldn't need one too often.
And your other arguments are just slippery-slope/camel's nose fallacies, and don't warrant a response.
Actually I have a phd in policy and planning...... Again more lifestyle/catch phrase statements like "viable" or "vibrant" or your assumption that certain types of housing will somehow magically be unaffordable or undesirable when there is little evidence for such (of course you kind likes creating policies that become self fulfiling proficies). As for actually living in such places I resided in the UK and the netherlands for a good period of time and ironically, many of the "viable" things your ilk preaches are more or less rejected by most people, and many of them have the same middle class aspirations as do Americans. Now the issue is that you either deal with reality or you deal with fantasy land. Now, new urbanism might be viable for certain youngish hipsters who are not married and have no kids a couple of other groups but most of the population does not want to live that way. How then do you make the lives of suburbananites more "viable" and "vibrant"?In general your kind assumes it is so correct that it just goes ahead and tries to implement these policies along with waging war on cars, suburbia big box retailers and at the end of the day wonders why most people reject this way of thinking as BS. Again, why don't you respond to my arguments about where to stop? They are perfectly logical and if you know anything about what actually happens you will realized that such can become a rather dark reality if allowed to.
You have a PhD? Where from, Liberty U? I'm curious because you're writing absolute rubbish. Granted credentials aren't the same as intelligence or honesty, but still.
PJ is putting out simple good sense that's confirmed daily by millions of people the world around. Surely you must know that, if you have the credential you claim.
I lived for years in W.-Berlin, and found it quite easy to do without my car (though I had to own one, just as I had to have a telephone). I wasn't even allowed to use the S-Bahn, yet managed to go everywhere I needed to via U-Bahn, bicycle, and on foot.
So I am idiot because I disagree with you? My Phd, MA and BA are all from major state universities. PJ's way of thinking is generally not substaintiated in most of the planning/policy studies I have seen. Additionally, throwing out such ideas with out considering their audience, such as people like my right wing neighbors, or alternative arguments is just stupid. I tend to be rather far to the left but frankly you people are on the same page as the Tea Party in terms of the sophistication of your argument. You really are pushing the stereotype that conservatives have of you and frankly you should either rethink yourself or get out of the way and shut up.
No, you're an idiot (if that's what you are) because you write elitist rubbish.
If you had the credential you claim, you would certainly know, from the work of Jane Jacobs if no one else, that what PJ says is true: the vast majority of the people in the world, including until recently the populations of most major cities, get along perfectly well without cars.
In nearly all cities in the world except in the US, good, inexpensive local and long-distance mass-transit provides full coverage, utility cycling is catered for, and shops for daily needs are within easy walking distance because folk had better sense than to invent sterile zoning ordinances.
In W.-Berlin, I lived in what would have been considered an almost-suburb had it not been for The Wall. I'd to actually ride my bicycle to do my grocery shopping. If I wanted to go up to the Ku-damm to shop for clothes, or take my kids to the Zoo, it was an U-Bahn ride...our stop, Krumme Lanke, being 3 blocks away. Had my kids been school-age, the local primary school was also 3 blocks away.
And that was W.-Berlin, where I'd access to only half the city and less than half the transportation. When I lived in a smaller city up on the North-Sea coast in what was then W.-Germany proper, I cycled to work (2Km), walked to the shops (2 blocks), walked (4 blocks) to the local pub to listen to the singing by the neighborhood trad-music club, and took the bus (we weren't on the Straßenbahn line) "into town" to shop for clothes and similar at the big department stores, visit the Aquarium, etc.
The most use I made of my car was when we went on holiday. But hadn't I had a car, I could have rented one if I'd wanted to be posh, or, more sensibly, bought a discounted pass for the Bundesbahn just as I regularly bought one for the rail/bus in town -- either a certain number of trips without regard to time, or a certain amount of time without regard to number of trips, kids travel free either way.
It's a different way of life, and someone with a doc in urban planning from a good school would know that. How is it that *you* don't know that?
You are calling me elitist and an idiot because I don't think that most people and most reasoned planning considers car free cities a good idea? I am well aware of the various schools of thought relative to planning. I am not going around saying we should ban walking and bikes. However, thinking that everyone wants to live in some hyper dense place where owning a car is "posh" is just bullshit. Also, does'nt it sound a little elitist to tell out some lengthy story about how your glory days in Berlin are the only right and proper way to live? Anyone with half a grain of reason would try to be realistic about the context that policy occurs in which is obviously something you lack...
I thought you were trolling earlier, by your refusal to meet PJ's ideas squarely. Now you've done the same thing to me, which eliminates what doubt I had.
Go troll somewhere else.
Well... keep a good thought.
Before I even got to the author's accurate description of failed downtown "transit malls", I was thinking of Philadelphia's Chestnut Street Transitway.
IIRC, the conversion of this "Center City" commercial street was begun in 1975, in hopes of being a major success by the 1976 Bicentennial. It went over like the proverbial lead balloon for exactly the reasons the author cites in this article.
Pardon my fuzziness on this point, but I see the possibilities envisioned by the author and commenters pre-empted by an unfortunate circular Amerikan cultural aversion to "pedestrian districts".
Philly, the city I know best, was famously designed or envisioned by William Penn as a "greene Country Towne". So there are indeed parks, squares, plazas with decorative fountains, etc. that get a lot of use. But somehow the concept of a "pedestrian district" hasn't really caught on.
Again, I can't crisply connect the dots, but this aversion seems vaguely linked to Amerika's obsession with personal transportation, i.e. the automobile in one form or another. In a nutshell, the automobile (and therefore, driving, parking, etc.) seems to be the unexamined center of public-space gravity.
I've written over and over about the Amerikan attitude toward public transportation-- or perhaps I should say "prejudice against public transportation"-- being perfectly captured by Marge Simpson remarking long ago that "Homer doesn't use public transportation-- he thinks it's for losers."
I think that the transformation lauded by Walljasper is inhibited because of the unconscious status and class ripple effects of automobile-mania.
As men in the Wild West were said to feel naked if they weren't wearing their guns, the average Amerikan adult leaving home without a car feels naked-- the availability of, or proximity to, one's car is a psychological imperative.
In high school, we were taught that the Reniassance could be summarized as an age that celebrated "man as the measure, or center, of the world". DaVinci's famous "Vitruvian Man"* symbolized this relationship.
I think that in Amerika, the personal automobile remains the unconscious measure, or center, of public space. Blame it on Henry Ford. Blame it on Cain. Despite the growing cost and consequences of a century of devoted worship to this handy, useful four-wheeled Golden Calf, the idol is far from being displaced.
It's only if and when the horseless carriage is finally displaced from its circular track in the Amerikan soul will a general appreciation of "pedestrian" life-- walking, hanging out, traveling without a car-- return.
If Amerikan cities avoid a more devastating "sea change", and survive long enough to witness this fundamental Dawn of Correction, people will be crowding into pedestrial malls like summertime throngs on Jersey Shore boardwalks, asking, "Why didn't we do this a long time ago?"
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man
yes, and evidence of your point can be found in the fascination with alternative energy...
the vast majority of the conversation around that topic involves changes to the car...
of all of the sacrifices the future might require, one of the most difficult for many to face is the car...
run it on solar, wind, corn, my chili farts, or what have you, but don't take it away...
the car has replaced the body in the mind, you see...
none of this, of course, addresses the incredible environmental impact of the car, from mining and drilling for base materials to production, use, service and disposal...
good day to you, OS...
OS and dubet, good comments.
As a suburbanite until the pivotal year of 1998, there hasn't been a liberating epiphany like the one I experienced when I moved to humble old Bloomfield neighborhood in Pittsburgh after a life in the suburbs. It wasn't until I move there that I realized how much my very being - since I was 16 - was so dysfunctionally centered in the car I drove everywhere. I had literally been a prisoner who had fallen deeply in love with his ball and chain - and my 350 cubic-inch ball and chain was bigger than everyone else's balls and chains. I simply couldn't concieve of life without that ball and chain, and anyone that suggested otherwise I thought was crazy.
And yes; so true about walking, hanging out, looking in shop and restaurant windows, chance happenings into aquaintances etc. that the car completely excludes from the realm of human activity. With the car, it is point A, point B - period.
It was also nice to be around such a diversity of sophisticated, bohemian leftists and anarchist-types that you simply don't find in the 'burbs. And city woman are simply better looking, hard to describe how, they just are. I guess they are just smarter and smart is sexy. You lifetime city-slickers can laugh if you want.
I'm sure you didn't intend it, OS, but your argument seems circular:
"It's only if and when the horseless carriage is finally displaced from its circular track in the Amerikan soul will a general appreciation of "pedestrian" life-- walking, hanging out, traveling without a car-- return."
I'd argue that the car won't be left at home until there's a social payoff for doing it. If people get stroked for going on foot, they'll do it. I could imagine building on the "steampunk" aesthetic (see, e.g., the Brass Lion http://www.ecofriend.com/entry/steampunk-tadpole-trike-reinvents-nerdiness/)
I agree with you. I used "circle" imagery because it indeed seems like a circular predicament. That's part of the "fuzziness" I can't shake.
Due to a mix of circumstances, I'm one of the few non-driving adults I know.
I have my own abiding issues and concerns over if, why, and how to travel to accomplish tasks, errands, and social activity.
But as a non-driver, I think I'm more aware of how driving-related logistics influence the perception of the "payoff'.
One off-the-wall example just popped into my head: a few years ago, there was a major hassle involving the "state slumlord", as I call him, who rents office space to state agencies.
Our building was found to be mold-infested, and our suites in particular were often waterlogged by leaks from plumbing failures in floors above us, and roofs that leaked whenever it rained hard enough to overwhelm the building's inferior drainage system.
The slumlord's minimal and half-assed remediation and repair projects added insult to injury.
At one point, during our umpteenth union meeting to discuss this undisputed health and safety hazard, the union reps proposed that they force the issue by demanding that we be relocated to the closest available property. They asked us for feedback.
This alternative was emphatically rejected. The first, immediate, and most vehement objection was that our sick building at least had adequate parking spaces. Other locations in the downtown Philly areas would almost certainly have smaller employee parking lots, and perhaps no parking lot at all.
I'm not so dumb or insensitive that I didn't appreciate that adequate parking is a legitimate concern; I'd worked in urban offices where parking was a nightmare-- employees who drove, which was most of them, faced a daily nightmare of circling the block praying for a spot, or parking blocks away, etc.
But I was still amazed that all of the complaints and concerns about real and substantial health risks faded away in the face of the parking question. Maybe they would've gone for it if the employer provided a fleet of tadpole trikes to shuttle from parking spot to office, but I doubt it.
I'm not arguing with you, just noting that even the straightforward notion of a "payoff" can be a vexed question when it comes to cars.
Non-driving adults are fairly commonly encountered in Pittsburgh - either the voluntary car less anarchists and other urban activist types or older people who simply have continued the lifestyle from the days when the public transit was better.
As far as parking, in the federal building where I worked, it is generally understood that no parking will ever be available anywhere downtown, except for at a hefty fee, and one nice fringe the federal govt. gives us is free monthly transit passes. Stick-and-carrot.
i don't see any "steampunk" (anachronistic) aesthetic about car-free cities. Is the photo in the following "steampunk?"
http://www.carfree.com/pax_trans.html
As I wrote earler, most people, given the choice, would live carfree, but few have te opportunity.
That wasn't my point, P.
I brought in the 'steampunk' aesthetic because most people like to make statements about themselves as individuals via their personal choices of clothing, jewellery, home, vehicle, etc. Anachronistic themes can offer that, so it's not hard to imagine people competing for social approval by having the most outrageous-looking 'steampunk' bicycle or tadpole as their daily ride rather than the most expensive car.
The example in your link is a similar shift, but in the opposite direction: future rather than past, and public rather than private. So it's not going to hook quite the same emotions.
It'd be very exciting at first, but, not being personal or modifiable, it would go 'stale' and be taken for granted more quickly. To keep it attractive, the transit authority would have to act as the proxy for the riders and keep making changes so that it would constantly feel new, personal, and exciting to ride.
There's a sort of dim recognition of that need in some cities, where the transit authority has assigned each station a different theme and appearance. But they nearly all stop there, so after awhile the differences stop being noticed and blur together. Once that happens, the system has to get by on cost and convenience, which they often don't offer.
I completely agree with your thesis about people living car-free, of course. Where I live now is so much more car-forcing in every way than where I used to live that the contrast is constantly on my mind -- especially with the price of gasolene today.
Not here, unless they invent a personal air conditioner
Didn't the Segue revolutionize all our urban lives ten years ago?
You mean Segway? No it didn't thank goodness. I see an occasional rare one, and I refuse to yield the sidewalk to the things.
This type of trash opitomises the self stroking fake liberal rhetoric that I despise. It seems to be more predicated upon some romanticized version of a by-gone era of quaint shops and pedestrians than any type of modern reality? Much like most of the materail on this guys website it seems overly presumptive that people will want to live a certain way, no cars super high density housing etc. and it simultaineously ignore the realities of modern economies and various fundamental desires that people appear to exhibit in terms of standard of living etc. Seriously this type of article is just fuel for the right wing fire and the author should be soundly ignored.
When I moved to the city, and dispensed with a car for all but out of town travel, my standard of living improved in every way.
As you know if you are familiar with Bernays, the capitalists don't respond to desire that arises organically from a void,they manufacture that desire through the massive PR and ad industry, then they create an infrastructure so that no other desires are even imaginable.
If it is such a by-gone era, why are the most modern and "hip" European cities increasingly going to the car-free model? Also, there is an enormous movement back into cities among young people. I am from a large family, with all my siblings well ensconced in the suburbs, yet a majority of my 22 odd nephews and nieces are moving inward to the city.
"When I moved to the city, and dispensed with a car for all but out of town travel, my standard of living improved in every way."
That is a subjective assertion. Much like the assumption that higher density development is somehow more desirable etc.
As for Europe, there are two factors to consider, first is that they are about 9 times more dense on average than the US and grossly over populated. Second much of the "car free" policy that you find there and in parts of the US is just about as ideologically motivated as what you accuse the "capitalists" of being.
In general this type of thinking is more a lifestyle statement than anything else. From the perspective of public policy and general economic feasibility they just don't pan out.
I often wonder if we were to develop a completely sustainable "eco fuel" that would exactly replace gasoline whether types like the author would continue to have a problem with cars or suburbia etc. My bet is that they would. Everything is a trade off. I for instance like my relatively fuel efficient car and my suburban house. Im not too keen about assuming everyone will want to live on top of one another in some neo-urbanist fantasy land with nothing but overpriced botiques and the douche bags that shop there.
More than not I would say that this mentality is a product of capitalism and its falsely sensitive yuppie bourgeious than anything else..... Merely most people don't put the right label on it.
Haven't any of you been to Portland, Oregon?
Their transit system brings you to the downtown area, which is car-free for blocks in all directions.
A couple of observations.
We are mistaken if we think that we own cities, that cities are our home, a home.
Cities are machines made by capitalists to earn money. Nothing else.
And here is an interesting book about public spaces and how they have been engineered to control people's behaviour.
The Taming of the American Crowd: From Stamp Riots to Shopping Sprees
http://tinyurl.com/3kf9bw4
We are mistaken if we think that we own cities, that cities are our home, a home.
Cities are machines made by capitalists to earn money. Nothing else.
--------------------------
I'm not sure you could support the "nothing else" part.
Cities are _exploited_ by Capitalists, certainly. But they are also useful to us in that they bring us reachably close to resources we wouldn't have otherwise. That will be even more true in the future, when transporting goods in small quantities will be too expensive to be routine.
Greengrocers won't have those wonderfully sweet little oranges (I can't remember their proper name) from Spain that we see every year in crates around January. If we want them, we'll have to grow them ourselves in a greenhouse.
Likewise with most other things. If we live in a city, we'll have access to books, live music, physicians, hospitals, etc. If we live elsewhere, we won't.
Certain lacunae will be able to be compensated-for by high-speed communcation lines. But not all of them.
And that's not even mentioning the problem of forests. When humans are compressed into cities, more of the remaining land can be forested, which is a sine-qua-non for continued high-order life.
Thanks; lots of good points.
Oddly, when I move to a NE US city, I had access to far more locally-produced organic produce than I ever had in sunbelt suburb or a midwestern towns. And in additions to farmer's market stalls, there are far more small family businesses or all sorts in the city too. The reason one sees so many small businesses in the city is becasue of the dense concentration of customers that only a city affords. In sprawling suburban areas only large big-boxes, Home Depots, Rite-Aid drugs and Safeway Supermarkets are economically viable.