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This is precisely what shines so much in Pontevedra (the city featured in the article) and e.g. Oviedo (another Spanish city that aggressively adopted this poli
by throwaway809484 8y ago
This is precisely what shines so much in Pontevedra (the city featured in the article) and e.g. Oviedo (another Spanish city that aggressively adopted this policy in 1991). Local shopping benefited so much from banning cars downtown. Little specialty shops and cafes blossomed vs suburban malls.
Sadly, I think this is only easy to accomplish in mid-sized densely-populated cities (<= 250000 inhabitants), unless there's a lot of planning and investments done.
Paradoxically, shopping associations were initially strongly opposed to implementing car-less downtown plans. Only to reckon later how wrong they were.
If I recall correctly, car-less policies were imported from Aarhus and Aalborg, where majors were experimenting with turning some main streets into pedestrian only by the late 1980s.
It's also interesting to note that both Aalborg and Oviedo tend to rank very highly in a few quality of life EU metrics [1]. I know both, and they are pretty fantastic places to work and live in. Everything is within short walking distance.
[1] http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/urban/survey2015_en.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies...
- ChristianBundy 8y agoI'm not sure how or why, but you're dead. Your comments are only visible to people with `showdead` enabled. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
- throwaway809484 8y agoMe neither, but thanks for letting me know.
- dang 8y agoThe comment was killed by HN's anti-troll software, which is tuned more aggressively for new accounts and unfortunately gets some cases wrong. Fortunately users tend to vouch for those, as happened here. That unkills them.
- nextos 8y agoI second the fact that most towns in Denmark have superb pedestrian-friendly downtowns. Ghent is also really good in this regard. And of course some mid towns in Spain & France. Many American and British cities fail in this regard due to excessively sparse housing. But, for example, I found downtown DC & Arlington very walkable and nice.
- skookumchuck 8y agoWhen I was in Denmark, many downtown roads were close to cars, making them pedestrian malls. Unfortunately, certain traffic was allowed, such as official vehicles. There was just enough of them to pretty much ruin things. You couldn't just amble down the street without having to constantly get out of the way of them. It's like being in the airport concourse with those electric golf cars racing between the pedestrians with their interminable annoying beeping.
- ta1234567890 8y ago> Sadly, I think this is only easy to accomplish in mid-sized densely-populated cities (<= 250000 inhabitants), unless there's a lot of planning and investments done. You are right about the "easy" part, but it can definitely be done. In fact that's what Tokyo feels like, and it's the largest city/metro area in the world, with 38 million residents.
- minikomi 8y agoIndeed. I've lived in downtown Tokyo for 8 years without even owning a driver's licence. Walking through the city is one of my favorite pastimes.
- lovemenot 8y agoSure, but the whole thing depends on there being world-class public transportation. Fortunately, Tokyo has that.
- bentoscher 8y agoTake a bit of time to walk; Look, wonder, have a talk. There is no journey without the ´jour´; All should at least once be a flaneur.
- minikomi 8y agoAn original poem? Lovely :)
- bentoscher 8y agoYea, its original. Thanks. Ive been a long time lurker here on HN, and thought i might contribute by putting my on topic thoughts into rhyme.
- etatoby 8y agoI moved here 2.5 months ago and I'm so glad I did. It's a huge metropolis where one can comfortably live without owning a car. On top of that, it has one of the lowest crime rates among the world's big cities: https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_current.jsp https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_current.jsp