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Returning? The whole concept of a city rests on the idea of more people traveling into it for various reasons than people living in it. People who want to live

Returning? The whole concept of a city rests on the idea of more people traveling into it for various reasons than people living in it. People who want to live in a city profit massively from the availability of services that are economically possible due to the extreme density of customers. If you lock out individual travel (and there might be good reasons to do so) you inevitably transform your city into something else that has not existed before. That is not "returning" or "regaining" nor will the space be necessarily "public". Whatever comes out of these modern transformations might as well leave the city centers economically deserted, or at least less attractive to their current citizen. While I never understood the urge to live in the cities, I do understand the call for more space and in particular less car traffic from those who do live there. But they also should understand that cities do come with downsides and there is no guarantee that you can have the cake and eat it.

elvinyung 7y ago
I mean, it's not like individual automobiles are the only way to get around...
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  It might hard for some to believe, but there are huge portions of the USA where every trip begins and ends in a car. The layout of many "cities" in the USA literally requires car transport. Residential is clustered with other residential, retail is clustered into strip malls with a vast stretches of asphalt (for parking), office parks are also clustered in low-density arrangements of flex-space (1-story buildings with a truck dock in the back). All of these places are separated not only by distances that can't be covered on foot, but also pedestrian-hostile highways and utter dismissal of public space. And yes, schools are large and dotted across the landscape. So in addition to getting to work, by car, many families have to juggle transporting their kids to school in one direction, then go a completely different direction to get to work, repeat the process in the afternoon, and go in other directions for shopping, groceries, and other "third places".
Xylakant 7y ago
> Whatever comes out of these modern transformations might as well leave the city centers economically deserted, or at least less attractive to their current citizen. All experience with cities that reduced or banned car traffic point in the other direction. Madrid for example reports a 9.5% increase in local business https://copenhagenize.eu/news-archive/2019/3/14/the-benefits-of-car-free-streets https://copenhagenize.eu/news-archive/2019/3/14/the-benefits... If you’ve ever been to the Netherlands you’d also see that their city centers are far from deserted wastelands. Quite to the contrary, actually, at least the ones that I’ve been to. > But they also should understand that cities do come with downsides and there is no guarantee that you can have the cake and eat it. Living in the suburbs comes with downsides, too. There’s for example no inalienable right to drive your car in the city.
ginko 7y ago
Of course it is regaining. Cities predate the car by thousands of years. Oslo itself is almost 1000 years old. The city center was built when pedestrians and the occasional horse-drawn carriage was the typical mode of transport. Plus you're completely ignoring public transport for some reason.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
scotty79 7y ago
You must be from USA. In Europe we had all the large cities before cars. And curtailing car usage doesn't lock out individual travel. You still have public transport, bicicles and such. My urge to live in a city comes from the fact that I could get everything I need to live, by going out of my apatment for 30 minutes and walking to few nearby shops. No car needed. And I can get to various interesting entertainment venues by hopping on a bus for a 15 minutes.
- choeger 7y ago
  > In Europe we had all the large cities before cars. And curtailing car usage doesn't lock out individual travel. You still have public transport, bicicles and such. First of all, public transport is not individual travel. Neither the times nor the locations nor the cost are under your control. Bicycles are individual travel, and that is why they are so relevant in modern cities, but they are neither weather-independent, nor barrier-free, nor do they provide the same utility as a car. Funnliy enough, they seem to evolve pretty much the same way cars did here in Europe by getting ever larger and more capable. I would not be surprised if bicycles would be the next piece of individual travel that's becoming unfashionable. IMO the problem cities have with cars is not the pollution, it's the individuality that they cannot deal with. Everything individual tends to become problematic with a high enough population density. Today's 2sqm parking lot might be tomorrow's 0.5sqm bicycle stand or next week's 10sqm individual bathroom. If there shall ever be an acceptable degree of individual space consumption in a city, that city needs to define a limit on population density. Somehow I doubt that any city will ever do that, though.
  - ginko 7y ago
    >If there shall ever be an acceptable degree of individual space consumption in a city, that city needs to define a limit on population density. Acceptable to who? You?
    - choeger 7y ago
      Acceptable to the city, of course.
tomglynch 7y ago
I think the other comments have done it justice, but I'd just like to add that there's a lot of other means of transport than cars. America seems to lack public transport modes, but these provide access to cities without the huge footprint (space-wise and energy-wise) of cars.

elvinyung 7y ago

I mean, it's not like individual automobiles are the only way to get around...

crispyambulance 7y ago
It might hard for some to believe, but there are huge portions of the USA where every trip begins and ends in a car. The layout of many "cities" in the USA literally requires car transport. Residential is clustered with other residential, retail is clustered into strip malls with a vast stretches of asphalt (for parking), office parks are also clustered in low-density arrangements of flex-space (1-story buildings with a truck dock in the back). All of these places are separated not only by distances that can't be covered on foot, but also pedestrian-hostile highways and utter dismissal of public space. And yes, schools are large and dotted across the landscape. So in addition to getting to work, by car, many families have to juggle transporting their kids to school in one direction, then go a completely different direction to get to work, repeat the process in the afternoon, and go in other directions for shopping, groceries, and other "third places".

Xylakant 7y ago

> Whatever comes out of these modern transformations might as well leave the city centers economically deserted, or at least less attractive to their current citizen. All experience with cities that reduced or banned car traffic point in the other direction. Madrid for example reports a 9.5% increase in local business https://copenhagenize.eu/news-archive/2019/3/14/the-benefits-of-car-free-streets https://copenhagenize.eu/news-archive/2019/3/14/the-benefits... If you’ve ever been to the Netherlands you’d also see that their city centers are far from deserted wastelands. Quite to the contrary, actually, at least the ones that I’ve been to. > But they also should understand that cities do come with downsides and there is no guarantee that you can have the cake and eat it. Living in the suburbs comes with downsides, too. There’s for example no inalienable right to drive your car in the city.

ginko 7y ago

Of course it is regaining. Cities predate the car by thousands of years. Oslo itself is almost 1000 years old. The city center was built when pedestrians and the occasional horse-drawn carriage was the typical mode of transport. Plus you're completely ignoring public transport for some reason.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

scotty79 7y ago

You must be from USA. In Europe we had all the large cities before cars. And curtailing car usage doesn't lock out individual travel. You still have public transport, bicicles and such. My urge to live in a city comes from the fact that I could get everything I need to live, by going out of my apatment for 30 minutes and walking to few nearby shops. No car needed. And I can get to various interesting entertainment venues by hopping on a bus for a 15 minutes.

choeger 7y ago
> In Europe we had all the large cities before cars. And curtailing car usage doesn't lock out individual travel. You still have public transport, bicicles and such. First of all, public transport is not individual travel. Neither the times nor the locations nor the cost are under your control. Bicycles are individual travel, and that is why they are so relevant in modern cities, but they are neither weather-independent, nor barrier-free, nor do they provide the same utility as a car. Funnliy enough, they seem to evolve pretty much the same way cars did here in Europe by getting ever larger and more capable. I would not be surprised if bicycles would be the next piece of individual travel that's becoming unfashionable. IMO the problem cities have with cars is not the pollution, it's the individuality that they cannot deal with. Everything individual tends to become problematic with a high enough population density. Today's 2sqm parking lot might be tomorrow's 0.5sqm bicycle stand or next week's 10sqm individual bathroom. If there shall ever be an acceptable degree of individual space consumption in a city, that city needs to define a limit on population density. Somehow I doubt that any city will ever do that, though.
- ginko 7y ago
  >If there shall ever be an acceptable degree of individual space consumption in a city, that city needs to define a limit on population density. Acceptable to who? You?
  - choeger 7y ago
    Acceptable to the city, of course.

tomglynch 7y ago

I think the other comments have done it justice, but I'd just like to add that there's a lot of other means of transport than cars. America seems to lack public transport modes, but these provide access to cities without the huge footprint (space-wise and energy-wise) of cars.