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America's "First Car-Free Neighborhood" Is Going Pretty Good, Actually?
- amarcheschi 2y agoThat's basically similar to some historical centres in some cities in italy (eg. Pisa, Firenze). Although in italy, traffic is reduced and not zeroed, mostly limited to only people living there. This way, people can still use a car to move when they need, but it's still walkable for everybody
- FinnLobsien 2y agoI thought this cited criticism is interesting: > Culdesac is a far cry from "the incremental urbanism and thickening our cities need. A dozen or even a thousand Culdesacs can’t solve that problem," because they would lack long-term growth benefits including "the resilience of a system where many hands have built the neighborhood and have a financial stake in it" and would reflect "a zoning and finance stream that favors industrial over incremental production." It's interesting that one of the most walkable, lively and beautiful urban centers —Paris—was not built this way, but was the result of a big reform by Eugene Haussmann that flattened the "previous Paris" and put his new version on top, which was extremely centrally planned. The idea of a community incrementally building their infrastructure together based on arising needs and desires is beautiful. But it's not practical in the 2020s where housing is much harder to build due to regulation, zoning etc. Plus this "incremental" approach can go wrong as well. People forget that for the longest time, cities had higher mortality because they just grew organically and some of that wasn't actually great for humans. The things we see have survived for a reason. Most cities have gotten rid of A LOT of things that grew "incrementally". I think this incremental approach is a romantic idea and more is right than wrong about it. But it's also the 2020s where housing is crazy expensive and we have higher expectations of buildings and neighborhoods.
- striking 2y agoDo you think there could be some sort of balance? Something between the tactical approach of redoing a single road at a time and ... flattening all of Paris? The way I see it, it can be hard for a centrally planned approach to meet all of the needs of the residents of each area. Is there some sort of way to adapt the incremental approach for the modern era?
- aidenn0 2y agoIndeed, every area that is underserved by retail can most cheaply be incrementally improved by adding a strip mall, but strip-malls area really shitty local maximum to get stuck in.
- robertlagrant 2y ago> where housing is much harder to build due to regulation, zoning etc The central planning must increase to overcome the downsides of central planning.
- waveBidder 2y agoTokyo is an example of incrementalism making a beautiful resilient city, while still maintaining safety standards.
- margalabargala 2y agoTokyo burned to the ground 80 years ago and got to be rebuilt from scratch then.
- waveBidder 2y agoKind of orthogonal to the point. It isn't a planned city in the same way that Paris is a planned city. Also, most of the worst parts of American development have happened since 1945.
- bombcar 2y agoTokyo also has 3 million cars, so walkable/transit city and car free aren’t the same.
- anthk 2y agoSo, Europe, basically. My metropolitan area can be accesed by bus/train and even boat in some shores. You don't need a car at all. Heck, parking your car in the center of the city is almost wallet-suicidal as you have to actually pay per hour.
- karaterobot 2y agoEurope is not America's first car-free neighborhood.
- robertlagrant 2y agoI don't know why people think Europe is homogenous. Go to somewhere like Hamburg and you'll see roads wide enough for cars and for buses to run on time along side them.
- LargoLasskhyfv 2y agoAch wirklich? https://www.mopo.de/hamburg/pendler-aufgepasst-verdi-ruft-noch-diese-woche-zum-warnstreik-auf/ https://www.mopo.de/hamburg/pendler-aufgepasst-verdi-ruft-no... That aside, it's just working 'so so' on many lines. I prefer my bicycle mostly, when I'm there. Which opens its own can of worms, because danger of theft, or heavy weight of chains and locks, and fumbling with them. And that fucking card system of theirs, for ppl who have no Deutschland-ticket is rather stupid. Maybe I should get one, but makes no sense for only a few weeks per year (Or so I thought).
- LargoLasskhyfv 2y agoStores in .de (mostly/everywhere?) have free parking for the duration of shopping. The parts of the USA I know, and live in do too.
- Terretta 2y agoHardly America's first car-free neighborhood, nor (not by a long shot) its largest. Along the east coast there are multiple communities on islands accessible only by ferry that are foot traffic only. You can tell they're real places because they have their own U.S. Post Offices (not just mailboxes). For example: https://villageofoceanbeach.org/about https://villageofoceanbeach.org/about
- ranger_danger 2y agoTo be fair, Ocean Beach is much larger than a single neighborhood. Semantics I guess.
- lesuorac 2y agoPerhaps in the summer there are no cars but from their photo I can see several cars.
- mattkrause 2y agoI see a few trucks, which might be needed for hauling heavy items, but not any passenger cars.
- lesuorac 2y agoThe road next to the tennis courts definitely looks like passenger vehicles to me. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d2a6bf9a14008000179d236/1563127012791-22JKBES6RCECJB42P5W6/oceanbeach%2B-%2B5.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d2a6bf9a14008...
- wiether 2y agoFunny how you spotted cars in the picture, and had to make the argument about the weather... yet you missed this : > Except for emergency and essential services, vehicles are generally not permitted.
- lesuorac 2y ago
- magwa101 2y ago[dead]
- paulcole 2y agoEvery neighborhood is a car-free neighborhood if you’re rich enough, poor enough, or determined enough. Source: Me, determined enough.
- bmacho 2y agoYou have managed to get your neighborhood car-free?
- neaden 2y agoJust because you don't have a car doesn't make a neighborhood care free though. Like you still have to interact with them when you cross the street and such.
- lotsoweiners 2y agoPlaying IRL Frogger keeps you fit.
- trgn 2y agoanother determined enough me here. it started out of necessity, but at this point, i trudge through berms and through parking lots out of spite.
- snakeyjake 2y agoWhenever I come across a "density Density DENSITY" story I do some looking at the background of the individuals running/promoting the effort. I'll go to the "our team" and "about us" page of the org, look at who runs it and then google them and find the interview they did five years ago in their palatial suburban estate, sitting jauntily atop a stool next to the island in their 500 square foot kitchen. They are all hyper-rich arrogant dickheads who want the masses stacked on top of each other in habicubes where they have to listen to couples fighting, smell the stench of their neighbor's disgusting cooking, and feel constant compression from crowding shoulder to shoulder up against each other as they march from their in-office job to their tiny, cramped, habicube. My only question is why the rich dickheads who run media outlets and non-profits obsessed with turning everyone into the renter of a high-density nightmare hovel doesn't take their own medicine? Why are they giving interviews to Dwell or A+U about how everyone should live in a dense city from inside their gated 30,000 square foot fortress of solitude? There's a reason that the first thing anyone, anywhere, does when they get some money is buy an SUV or (in Europe and Japan) a station wagon and move out to an American-style suburb. Once you get out of your "hip young urban professional" or "broke-ass" phase you realize the only thing that matters is sitting by yourself in a lawn chair on your wasteful suburban Bermuda grass lawn watching the sprinkler move back and forth in peace and fucking quiet.
- standardUser 2y ago> There's a reason that the first thing anyone, anywhere, does when they get some money is buy an SUV or (in Europe and Japan) a station wagon and move out to an American-style suburb. Maybe if you have kids, otherwise that's just self-imposed exile. Not much fun to be had in a suburb if you're loaded and childless. Lots of driving though.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago> Not much fun to be had in a suburb if you're loaded and childless. Depends on what you want to do. Most childless couples I know moved away from their younger city lives. They don’t think of being “exiled” from restaurants or whatever. They’re closer to parks, hiking, friend. They’re able to do hobbies you can’t in the city like woodworking or whatever. And as for driving - it is much easier and painless away from cities. High density without matching roads makes driving painful. But low and medium density with lots of parking makes it great - driving then just becomes a means to live a high quality life.
- karaterobot 2y agoWhat a weird headline. Cars were invented long after America became a country, so every neighborhood in America for about 150 years was a car-free neighborhood. This can't be the first one, and may not even be the newest one either, since it's two years old.
- adolph 2y agoThis seems like a large apartment/condo complex with a variance for number of parking spaces.[0] I think the distinction between this and a conventional neighborhood is that the central organization retains property ownership. Culdesac Tempe has "700+ furnished and unfurnished apartment homes for rent." The proportion of property owned vs rented is significant because of the skin in the game a person with an ownership has and how that drives different tradeoffs. I suppose neighborhoods with super-powerful and intrusive Home-Owners Associations would be similar to Culdesac Tempe. 0. https://maps.app.goo.gl/NhiVJuSChWh2pvUP6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/NhiVJuSChWh2pvUP6
- staticcaucasian 2y agoExactly. This is an apartment complex with some so-so on-site retail situated on a light rail trunk line, just outside of a university and eventually downtown Phoenix. Reduced parking but still accessible to delivery drivers. In most other cities this would be just a 5-over-1.
- joduplessis 2y agoAmazing lack of real photos and, seemingly, people.
- kittikitti 2y agoAfter reading peoples comments, people don't realize how bad car brain is. Yes, there have been countless car free cities and many studies show that they're vastly better. However, the auto industry brain washing is so effective that everything an American does starts with a car. They are unable to think without one.
- rhapsodic 2y ago[dead]
- spoonjim 2y agoThe first quote is from a 50-year-old mother of two who left her husband and kids in British Columbia to do ocean research in Arizona so that’s the kind of weirdo you’ll be living with
- firesteelrain 2y agoI didn't see it mentioned in the article. But how do people get to groceries, doctors appointments, hospital visits, or school? I assume you need some sort of wagon. When we lived in an apartment, we pulled up as close as possible to our building and took several trips up and downstairs. But there is no car in this scenario. Family of four consumes a lot every week. Also I imagine that because its apartment based, people are more inclined to spend time outside rather than couped up in their apartment?
- episteme 2y agoWalk, bike, bus, tram, train, ferry, boat?
- firesteelrain 2y agoRight but look at groceries, that's a ton to haul if they don't have a grocery store there. I live somewhere that a car is required so the concept is foreign to me.
- episteme 2y agoYou can carry a lot if the bags are suitable. Grocery delivery is also becoming very popular.
- lesuorac 2y agoI've seen people occasionally walking around NYC with personal(?) shopping carts. They look different than anything in the store so I assume they got them for themselves. ex. https://www.amazon.com/Lifetime-Home-UPGRADED-Waterproof-Groceries/dp/B0CBCYY96N https://www.amazon.com/Lifetime-Home-UPGRADED-Waterproof-Gro...
- firesteelrain 2y agoMakes sense. Have to get past looking homeless pushing them as people who do push those in my areas are homeless. Its just a mindset shift though not insurmountable.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoThese damn socialists are taking over our god-fearing car-centric American cities and DESTROYING OUR WAY OF LIFE On a more serious note, it's unfortunate that US cities aren't more walkable and there are very few places where you can survive without a car.
- rayiner 2y agoSuperblocks are such a great idea, and a way to incrementally make cities more walkable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_block#Superblock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_block#Superblock
- insane_dreamer 2y agoBarcelona a good example of this
- yes_really 2y agoThat's not a neighborhood. That's an apartment complex! It covers roughly 200 by 300 meters. For comparison, the average officially recognized neighborhood in San Francisco is around 3.3 km². That "neighborhood" covers around 0.07 km².
- lotsoweiners 2y agoExactly. I’ve driven by it before and it is just a regular apartment complex without parking. Neighborhoods are made out of multiple complexes. Their marketing must be working though because I keep seeing articles about them.
- mieses 2y agoif you are not in a car you should be immediately arrested until proven innocent. the prowlers, spotters, and other professionals casing your car-based neighborhood are usually car-free.