<
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20250815-the-us-neighbourhood-where-cars-are-banned>
"When Sheryl Murdock walks to her apartment in Culdesac – the US' first modern
car-free neighbourhood built from scratch – she feels transported to a
Mediterranean island. As she enters the central plaza, which serves as an al
fresco communal living room, the blare of traffic fades, replaced by the clink
of glasses, the hum of conversation and the thump of a cornhole game. She
meanders down narrow pathways between low-slung white buildings crisscrossed
with fairy lights, passing pops of colour from cheerful murals and magenta
bougainvillea. Although she's in Arizona, Murdock says, "It's like being in
Greece."
Architect Daniel Parolek did have the Mediterranean in mind when he designed
Culdesac, though he was influenced more by his travels to the hill towns and
coastal villages of Italy and France. Travellers and locals love these
settings, Parolek says, because "these are places that were built prior to the
automobile, so they were designed around accommodating people". Why then, he
asks, do people have to
vacation to places like these rather than
living in
them?
The answer is that societies made a Faustian deal with the automobile. As urban
planners calibrated the built environment to the needs of cars rather than
people, cities spread out into vast systems of traffic-clogged asphalt that
disgorge solo commuters into soul-crushingly monotonous suburbs. Car-centric
design has contributed to making metropolises more polluted, more socially
isolating, less sustainable and hot as hell.
But the collective consciousness is shifting. Research is revealing that
walkable cities make people happier, less lonely, more satisfied with life and
physically healthier. Movements are afoot around the globe toward sustainable
urbanism, slow travel and 15-minute (or less) cities – such as Nordhavn in
Copenhagen and superblocks in Barcelona. For travellers, strolling around
Culdesac's shops, restaurants and outdoor markets offers a glimpse into a
future where cities are once again built for people, not traffic."
Via Esther Schindler.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
