The Deleted Scenes - The U-Turn Not Taken
Quick note, readers: today’s piece is the thousandth piece I’ve published here at The Deleted Scenes! Go ahead and upgrade to paid for 20% off, just today! Thank you for reading and getting us here! There’s a famous—to urbanists—story about Amsterdam in the 1970s. Today, Amsterdam is the poster child, almost the byword, for a quiet, clean European city that makes lots of room for pedestrians and bike riders. When people talk about “Europe” in terms of land use, they often mean, or you imagine, Amsterdam. To the extent that the average person knows about Amsterdam’s urbanist reputation (they’re more likely to know about its other reputation), they probably think it was always like that, and that most of Europe was always like that. That’s fine, but those cities weren’t built for cars, while American cities—at least to a greater extent—were. This is what I used to basically think. It’s the default, inherited American viewpoint. But it isn’t quite true. By the early 1970s, cars had deeply degraded the city. Look at this picture in this tweet: In addition to the nuisance of urban traffic congestion, traffic fatalities reached very high levels:
A society that could still be moved by the violent death of children. The 1970s were a time when it was possible to fully see what the car had done and would do to cities, but also to remember a time before it. We’ve lost that first-hand clarity in America, but we can still learn history. And the history says that up until the 1970s, much of Europe had gone all-in on cars and on the urban problems they brought with them. The ugliness, the noise, the pollution, the traffic fatalities. But when these problems reached a certain point, the Europeans were shocked and spurred into action. And they actually rolled back the primacy that the car had earned itself, and meaningfully circumscribed its place in the city. In other words, contra the received narrative—that America broke with Europe at the onset of the car era—Europe and America both increasingly accommodated the car in the 20th century, but Europe chose in the middle to give up the experiment. So what you probably think of as “European” land use/transportation—intact old cities, cars permitted but not dominant or completely prioritized, other mode shares, functioning transit and high-speed rail, a real concern for pedestrian safety, a love and appreciation of cars as machines but not a total reliance on them for everyday use—isn’t “European.” This settlement with the automobile was not inevitable in early/mid-20th-century Europe. And the flipside of that is that such a settlement was—and is—possible in America. Let me spell it out again: both Europe and America had beautiful pre-car cities and towns. Both Europe and America embraced the car and began to reorient legacy cities around its needs. We were on the same path not until the 1920s, but until the 1970s! If the definitive divergence with European land use/transportation happened that late, I think that changes how realistic such a transformation could be in America. The car exists, and it can’t be put back in the bottle. It can’t and shouldn’t be banned, not even, probably, from cities. But it is possible to countervail its logic, its ravenous desire for speed and space, which are incompatible at a very deep level with the city. We know that, because it isn’t a pipedream. It has been done. Related Reading: Always Treat A Car Like It’s Loaded Speeding and the Eucharistic Prayer Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter, discounted today! You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only piece, plus full access to the archive: over 1,000 pieces and growing. And you’ll help ensure more like this! You're currently a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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New and Old #164
Monday, June 3, 2024
Friday roundup and commentary ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
How *Do* They Do It?
Monday, June 3, 2024
When incremental improvement yields magic ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Drinking And Driving
Thursday, May 23, 2024
What sort of activity is driving? ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
A New Top
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
What Do You Think You're Looking At? #163 ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
New Urbanism and Urbanist Media
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
The professional urbanism world needs to speak to the average American ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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