The Deleted Scenes - What We Mean By "Open Streets"
Washington, D.C. and many other cities around the world participate in a program called “Open Streets.” That entails closing the streets temporarily—mostly on designated weekend days—to automobile traffic. Oh, so you close the street and then call it ‘open’? Nice anti-car propaganda! Not quite. The point is that by closing the street to cars—which, love them or hate them, do tend to dominate the spaces they’re in—you open it to all the other things streets can be used for. You turn them from places to move through to places to stop. You make them places. The D.C. official page for the program describes it like this:
Semi-relatedly, I saw this in Old Town Alexandria in late August: If you think this is a scheme to lay the groundwork for taking our cars away, look at the partners: I can promise you the state DOTs are not trying to take people’s cars away! But I do wonder which of these is a better rhetorical way to get people to consider temporarily ditching their cars (and maybe realize that they like intentionally doing that once in awhile). I tend to think “Enjoy your streets in a new way!” is more enticing than literally saying “Hey, give up driving for a day, like it’s secular Lent and driving is a minor vice.” (I mean, I believe driving can be a vice, but I don’t think that’s very likely to be good communication.) A little bit below I’m going to show you a few more pictures from the street festival in D.C. that I wrote about the other day, where the world record was set for the largest pupusa ever cooked. It was so cool to watch the traffic lights cycling, and yet to barely even be able to identify the intersection. It was so cool to see the Capitol rising over such a lively street scene—like seeing a deeply familiar place from a different perspective. I have to say, it feels a little bit like you’re getting away with something—like the appeal isn’t enjoying the street life per se, but doing something you’re not quite allowed to do. It reminds me of the Sip & Stroll event I wrote about recently, a program in my hometown where one night a month you can walk around the street with a beer. I wonder how much of the appeal is just the sense of being able to take part in what feels like a light, harmless transgression? But that’s the thing—walking around in the street, taking in the sights, engaging in commerce—these aren’t transgressive. There’s this sort of rarely quite articulated idea that cars are the normal, the baseline, and what we urbanists want is to overturn the normal—that urbanism isn’t about cities or land use or the built environment, but about a war on normalcy. That it’s a sort of special interest for a certain kind of unserious, dilettantish, immature person. I think a lot of people who know very little about all of this implicitly think something like that. The point I’m always trying to make is that we today call “urbanism” is normalcy. The car overturned our relationship with public space. It changed our relationship with places. The car is excellent for traversing distances, but it is far less appropriate in cities. This newfangled “Open Streets” stuff is about reestablishing the full range of things that urban streets are for. Let me show you a picture from the early 1900s, from this blog post. Where do you think it was taken? This is Richmond, Virginia, during a market day. Now tell me how that is fundamentally different from this: I’m going to leave you with something else I wrote recently:
This is the reason. Being there, with people, in a place you know or are discovering, is the reason. Related Reading: “Streets Closed to Vehicular Traffic” Expressway Is As Expressway Does Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only piece, plus full access to the archive: over 1,100 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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A Tale of Two Towns
Monday, October 7, 2024
Why are the two small towns where I grew up so different? ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
America
Saturday, October 5, 2024
Images of us ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
New and Old #182
Friday, October 4, 2024
Friday roundup and commentary ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Sip And Stroll At The Same Time
Thursday, October 3, 2024
I finally participated in one of my hometown's economic revitalization activities ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Almost The Same
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
What Do You Think You're Looking At? #182 ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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