A good friend of mine was a senior urban planner in Amsterdam. Now she lives in LA. She showed me videos of fistfights in the streets over car space in streets (from the 70s). Amsterdam was once just as car-clogged as our US experience is now. But they reacted and pushed back, and today I think the Netherlands is the best implementation of an alternate transit model for an entire country. It's not just the big cities that are bike-friendly, the whole country is figured out, down into small villages. In North America, so much of our collective psyche is connected to cars. It is what many people think makes the US great - even though that was in the past and is now definitely dragging us down. I had a Fulbright Scholarship in Sustainable Design, and when I came to the US about 35 years ago, I quickly realized that we need a new American dream. The old one - having spread out houses in bucolic nature, away from 'the city' cannot work out for all of us. I tried to enlist Ted Turner at the time to help. We still need this new dream. It is always more effective to move toward something good, rather than run away from something bad.
Yes, but I am viewing this through a lens of needing to slow down or reverse climate change. In US cities, the average citizen has a carbon footprint about 6-8 times as high as in euro cities, and compared to Asian cities it is even worse. And that has to do with the fact that US cities are (mostly) built for cars and European cities are (mostly) built for people. And it would be wrong to simply focus on driving or not driving, it is the urban fabric that promotes one over the other. So, building better cities is now simply an urgent actions that can guarantuee our survival. BTW - a lot of people always point to asian cities as being even more efficient. And that may be true. But the mentality towards individuals in Asian cities is not something I could see Americans embrace. They have strict behavioral codes and habits that make their living together in tight spaces possible. Americans would not succeed in those cities, as a whole. But I think Americans could exist in European type cities, with way fewer cars.
Copenhagen is a great example of a culture shift. They didn't start riding bikes to save the planet. They confronted traffic deaths & injuries and considered all sorts of ways to promote human flourishing. Making cycling convenient shifted behavior. In the case of mobility, when the healthy choice is an easy choice, surprise surprise, people pick it. :)
Perfect analogy. The resistance to change in the face of overwhelming evidence how great change can be is unbelievable. I initiated a trip for CA lawmakers to Vienna, to study their very successful housing model. Between the lines, I also had an intention to expose them to the real city that works fantastically well. But even there, Americans resisted. For instance, although it is usually quicker to take public transit when moving around the city, they still insisted on car transportation. sigh!
The resistance can be maddening until you realize many people simply will not consider if their worldview is out of whack. When you expect people to remain in their cave, it's extra fun when someone ventures out. :)
A good friend of mine was a senior urban planner in Amsterdam. Now she lives in LA. She showed me videos of fistfights in the streets over car space in streets (from the 70s). Amsterdam was once just as car-clogged as our US experience is now. But they reacted and pushed back, and today I think the Netherlands is the best implementation of an alternate transit model for an entire country. It's not just the big cities that are bike-friendly, the whole country is figured out, down into small villages. In North America, so much of our collective psyche is connected to cars. It is what many people think makes the US great - even though that was in the past and is now definitely dragging us down. I had a Fulbright Scholarship in Sustainable Design, and when I came to the US about 35 years ago, I quickly realized that we need a new American dream. The old one - having spread out houses in bucolic nature, away from 'the city' cannot work out for all of us. I tried to enlist Ted Turner at the time to help. We still need this new dream. It is always more effective to move toward something good, rather than run away from something bad.
Yes, but I am viewing this through a lens of needing to slow down or reverse climate change. In US cities, the average citizen has a carbon footprint about 6-8 times as high as in euro cities, and compared to Asian cities it is even worse. And that has to do with the fact that US cities are (mostly) built for cars and European cities are (mostly) built for people. And it would be wrong to simply focus on driving or not driving, it is the urban fabric that promotes one over the other. So, building better cities is now simply an urgent actions that can guarantuee our survival. BTW - a lot of people always point to asian cities as being even more efficient. And that may be true. But the mentality towards individuals in Asian cities is not something I could see Americans embrace. They have strict behavioral codes and habits that make their living together in tight spaces possible. Americans would not succeed in those cities, as a whole. But I think Americans could exist in European type cities, with way fewer cars.
Copenhagen is a great example of a culture shift. They didn't start riding bikes to save the planet. They confronted traffic deaths & injuries and considered all sorts of ways to promote human flourishing. Making cycling convenient shifted behavior. In the case of mobility, when the healthy choice is an easy choice, surprise surprise, people pick it. :)
Perfect analogy. The resistance to change in the face of overwhelming evidence how great change can be is unbelievable. I initiated a trip for CA lawmakers to Vienna, to study their very successful housing model. Between the lines, I also had an intention to expose them to the real city that works fantastically well. But even there, Americans resisted. For instance, although it is usually quicker to take public transit when moving around the city, they still insisted on car transportation. sigh!
The resistance can be maddening until you realize many people simply will not consider if their worldview is out of whack. When you expect people to remain in their cave, it's extra fun when someone ventures out. :)