Is suburban America ready to go car-free?

Density and transit a must

Wendy Natt, May 13, 09.

Several urban planners, developers, and other experts comment in a New York Times blog on the likeliest prospects for car-free suburban communities in the US, and what would be required for - and what impediments there would be to - the development of a suburban culture without any of the driving.

One “experiment” in car-free community planning in Germany seems to be successful, according to a recent New York Times article. Cars are essentially forbidden from the streets of the upscale German suburb of Vauban, developed in 2006, but that’s why people live there - to enjoy a lifestyle and a community in which driving is unnecessary, and freedom from creates safe, clean, peaceful, and attractive neighborhoods. Residents are allowed to own cars, but those who do must purchase garage space on the edge of town for $40,000.

Consequently, the article notes, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold their cars before moving there. Homes are built in a rowhouse style, or as low-rise apartment buildings, and are designed to be highly energy efficient. Critically, every home is located within easy walking distance of a tram stop, and bicycle and pedestrian routes are the primary roadways.

In response to the Vauban story and the question “Can the majority of Americans, who live in suburban places, begin to imagine life without cars?,” Yale professor of architecture and urbanism, Dolores Hayden, points to pre-World War II planned communities in the US that were designed as walkable, transit-oriented, complete neighborhoods:

The answer lies in imagining new suburbs with better land use as well as better public transportation.

New suburban neighborhoods that might be less reliant on cars would need to include varied types of residences, good schools, parks, playgrounds, convenient shopping, a variety of jobs and public transportation. Indeed, they might resemble the kinds of places Americans planned back in the New Deal era, the 1930s, when Greenbelt, Md., was built by the federal government as a model suburban town, complete with housing, town center, schools, recreational facilities and parks.

While most of the blog commenters agree that a completely car-free society would be an unrealistic, impractical goal, as most people at some point do need access to an automobile, they also agree that there are several major ways in which smart planning can greatly reduce the need for cars and the number of people driving them. Christopher Leinberger of the Brookings Institution notes that it’s basically a matter of giving the market what it truly wants, a list that includes:

• More rail transit and bike and walking infrastructure
• Legal permission to build higher-density, multiuse projects (generally, walkable urban development is illegal in the U.S.)
• Management of these places to insure cleanliness and safety, and promote festivals and infrastructure
• Affordable housing programs to insure inclusiveness since these places tend to be the most expensive places to live and work on a price-per-square-foot basis

J.H. Crawford, author of “Carfree Cities” and “Carfree Design Manual” does believe that in America communities without cars are possible. That they haven’t happened yet, he says, “is mainly a failure of imagination.” He says that in order to attain the kind of carefree, tranquil living that communities without cars bring - he looks to several European cities and US neighborhoods as examples - moderately high density, local shops and services, and good public transit are essential.

(Photo from NYT article: In German Suburb, Life Goes On Without Cars)

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