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On Thursday I had the privilege of attending a lecture hosted by the Canadian Urban Institute. Gil Penalosa of Walk and Bike for Life gave an exceptional talk about the link between health, economy, and a city's treatment of cyclists and pedestrians. If you ever have the opportunity to hear Gil speak, go.
Maybe it's because I've been a pedestrian- and bicycle-commuter since the age of six, or maybe it was the master's thesis I wrote in neighbourhood planning and community design, but I thought a lot of what was presented was common knowledge. Obviously it's not common enough yet. It's abysmal how one simple important fact is often overlooked or disregarding in city policy-making and land development: great places are those that prioritise walking over driving.
Places built with cars as the priority are terrible places for people. I could list a ton of references that prove this. But, unless you're into Nascar, you can probably prove this yourself by opening your photo album from that vacation you took. I'll bet you went to a beach or market or piazza or bazaar, not a parking lot or express-way. There's a lot of places where people love to spend hours or days walking around or just hanging out, but everyone fights for the parking spaces closest to the mall entrance. Even if it doesn't register consciously, people hate being in parking lots. Why? They are usually way too hot or too cold, offer no visual interest, no places to sit, nothing to eat. They are just not suitable human habitat.
Obviously we need some modes of transportation, and a car can be a handy tool at times, but look around and ask yourself if where you are treats you as a person or a driver, and how good it feels to be there. Maybe real life is not like the car commercials promise.
This isn't hippy bullshit, this is hard-core economic reality. I can't help but laugh at ignorant shop-keepers who lobby against the proposal of car-free districts. Businesses thrive when streets are opened to pedestrians only. This has been proven in cities all over the world including parts of Vancouver, Toronto, Melbourne, Portland, Copenhagen, and most everywhere else it's been tried. To quote the immortal words of sociologist William H. Whyte, "What attracts people most is other people."
The places where people like to spend their time are not places where driving is the focus. Even shopping malls have gotten this mostly right, in an insipid, bastardised, commercial way. Sadly, in North America there are people who drive to the mall just to go for a walk. This is a testament to how screwed-up things have gotten and how badly our cities have dealt with public spaces in the last 60 years, and how far we have to go.
But things are getting better. So again, look around and ask yourself if you are being treated like a person or a driver and how it feels to be there. This is an important sense to develop as it will play into all kinds of aspects of your life from the strength of your real estate investments, to how clean our air is and how bad our climate gets, your health, and how safe your kids are.
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