Back to the future

For hundreds of years people worked close to where they lived. An owner of a corner store, a barber or a butcher lived upstairs from their business. Every community had a small center with basic retail, a school, a church and doctors office within walking distance from every corner of the neighborhood. People knew their neighbors and exchanged favors to help one another. A streetcar connected neighborhoods and the town center. This lifestyle came to an end with the introduction of privately owned automobile.

In the last six decades the idea of “working and living together” has been replaced with segregating residential developments form commercial zones and from entertainment districts. This separation of uses forced us to travel between different parts of town to fulfill basic daily needs. With wide popularization of privately owned cars and decrease of investments in public transit we soon found ourselves having to drive everywhere. Nowadays, in a typical subdivision, every trip has to be made by car (buying milk, talking children to school, commuting to work.) More and more cars, traffic jams and constant congestion turned this suburban “American dream” in to an “American nightmare”. We are now learning that no matter how many more lanes we add to our highways it’s never enough and the congestion always returns multiplied by additional cars on the road.

We are also realizing how cars changed our neighborhoods and the way we build. In the last six decades our cities have been designed for movement of cars. Accommodations for acceleration and deceleration lanes, multi-lane streets and highways, drive-thru restaurants, banks and pharmacies, strip malls and parking lots are now typical development patterns. What we perceive as a lack of planning and sprawl is in fact, a very deliberate effect of zoning laws.

In this process of car-centered city planning we have managed to “engineer a sense of community out of our lifestyle” and have created an environment where it’s no longer safe to walk. Now we have to pay for gym membership in order to toddle on a treadmill while we watch epidemic of obesity grow every year. We see people become isolated in their homes and cars and we wonder about depression becoming second largest reason for disability absences from work. Children who are chauffeured around everywhere because it is not safe to ride their bikes have too much energy so we medicate them for ADHD… The addiction to mobility has caused significant damage our health and the health of our communities. The problem with cars is no longer only an issue of air pollution, energy crisis or climate change that can be fixed by an invention of the electric car. There are issues of social sustainability and public health that need immediate attention.

As architects and planners look for sustainable solutions to accommodate future growth of our cities we turn to the past and learn from those vibrant, eclectic historic neighborhoods developed before cars took over our lives. Our focus now shifts from designing cities for cars to designing cities for people. The concept of LIVABILITY is gaining more and more supporters.

Livability means pedestrian friendly wide sidewalks and street trees for shading. It means buildings pushed right against the sidewalk to create a welcoming street façade. Shops and restaurants have large windows inviting people to come in and providing safety surveillance of the street. Residential units on upper levels allow people to live close to where they work, shop and play and bring local customers to thriving neighborhood businesses.

Streets are designed to accommodate bikes, buses and cars. Children can safely bike to school and they no longer need their parents to drive them to every soccer game or a play date. Access to public transportation makes it affordable for people of all income levels to be in the community because they don’t have to own a car, so the savings of a car payment can be used towards better housing options. Busses, streetcars or a light rail allow people who cannot drive (teenagers, seniors or disabled) to move about and be a part of community thus significantly improving their lifestyle.

Green city design means learning from the past and building livable communities that significantly reduce the need for driving. Resource-responsible urban lifestyle is the answer to all three aspects of sustainability (social, economic and environmental) and is the key to a good health of individuals and our communities. New technologies (i.e. electric cars) should only supplement our efforts and cannot substitute for holistic good practices.