In the environs of Phoenix, Arizona, on a 17-acre site that once contained a car body shop and some largely derelict buildings, an unusual experiment has emerged that invites Americans to live in a way that is rare outside of fleeting experiences of college, Disneyland or trips to Europe: a walkable, human-scale community devoid of cars.
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That’s not a neighborhood that banned cars. That’s a neighborhood that was literally constructed to not accept cars inside it, which is a much bigger victory IMO. If the red tape the US has can be cut through like this more often in more places, we could reverse car-centrism in very big ways.
Somehow I expected this to be outside of the Phoenix area; like, on its own. It looks more like an excuse for a high-density living concept, and going “no cars” means not having to set aside any space for parking; you just pack more people into the same area to make more money (~$27,000/yr for a 950SF, 2 BR apartment, if you’re curious; you can’t buy here). It’s literally an apartment complex that takes up a single “block” in Tempe. I guess it will depend on how happy you are with the shops they can attract to a community with only 1500-2000 people and no parking for outside customers.
That’s a very good observation I overlooked: if no useful business opens up nearby then it’s gonna potentially suck living there. From what I’ve heard, though. There is public transit located nearby, which hopefully widens that area of utility more for those trying out the space.
Here, though there’s more than just public transit - there’s a huge shopping mall/complex just half a mile north of this area. That’s a very reasonable walking distance for nearly everyone, especially given how flat this area is. Of course, you still have to navigate 3-4 multi-lane highway crossings, but at least it’s close.
Out of curiosity, I googled how many people it takes to support a single grocery store, and the top 5-6 links appeared to suggest between 3500 and 5000 people are needed. That sounds pretty close to my town, though we have a couple of monster stores so we may be closer to 8000:1. Restaurants and bars are going to be similarly constrained, though, so the diversity of options in such a small apartment complex will probably stay on the lean side (again, given little or no on-site parking and a generally car-centric city surrounding the area).
Right wing assholes won’t move to a neighbourhood like that which is probably a factor in why people are happier.
300+ days a year of sunshine, all they need to do next is pop some solar panels up on those roofs!
You can rent a furnished studio short-term for 2 days minimum at $99/day, and you get the same transportation benefits as residents do during your stay. Honestly, I’m considering this for a vacation during the winter. This walkable community idea is fascinating to me and I want to check it out. https://culdesac.com/
Let me share a somewhat related anecdote:
I live in Portland. Bought a house two years ago (yay hyper-specialized job privileges, etc!) and chose a fixer-upper in a good neighborhood, as it was one of the only things in my budget that wasn’t way out in suburban hell. Many of my criteria for buying were just “make sure this isn’t a rotting, radioactive dump” but I did want to make sure I could get an e-bike and ride to the store eventually.
Well. The new place was actually so close to a little local grocery chain that I just had to walk two blocks to it! I was so stoked.
Then, we “managed” the way through the first year by really pinching pennies while we took care of all the critical house fixes, so we didn’t go there a lot. In reality we saved very little by doing this and wasted a ton of driving time and cost, but I did wake up and start waking to the little store more as things “stabilized.”
And then it fucking closed. The little store wasn’t bringing in enough dough to pay their criminally high rent. And so, we were stuck driving further to save a very much imaginary penny on each item we bought anyway. And you know what? I was fucking wrong. I should have been going to the little local store from day one, not to fucking winco and freddys.
I can still ride my bike to the store but it’s so much further that we can’t “just walk.” It’s either a 10m e-bike ride with a cargo basket strapped on, or a stupid 3 min car ride that sometimes takes 10mins due to traffic anyway. What a waste when we had something so much better and more walkable.
Still, can’t complain. If I had moved to suburbia biking to the store would be a stupid and suicidal joke 🤷🏻♀️
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Johnson has the mien of a tech founder, with his company logo T-shirt and fashionable glasses, and was part of the founding team of OpenDoor, an online real estate business.
The development’s buildings are a Mediterranean sugar-cube white accented with ochre, and are clustered together intimately to create inviting courtyards for social gatherings and paved – not asphalt – “paseos”, a word used in Spanish-speaking parts of the US south-west to denote plazas or walkways for strolling.
There is a small car park, although only for visitors, some disgorged by Waymo, the fleet of Google-owned driverless taxis that eerily cruise around Phoenix with their large cameras and disembodied voices to reassure passengers.
To calm any nerves about making the leap to being car-free, Culdesac has struck deals to offer money off Lyft, the ride-sharing service, and free trips on the light rail that runs past the buildings, as well as on-site electric scooters.
Culdesac can be seen, then, as not only a model for more climate-friendly housing – transportation is the US’s largest source of planet-heating emissions and, studies have shown, fuels more of the pollution causing the climate crisis – but as a way of somehow stitching back together communities that have become physically, socially and politically riven, lacking a “third place” to congregate other than dislocated homes and workplaces.
Driving to places is so established as a basic norm that deviation from it can seem not only strange, as evidenced by a lack of pedestrian infrastructure that has contributed to a surge in people dying from being hit by cars in recent years, but even somewhat sinister.
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