
What Happens to Kid Culture When Streets Are Closed to Cars - anonymfus
https://www.citylab.com/design/2018/11/car-free-pedestrianization-made-pontevedra-spain-kid-friendly/576268/
======
ashton314
I lived in Germany for two years without a car. The public transportation
there was amazing—I learned to appreciate how little I needed a car, provided
the infrastructure was good enough/I had a bike.

In many cities there's a "Fußgängerzone": pedestrian-only areas; these were
mostly found in the city center where the streets and shops are too dense to
allow much traffic. I remember specifically in Frankfurt am Main and Göttingen
that the biggest shopping centers were located within this zone. Didn't seem
to be hurting their business.

The Fußgängerzonen seemed _alive_ , much more so than sterile car-optimized
streets.

~~~
manmal
In the place where I live (Austria, town with 30k residents), the
Fußgängerzone in the center is currently dying. Shops close left and right,
and migrate to the three big shopping centers. This town is a strange mix
because almost everybody needs to own a car (bus system is underdeveloped) to
take kids to school or shop groceries, but the town itself is not that big (a
lot of places are reachable by bike). Most people rather use the newly
rebuilt, comfortable malls with free parking and major brand chains over the
harder-to-reach-by-car town center with parking fees and mom-and-pop stores.

The administration is taking desperate measures now, trying to keep shops from
closing by promising funding etc, but it turns out the big malls made
exclusive deals with brands and there’s not much anyone can do.

I guess Fußgängerzonen only work with an intact public transport system that
people can rely on and that won’t take you thrice as long to get there.

~~~
oska
Why do parents feel the need to take children to school in a small town in a
very safe country? Why can't they ride a bike or walk?

~~~
reitanqild
In the winter it is too slippery for bikes and it sometimes gets biting cold -
or worse IMO: cold, wet and windy.

We pay for bus for our 3 oldest kids in the winter.

Also wolves are returningnin some parts of Europe and while people say wolves
are so shy and afraid of humans I understand extremely well why parents don't
risk _their_ kids in an experiment to see if the predator that lives off moose
actually is afraid of children or not.

~~~
williamdclt
That's the first time I hear that parents take their children to school
because they're afraid of _wolves_

~~~
freedomben
In my town in Alaska a couple years ago we had a school child get mauled to
death by a bear. In some parts of the world, man is still part of the natural
eco-system and food chain.

------
unclesams-uncle
Barcelona is an interesting case study. The city is currently re-doing some of
the city's grid neighborhoods into superblocks. The concept is that for every
9 blocks, the interior roads get shut to traffic save for emergency and
service vehicles.

Inside, the previously 3-lane streets get transformed into pedestrian avenues
with vegetation, play equipment and benches/tables for the residents.

The contrast between traffic-filled streets and urban tranquility couldn't be
starker.

Then there are neighborhoods like Gracia that largely closed off its streets
to traffic. Going there is like escaping to a village within the city.

Finally, the city puts a huge effort into building dedicated bike lanes,
usually at the expense of a car lane. They're also rolling out a new shared
biking system, which will combine electric and traditional bikes in the same
system.

It helps that the city has mild winters and 300+ days of sunshine a year, but
in any case, they're definitely leading the way for large urban areas to give
the city back the people.

------
kingo55
I live in St Kilda, Australia and our council recently changed one of our
iconic streets to almost exclusively be for pedestrians and trams.

Businesses protested for months about potential lost business, however as a
resident I feel so much safer walking down the street. It feels like foot
traffic has increased there, too. It's such an improvement.

I also like to think tunnels to apartment buildings could help us take more
cars of the road and create more green spaces for people in the future.

~~~
reaperducer
_our council recently changed one of our iconic streets to almost exclusively
be for pedestrians and trams._

For whatever it's worth, Chicago tried both of these things, and they didn't
work out.

The main shopping drag, State Street, was pedestrianized in 1979. You can see
it for a few seconds in the film _National Lampoon 's Christmas Vacation_. It
didn't work. It was re-opened to traffic in 1996, and is now far more vibrant
than it used to be (though, with a number of other contributing factors since
nothing exists in a vacuum in a large city).[1]

Maybe people weren't ready for that in the 1980's, though the region has a
number of outdoor shopping malls, in spite of its cold weather.

 _I also like to think tunnels to apartment buildings could help us take more
cars of the road and create more green spaces for people in the future._

Again, Chicago did this. 40 city blocks are linked underground (and a few via
bridges). I like the Pedway, but it's mostly vacant space, sleeping homeless
people, and bad smells.[2] Except for rush hours, it's pretty much derelict.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Street_(Chicago)#State_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Street_\(Chicago\)#State_Street_shopping)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pedway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pedway)

~~~
wenc
I think the right conditions have to exist for pedestrianization (don't ask me
what they are -- I have an intuition about them but can't really articulate
them). Lincoln Square for instance would a great candidate for
pedestrianization -- lots of nice little shops in a high density location.

As for the Pedway, one of problems is like most underground walkways,
navigation is difficult. There's no official map that tells you what
destinations you can reach and how to reach them. You can't navigate with
Google Maps, and signage is poor to non-existent. Also, most areas of the
Pedway are quiet, secluded and feel unsafe. My sense is that the Pedway was
designed for hyperlocalized usage (moving from one building to the next) and
not as a network of passages.

~~~
IshKebab
I think they're pretty obvious. Either you need good public transport (New
York, London, etc.) or you need a lot of reasonably priced parking near the
pedestrianised zone (Bristol, Ipswich, etc.)

There are some special cases - tourist / student towns, but I think the gist
is that people need to be able to get there.

------
baxtr
I don’t get why cities are built around cars. As much as I love to jump into
my car right outside my house, I’d love it even more when there was no car
sound in the streets and children could safely walk everywhere. In densely
populated cities cars should be banned outside of major roads

~~~
robertAngst
This was brought up in Adam Ruins Everything, and his Automotive episode was
so misleading that I don't trust anything he says.

>I don’t get why cities are built around cars.

Sure there is a fantasy that we could have cities that don't require roads.
However our modern 5,000,000 population Metro areas wouldnt exist. Instead
housing prices would skyrocket, and the lowest income people would be forced
to live in rural areas.

> In densely populated cities cars should be banned outside of major roads

>I’d love it even more when there was no car sound

These are short sighted.

EDIT: I'm sorry to kill the fantasy, but wouldnt you rather hear why an idea
doesnt work? Or maybe this is another case of 10%ers that care more about
quiet streets than societal impact.

~~~
hannasanarion
You assume the issue is binary: cars or no cars. Nobody is asking for no cars.
We want _less_ cars.

Right now, cars are first class citizens in every American city. Motorists get
what they want, and walkers, cyclists, and transport users get what's left
over.

It doesn't have to be that way. European cities get by fine without cars in
city centers.

Do you _really_ need a car to get to work in midtown Manhattan? Why are the 2
subway systems with stops every 5th block, 3 rail systems, and 2 bus systems
that serve it not good enough? Do you really need 6 car lanes on 6th Ave while
cyclists fear for their lives in the traffic and pedestrians smoosh on the
sidewalks?

~~~
Toutou
> European cities get by fine without cars in city centers.

Where did you get that from? Some of them, sometimes, with exceptions, with
mixed success. Certainly not Prague (which is where I live). The public
transport system is absolutely fantastic, but as of now it's at 100 % capacity
(locally) and the city center is still full of cars. People need to move
stuff, plumbers, electricians can't haul their tools around in a bag, the
streets need to remain perfectly accessible for ambulances and firetrucks.

Don't forget that most European cities are hundreds of years old, built on
river banks, rocks, hills, the complete opposite of most US cities.

~~~
hannasanarion
> Don't forget that most European cities are hundreds of years old, built on
> river banks, rocks, hills, the complete opposite of most US cities.

What, do you think that North America is a minecraft flatworld? Plenty of
American cities are built on variable terrain. The city I live in, Weehawken
(Lenape for "rocks bigger than trees"), is bisected by a 300 foot sheer cliff
called "The Palisade" because it looks like a castle wall. You have to take an
elevator or a long staircase if you want to get uptown.

The only US cities designed from the ground up with cars in mind are in the
western desert valleys where nobody could reasonably live until air
conditioning was invented: Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles. Many German cities
were being rebuilt almost from scratch at the same time. Munich, Frankfurt,
Hamburg, Dresden, and Berlin all had to be almost completely replaced. Their
maps were redrawn with cars in mind, and they managed to stay largely
walkable.

Meanwhile, London has roughly the same transit woes as New York. Was London
founded after the invention of the car? No! Unlike the planners of Munich and
Dresden and Hamburg, London's rebuilders after the war prioritized automobiles
over people, and it shows.

New York got its modern street layout in 1807, the same year Napoleon
conquered Bohemia, and I'm pretty certain he didn't enter Prague in an open-
top car.

Car-centric city planning isn't a natural phenomenon, it is an intentional
choice, and it can be undone at any time.

------
dba7dba
Few years ago I visited a large apartment complex about 30 minutes south of
Seoul in South Korea. The complex has Dozens of 30+ stories high apartment
buildings. Assuming 30 stories high, 8 units per floor, and 25 buildings, we
are talking about 6000 units. The unit I visited had 4 bedrooms. Despite such
a high concentration of population, the complex itself felt like it was in the
country side.

The key factor was underground parking (resident and visitor), with entrance
to the underground parking connecting directly with the road. Within the
complex are streets for cars with sidewalks like normal street, but strictly
for emergency vehicles and moving trucks.

As I walked around the complex day and night, I couldn't believe the peace and
calm I sensed as there were no cars moving around me. I kept looking around as
I crossed the street as a reflex, but there were no cars to worry about.

~~~
jniedrauer
A few weeks ago, I looked at a large number of cities and their surrounding
suburbs using google earth in VR. It was extremely interesting to see the
different styles of building cities.

Soviet bloc countries really built their infrastructure with brutal efficiency
in mind. Huge populations in tall, mathematical buildings with lots of open
space between them. Almost like someone copy-pasted a few buildings into the
middle of the wilderness.

To me it looks like the new infrastructure in countries like South Korea or
Japan is an evolution of that, although the buildings look a lot less
foreboding than Soviet buildings do. In between them you still get the sense
that you're out in the country. It's deceptive because once you fly up (in
VR), you can see a sea of buildings going all the way to the horizon.

Compared to the population centers of American cities, which look like
irregularly shaped sand dunes made out of shingles as far as the eye can see.

Suburbs in the UK are similar to the American ones, except that the houses are
all very neatly aligned on a grid with less space between them and the streets
are often one way streets with parking on the curb.

Suburbs in Nordic countries are made of small, taller houses. Each floor looks
only big enough for 1 or 2 rooms, but the houses are 2-4 stories tall. It
looks really cozy.

If you have the hardware and a few hours to kill, I strongly recommend trying
this. Tokyo is just jaw dropping. It's on an unimaginable scale compared to
other cities around the world.

------
ajuc
My city (Lublin, Poland - about 350 000 people) is doing something similar (if
not on this scale).

They introduced long pedestrian street in one of the busiest streets in city
center in 90s, it worked pretty well - created lots of restaurants, clubs and
shops.

In 00s-10s some of them failed (I blame internet shopping and malls in the
outskirts), especially the shops, and mostly banks and mobile phone booths
replace them. But the restaurants and clubs remain, and the street is very
pleasant, always full of people. It helps that Lublin is an university city
(about 20% of population are students).

Recently the city created some more pedestrian streets, invested into biking
infrastructure (lots of bike routes, city-funded bike rental system). It's OK,
but the city is on hills so biking is quite demanding, mostly young people do
it.

Also the public transit is very nice in the city centre, but there are no
trams, only trolleybuses and regular buses (because hills). So - public
transit waits in traffic jams just like cars.

There's one night each summer when they turn big part of the city center into
pedestrian area, put artificial grass on many streets, people sunbathe there.
It changes the city completely. I know it's not realistic to make it
permanent, but it's so nice.

------
thomasfl
According to Richard Branson “Clients do not come first. Employees come first.
If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” The
same goes for cities. Take care of the citizens, and the citizens will take
care of business.

Removing parking may be bad for local shops in the short run, but good for the
citizens and the city in the long run.

~~~
lotsofpulp
That's only true in some instances for some combination of high margin, not
easily reproducible, or low volume products that serve wealthy purchasers.

The reason Walmart killed everyone was because purchasers valued saving a few
dollars rather than being taken care of by employees. Similarly with airlines,
which Branson wasn’t really able to expand beyond the wealthy NYC-LA-SF
routes.

~~~
electric_muse
Another reason Walmart killed it was because they offered more convenience at
a lower cost. That’s what people choose.

It’s also why people choose vehicles over public transit: point-to-point
convenience for comparable prices to stringing together public transit and car
services to get around.

------
throwawaysea
You can also have more parks and fields that are well-maintained and available
in proportions appropriate to the local population (i.e. not held at existing
supply through density changes). It is a false dichotomy to suggest we have to
choose between kids playing outside and having streets for transportation.

Not to mention that anyone who grew up pre-Internet or pre-smartphones knows
that the real barriers to kids playing outside are more cultural/societal.

~~~
glangdale
I think the ability to _get_ to the parks and fields without parental
intervention is important in itself. I live in a neighborhood in Sydney where
many of our streets are traffic sewers that people blast through at amazing
(relatively speaking) speeds. As a large, visible adult, I walk the dog every
day and 1-2 times out of 10 some idiot on a street 50m from my house doesn't
know what the rules on a crosswalk are. People love to go on tirades about
helicopter parents but given the quality of driving (also something that seems
to have taken a hit from "Internet and smartphones") they haven't spent too
much time thinking about the implications of what it's like to be an impulsive
kid who will be mostly invisible stepping out behind a car, in a world where a
lot of drivers are impatient and distracted.

There's a huge change in the vibe of having older kids (who can, despite the
roads, go out and freely interact with their peers) and younger kids who
aren't sensible enough to deal with the streets (and yes, this isn't just
paranoia, we had a couple bad incidents in the peer group).

It's not an either/or with the Internet/smartphones, either. I think there's a
lot of interaction between these factors ("kids go out less because
games/internet are so compelling" vs "kids spend long hours on devices because
they are stuck at home") in both directions.

~~~
throwawaysea
That seems to me like a different problem (one of education or enforcement of
traffic laws), although I acknowledge that a middle ground helps. I have not
had the same experience as you where I am - maybe that is because we have
traffic signals in some places, or crosswalks with flashing lights in others,
or more courteous drivers for the rest of it (unmarked crossings), but I
definitely feel plenty safe walking around.

I also wanted to add one more thought: kids are a lot more capable than
parents give them credit for. This underestimation of kids' abilities is
particularly prevalent in modern Western societies - if you travel to less
developed nations, young children are able to successfully navigate complex
cities with much more unforgiving streets unsupervised, with confidence.

~~~
whatshisface
> _That seems to me like a different problem (one of education or enforcement
> of traffic laws), although I acknowledge that a middle ground helps._

The choice boils down to a dense, very large police force, versus streets
designed to make good behavior natural. The latter can be a lot cheaper (and
will involve many fewer tickets) than the former.

~~~
mschuster91
> and will involve many fewer tickets

Given that many cities and police forces _rely_ on traffic fines (and in the
US, on civil forfeiture), the choice for city governments is skewed towards
more enforcement...

~~~
nicoburns
There's no reason why this couldn't be replaced by tax revenue though. I know
I'd vote for a tax to fund police if it was explicitly stated that this would
allow them to stop picking people up on petty crimes.

------
b3b0p
I live downtown Minneapolis and live near Nicollet Mall [0]. Which only allows
pedestrians and busses. It's quite nice. They put out chairs for people to sit
on and at times have things like a connect four and corn hole games. There is
a regular farmers market that happens also.

I love how safe it feels. It's almost like a giant side walk. I'm always
surprised that the chairs don't get stolen. I walk down it multiple times a
day usually (unless I take the Skyway because of weather).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicollet_Mall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicollet_Mall)

~~~
unclesams-uncle
In Amsterdam, the corn hole games are limited to a few car-free streets
directly outside of the main train station.

------
crankylinuxuser
Yeah, they're doing this plan to Evansville, IN. And it's one hell of a job.
They've killed downtown, since there's no 'outer areas' to park. Sidewalks are
in complete disarray, and cars still zoom on past.

But the center areas where there are no cars also is set up for no people to
move about. The road ledges are still there, so handicapped people cant just
use their wheelchairs. It's the worst of both worlds.

~~~
glangdale
It's possible to do this well and badly. Bad iterations of this feel like
urban renewal - like those horrifying stunts they pulled in the 70s where they
closed half the streets in a given area, put huge ring roads around the area,
and then wondered why a urban paradise didn't spontaneously spring into being.

It needs to be done along with public transit (usually the missing link it the
US and Australia) and a reasonable attitude to deliveries and whatever parking
needs remain.

~~~
erklik
> Australia

As an anecdote, close to where I live is a suburb called Wellard. They
basically have a small shopping district (One Woolies, Subway, Pizza shop,
Cafe, Postie etc) right next to the train station. In fact, walking out of the
train station, you're bound to walk through the shopping area as that's sort
of the way people walk to get to their houses. Its kinda perfect position.

What they did was to simply make it that street between the shops is closed to
cars on the weekends. Its an amazing place during that time, and allow people
to set up stalls in the parking lots around the road. Its an awesome place to
just sit and talk on a weekend. The parking is behind the shops so its not
like one can't get there on a car either.

The speed on the road during normal days is also something like 20-30km/hr and
they have that brick-like road which means driving your car fast on the road
isn't that fun.

------
njarboe
What I find funny is that the American mall that so many people disparage
(like citylab) is a place where the streets are closed to cars. Cars are not
really the problem and people should really stop focusing on this object as
the reason of so many social problems that exist. The car is used by
individual people and families to somewhat mitigate these large scale
problems.

Lots of cool main streets have cars going through them. It is just the post
war, huge road, big-box chain stores that suck. Maybe we need to go back to
where a corporation is only allowed to form (get a charter) if it is planning
on doing something that takes a lot of people and capital to execute. Like
building an airplane, or a car, or a computer chip, not anything like a retail
store. Leave that to the sole proprietor. We don't need corporations, and all
its inhumanity, to run burger joints.

~~~
asdff
At a given mall, quite a lot of property is devoted to surface lots which go
unused from 10pm-10am, not great for a growing urban environment! The problem
with cars is how inefficient they are just from the physics of them.

A given car is maybe 3000lbs. A person is maybe 150lbs. 95% of the gas you
pump into your car goes to just moving around this hunk of metal wherever you
go. And then you gotta have an empty 18'x9' spot available wherever you are
going? How many 25lb bird scooters can you pile up in that spot? Even self-
driving cars aren't going to solve the issues with wasting energy and space
for the two tonnes-or-so hunk of metal that you require to deliver you door to
door on demand. Try to have a horse pull you around town in a tesla, and it
would die.

------
Gibbon1
This reminds me of a dead end alley in San Francisco where the residents got
the city to allow them to install a gate.

Suddenly you can allow your four year old to go out the front door by
themself.

------
labster
Of course, this could never happen in the United States. A friend of mine, a
single mother, was arrested and charged for letting her kids play without an
adult present in the park across the street from her apartment. There are lots
of scary people with guns out there, you see. If only it was possible to do
something about that.

~~~
mcv
I've heard more stories about kids in the US not being allowed to play
outside. Of all the bizarre stories I read about life in the US, this one is
still the most baffling to me.

------
twodave
I wish my city was more livable without a car, but we have more land area than
London with 1/4 the population density. The only way to get anywhere is by
taking the interstate highways that pass through the middle or else circle
around the outside highway. This is Jacksonville, FL.

There are some pockets that are walkable and safe, but nothing at scale.

------
geebee
Over here in San Francisco, I find the problem isn't so much cars as curb
cuts. "Curb cuts" are those little sections of the curb that are cut out so
that cars can drive over the cross walk to get to driveways and garages.

[https://ggwash.org/view/673/the-san-francisco-way-curb-
cuts](https://ggwash.org/view/673/the-san-francisco-way-curb-cuts)

[https://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-
article/2008-06-0...](https://www.spur.org/publications/urbanist-
article/2008-06-01/eye-street)

------
Annatar
There is one major reason why this isn't practical in the United States yet:
Europe has a well developed, often tax payer or state subsidised public
transport network. Americans don't have that at scale: they must use their
cars to go to work, else they cannot work. Solve the problem of public
transport first. You can start with tax payers' funding and move on to a
purely for-profit, no subsidies model gradually by incremental optimisation.

~~~
ndnxhs
A lot of Americans I have spoken to have the opinion that public transport is
only for homeless people and is always slow and dirty.

~~~
Annatar
That is because that is currently the reality. The buses are dirty and with
exceptions here and there, mostly poor or the working poor ride them. The
system is currently inefficient and focused purely on profit. Since there is
usually a monopoly on regional public transit, the reality is exactly what
other people told you. I myself rode the intercity bus for a year and half
when I was a poor hungry student, although that was several decades ago, but
not much has changed since then. Monopoly and lack of public awareness and
activism does that.

That doesn't mean that the perception cannot be changed, or that the reality
cannot be changed. People have to demand it and it will start somewhere. Small
steps. Incremental optimisations.

------
Theodores
I don't drive but I am into electric cars. I was in a ICE car over Christmas
on a drive across country to see some relatives. We went through a local town
that I didn't value much when I was growing up, with 'fresh eyes' I think I
could see what the problem was, and it wasn't the car. The pollution is the
real problem why people shun the street in front of their door. This pollution
being the fumes and the noise.

With electric cars there is no reason why we can't get our streets back and
for not just kids but for everyone to start to be part of their local
community, not just hiding behind doors, curtains closed, putting up with
where they live instead of enjoying it.

We have 20 mph city speed zones which are great. But when cars are noisy and
polluting these streets are far from tranquil. The dirt from automotive isn't
just the smog that comes out of exhaust pipes, there is also brake wear and
the micro-particles that come from that. We have ended up with cities that are
toxic to plant life as a consequence of this.

With cars that can float along on electric power we need not close off our
streets, we need not even banish traffic jams.

Bus transport also needs a bit of work, with electric power they can be the
modern transport that people deserve, not these noisy things that vibrate and
feel hellish inside. We want the bus to be nice to be on, particularly for
those with pushchairs, wheelchairs, kids in tow.

Yet we have an old population of people who seem to have a fetish of loud
exhausts, V8 engines, turbo engines and this fuddy-duddy idea that electric
will never replace these naff petrol and diesel engines. Hopefully these
people will die off soon and Chinese electric cars will show Western auto
makers how to make a car properly.

~~~
autokad
as an extensive walker, car fumes are never a problem for me.

usually the biggest problems are lack of mixed zoning and really wide streets
which leads to very long walking distances.

~~~
aga98mtl
Diesel car fumes smell bad. It's not an issue in Canada/USA because only
bigger trucks use diesel. However, many European cities are full of diesel
cars and polluting mopeds.

------
Markoff
this would be great, cars are the only reason why i would be afraid to let my
child go by himself to kindergarten/school

------
electric_muse
I had a university professor in the transportation department (technically
“Operations Research”) who used to joke that transportation policy was mainly
receptive to emotional arguments about children. “We should increase
investment in autonomous vehicles. But, oh! The children!” He would cry out in
class, making all the students chuckle. I thought he was joking! Reading
through the article and the comments, I think he may not have been joking, but
merely wryly cynical after many years of trying to research and advocate.

------
raldi
Meanwhile, whenever the subject comes up in San Francisco, everyone trots out
the excuse that "families with children need the city to be car-friendly".

(I've never met a kid who didn't love riding buses and trains.)

------
ummonk
This is unexpected but great!

Here in the Bay Area suburbs, cul-de-sacs seem to be always be deserted, which
is so unlike what it was when I was growing up. Kids seem to be almost
exclusively interacting indoors / online.

------
justtopost
Nothing happens if you keep them inside feeding their tiktok and fortnite
addictions. I can't even recall the last time I broke up a hockey or
streetball game driving through neighborhoods.

~~~
Qwertystop
A large reason kids play Fortnite is because it provides a space to socialize
- it's a lot harder for kids to get anywhere without a parent driving, these
days, and the parents are a lot less likely to leave the kids unattended,
which tends to put a damper on things. Even malls often try to discourage
crowds of teens, if you can even get there without a drive.

~~~
justtopost
If you think fortnite is healthy socializing, i cant argue. I do not agree in
the slightest.

~~~
TulliusCicero
That's very obviously not what they were saying. You sound like you're stuck
on a point you want to make about "damn kids playing Fortnite" and not
bothering to listen.

------
bytematic
One of my favorite streets in Madison, WI is no car traffic. Really great for
business, getting across town, and general atmosphere.

------
rememberbitcoin
I feel really bad for the children who seem to grow up in the backseat of some
monstrous luxury SUV. I can't imagine it leads to the best types of citizens.

~~~
staplers
You can spot a few in this thread..

------
TylerE
This stream of "cars are the devil" articles from citylab is growing rather
monotonous.

