Just an observation, but when did towns and cities become unfriendly to humans, particularly pedestrians.
Make walkable cities and towns great again!
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Discussion
People blame cars but I think central planning did a lot of the damage. Conformance to overbearing federal standards and regulations is what designing cities from afar is, leaving out all local considerations. It turned America largely into a monotous blight that is mostly spaces not worth caring about.
James Kunstler describes it best
Agreed, central London is very walkable, it’s only the newer developments that are like this.
America started the trend, it certainly has good reason to be car centric due to the vast distances between urban areas, but why aren’t the urban areas themselves intimate and walkable.
Probably started sometime around 1971.
Now that’s an interesting date 😂
Actually I think it started in 1950's with suburbanization and the federal highway buildout.
Depends on where you’re from of course, but the answer is probably “When it became affordable for the common man to own a car”.
In Norway the answer 1971 is more accurate than 1950’s. My father grew up on a farm with horse and carriage in the 50’s. We had to wait until the 70’s and our oil rush before the common Norwegian could afford a car.
The debt based economy made it possible to buy a car with money from the future. You could even buy one for your wife and kids too. And politicians thought cars were a sign of a prosperous society, a town with a lot of cars were successful. They applauded cars in the city center, and made it worse for people on foot (or horse) to make their way around the city.
Cars are a great invention, but they also make us lazy. I love commuting to work on my bike, all year. Snow or rain never forces me to use my car. And I also prefer bike when I go to town for shopping or leisure. I only use my car for longer trips, to the mountains etc.