There’s a famous—to urbanists—story about Amsterdam in the 1970s. Today, Amsterdam is the poster child, almost the byword, for a quiet, clean European city that makes lots of room for pedestrians and bike riders. When people talk about “Europe” in terms of land use, they often mean, or you imagine, Amsterdam.

To the extent that the average person... See more

For decades, the automobile provided a pathway to economic opportunity and upward mobility. But now the negative consequences — including a reliance on fossil fuels and increased emissions of greenhouse gases; a dramatic increase in the rate of deaths caused by cars[x]; the disconnection of local community and weakening of local economies; the rise... See more

It would be a massive cultural and behavioural shift to radically recast the automobile as a symbol not of freedom, but of restriction.

although fewer young children die in car accidents in the U.S. now than did about half a century ago, Gill suspects that progress is partly because parents have massively restricted children’s freedoms. That trade-off results in something of a paradox: In cities full of danger, childhood can become too safe.