The City and Country Story

This is the first story to get down to specific prescriptions for action, and this series - D1 through D4 - deals with one of our most difficult challenges. In brief, we have built our cities to suit travel in automobiles, or, to be blunt, we have built for what suits General Motors, and are discovering that what was good for General Motors was not necessarily good for people, planet, and overall prosperity.

The problem is critical: If everyone on Earth drove a car - and many want to, including those in developing countries looking to follow our example - we are literally doomed. In fact, there is not enough land on the planet now to grow enough biofuel for the existing cars, never mind millions upon millions of new ones. Already, corn prices in Mexico are shooting up - and hungry and angry demonstrators are taking to the streets - because Americans can afford to pay more to fuel their cars than many Mexicans can afford to pay to feed their children.

As if that wasn't problem enough, the carbon dioxide spewed by cars and trucks is a major contributor to the climate crisis. There are many other issues: auto accidents kill and maim countless people each year; pollution from vehicle exhausts, especially diesel, causes health problems, premature deaths, and severe smog. Roads cover valuable farmland; parking lots cover valuable city property; paying auto-related costs (loans and leases, insurance, maintenance) takes money that could go to other things; people waste endless hours commuting to and from work, and so on. And I haven't even mentioned wars to control the supply of oil, a resource that will run out someday.

This is not the path to peace in this world, and this is not living wisely - or even with minimal respect for our cohabitants of this planet.

The question is, what to do about it? Moving to hybrids is not a final solution, because a more efficient car still has all the problems mentioned above; a hybrid just does those things more efficiently. Hybrids will kill us more slowly. Hydrogen is not practical, for reasons I won't go into here. George Monbiot and Guy Dauncey both provide excellent analyses of the problems with hydrogen in their books. Electric cars offer some hope, and a program of rapid commercialization could make them widely available in a hurry. However, the amount of resources required to make millions of electric cars and their batteries is a heavy burden on an already overburdened earth - and there are still the problems with roads and parking lots and accidents and commuting time and....

What to do?

The answer is actually fairly simple: make the car a 'want' rather than a 'need.' The solution is not so simple, because so many of our cities are designed for mobility by car, rather than mobility for people.

Let's take a step back, and walk with me through an imaginary city of the future.

We'll start in the rural areas; here we have farms, forests, wilderness parks, some cottages - the same as exists now. I call this D4 - Farms and Forests, where D4 stands for the lowest density of humans per area. In the rural areas, you will notice there are cars and pickup trucks and tractors - again, just as there are now. The only difference may be that the vehicles run on biodiesel, hydrogen (it could have some applications, just not large scale), batteries, compressed air - any number of solutions. People who live in rural areas need reliable transportation, and because houses are so far apart, personal vehicles make the most sense.

Next, we move into the suburbs, D3. Again, this looks much like the current suburbs; many single family homes, perhaps some shopping centres, and still personal cars. And again, these vehicles are fueled by sustainable, renewable sources, not oil. Some areas of the 'burbs have opted for smaller roads restricted to golf cart-type vehicles.

D2 is more densely populated, and many people today live in areas like this today. There are a range of housing types, from single family homes on smaller lots than would be seen in the suburbs, to townhouses, duplexes, and condominiums. When you look around, however, you notice a big difference: there are no cars. Homes are a bit closer together because roads are narrower and most are designed for walking and cycling. In fact, there are main 'thoroughfares' that are covered and protected from the weather so that people can get from place-to-place in comfort. Some roads have electric buses and streetcars; larger cities have subway and LRT systems. This part of the city is blissfully quiet and the air is remarkably clean.

Finally, we reach the downtown area, D1, with the most people per area. Like any big city downtown, there are high-rise apartments, large shopping centres, an array of restaurants and entertainment - and no cars. It is a pedestrian downtown. Many areas are enclosed and heated in the winter: nobody needs a winter coat or boots downtown, there's no ice to slip on, and you can sit 'outside' and enjoy a cup of coffee while watching the snow fall on the glass roof overhead.

All of this is not only possible, it is being done in many places now, at least in pieces. Imagine a large mall with a glass atrium - they're common today - and that's a miniature version of the covered downtown. All of this makes cars an option, rather than a must-have. People who live in D1 or D2 can walk to work, school, the gym, a soccer field, a shopping centre, parks, and so on in five-to-ten minutes. They can hop frequent buses or trams, or the disabled can ride their electric scooters. The Official Community Plan for my home community of Esquimalt has the goal of transforming to a pedestrian community.

Each of the following four sections will describe these areas in more detail. In many ways, it's what we do now with fewer cars and much better mobility options, including sheltered walkways and frequent, comfortable, and inexpensive transit systems. It's a matter of shifting subsidies - tax dollars - from ways of moving cars to ways of moving people. And there are areas for everyone, from a vibrant downtown core to less and less densely populated areas until you reach farmland, so choose where you want to live, and live wisely.

Next: D1 - Downtown in the City - Under Construction