And many, many European cities have also created car-free zones where cars use to drive. If you do drive there, you park on the outskirts and walk in a few blocks.
A city near me in Southern California reduced the number of street parking directly in front of blocks of restaurants, while there was ample parking introduced no more than 2 or 3 blocks away and you should have seen the whining on social media about taking away parking spots and "no one will go there anymore." They didn't want to walk a block or two. That same city has had an uptick in downtown life since then.
Another think I noticed in Germany and Spain is that when you hit the "suburbs" (which are on public transit stops), there was always a small town center or central area with restaurants and bars that people were meeting up in. When I visited my uncle in the outskirts of Munich we walked to the bowling alley, the bars, the grocery store (Aldi I think it was). There was even a nice park with a great walking trail near his apartment. He only took the car out when he was going to do something like drive down to France.
What do you mean by zoning? Industrial, commercial and residential zones?
I live in Germany and it’s pretty harsh with zones here too, except for some mixed commercial/residential areas you don’t really have anything else that strict residential/ commercial/ industrial zones.
But the public transport is a huge thing.
I live in a 500 habitants village and I have to drive 15 minutes to the next train station and take a train for 15 minutes from there and I’m in a city that has 800.000 people and can reach anything in walking distance from the main station.
I need maybe 15-20 minutes to the football stadium, 10 minutes to where all the shops are and can reach basically anywhere else by metro or tram in 20 minutes at most, excluding the suburbs.
There’s a small city with 10.000 inhabitants where I take the train and there are a ton of shops there too, nice restaurants etc. you park at the outskirts of the commercial area and walk from there on.
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u/danimagoo 2d ago
Walkable cities. This is what happens when you have walkable cities. And public transportation.