StreetSweepersBYAdam Rogers↙
Cars emit a huge chunk of cities’ greenhouse gases,
but cities are doing something about it—and not
just in New York, Paris, and San Francisco. It makes
sense: Cities that don’t help destroy the planet are
also nice places to live._CITY: SEOUL
METHOD: UNBUILDING
In 2003, Seoul shifted a freeway-building binge into
reverse. City workers dismantled an expressway and
turned its path into a popular park. Since then, Seoul
has knocked down 15 more freeways and is building a
transit network emphasizing bikes and trolleys.CITY: BARCELONA
METHOD: SUPERBLOCKS
The city’s basic plan was already a grid of wide bou-
levards threaded with smaller side streets. Barcelona
made side streets narrower, greener, and more park-
like—extremely unfriendly to cars, which now stick to
the perimeters. These new superblocks are so popu-
lar, the city plans to make 500 more.CITY: COPENHAGEN
METHOD: BIKES, BIKES, BIKES
Copenhagen was as car-choked as any modern city.
But years ago, moms and urban planners united to
make streets safer for children by encouraging bikes
and walking. Today the city has more than 250 miles
of bike lanes, including bike-only bridges and cycle
superhighways. Almost two-thirds of the city’s 1.3
million residents bike to work or school.CITY: LOS ANGELES
METHOD: BUSESThe city most famous for car culture is doubling down
on public transportation. In the face of nationwide
declines in bus ridership, LA’s Metro is using survey
data, community meetings, and location-based cell
phone tracking to make buses faster and easier to
reach for 2.2 million people.CITY: TEMPE, ARIZONA
METHOD: HOUSING WITHOUT CARSAmid the sprawl of greater Phoenix, a development
called Culdesac—opening this year—has 16 acres
of housing, enough for 1,000 people, built next to a
light rail line, and no residential parking. Cars aren’t
allowed.disconnects us from the sometimes literal
impacts of our behavior. We get, frankly,
deranged. “The social contract breaks
down,” Tumlin says.
“Yeah,” I say. “You don’t even have to wear
pants in a car.”
“It’s also literally the only place you can
get away with murdering someone by call-
ing it an accident,” he says.
The people sharing spaces on the side-
walk, or inside a bus or subway car, though,
self-assemble as if in a theater where we
perform civil society for each other. We
remove our backpacks so more people
can fit. We let people exit before we enter.
Someone in front of us drops something, we