https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ByEBjf9ktY
Good video but misses the vast difference between old and most dense western europe built for CARTS, and new and sparse north america buit for CARS. It also ignores the few people who walk vs drive because of this density-difference. So the contradiction would be – why do we have people walking across streets at all? The vast boulevards of Moscow and Kiev provide underground passageways at all crossings, and these underground passageways provide opportunity for small shops that service the public and escape from the weather. Pedestrian zones are optimum but then the transportation of goods problem replaces the walking problem. So we need underground methods of goods and services delivery to separate pedestrans from commercial traffic. What will change this? It’s difficult to know since the urbanizatoin trend which causes us to trade housing and children for income that is captured by rents and urban mortgages, is reversing due to the internet and will continue – with the severe possibility of turning dense cities from the american to the european and south american model of rings of ‘favelas’ around wealthy ‘parisian’ cores occupied entirely by rich people. So one has to solve the NECESSARY economic problem first, in order to solve the PREFERENTIAL problem of pedestrian life.
