A bike shed in Vauban, Germany

This is an interesting article from The New York Times about Vauban, Germany- an experimental suburb with few cars.

It is home to 5,500 residents, according to the Times, all living within a rectangular square mile. The community “may be the most advanced experiment in low-car suburban life,” according to the story.

The article continues, “But its basic precepts are being adopted around the world in attempts to make suburbs more compact and more accessible to public transportation, with less space for parking. In this new approach, stores are placed a walk away, on a main street, rather than in malls along some distant highway.”

The site was once a Nazi army base, then “was occupied by the French Army from the end of World War II until the reunification of Germany two decades ago. Because it was planned as a base, the grid was never meant to accommodate private car use: the “roads” were narrow passageways between barracks.”

Europe is much further ahead in this kind of car-free project, but surprisingly, a community like this one is in the works for the United States, called Quarry Village on the outskirts of Oakland, the Times reports.

Though this probably sounds far-fetched and wacky to some people, I’m sure we will eventually see developments like this one in our country. It just seems inevitable eventually given the climate and fossil fuels situation.

-KG

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