Does the automobile industry own us? When you scratch just a little below the surface, you discover that we live in cities that are controlled by strange, outdated mathematical theories, models and engineering “solutions” that continue to be used despite the fact that they are of little use to modern cities.
In this excerpt from “Copenhagenize,” author Mikael Colville-Andersen talks cars, playgrounds and how we can leverage design to reclaim our “life-sized” cities.
Apr 23, 2018
“When the automobile appeared in our cities, it was an invasive species detested by citizens. Motorists were despised…”
“Here’s the baseline. We have been living together in cities for more than 7,000 years. By and large, we used those seven millennia to hammer out some serious best-practices about cohabitation and transport in the urban theater and the importance of social fabric. We threw most of that knowledge under the wheels of the automobile shortly after we invented it and have subsequently suffered through a saeculum horribilis in the urban context. Our overenthusiasm for technology and our human tendency to suffer short-term urban memory loss have further contributed to our zealous disregard for past experience.”
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