Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time

by Jeff Speck

there have been so many incentives for driving, cars have behaved like water, flowing into every nook and cranny where they have been allowed. Cities with more available space (Houston, Los Angeles) got more cars, while cities with less available space (Boston, New Orleans) got fewer. The first step in reclaiming our urban centers for pedestrians is simply to acknowledge that this outcome was not inevitable, is not the global norm, and need not continue. Despite all the countervailing pressures, it is fully within the capabilities of the typical American city to alter its relationship to the automobile in subtle ways that can have a tremendous impact on walkability—to welcome cars, but on its own terms.