It Is Too Hard To Go To The Store

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My photo of the hostel in Old Town Stockholm that was located in the best spot in the city to stay. What made it such a great place were the narrow old streets without cars and filled with nearby shops.

The medieval layout of comforting narrow streets in Stockholm's Old Town is a tourist favorite. We love places like this and they have been a feature of human cities for thousands of years. So why don't we build them anymore? My photo

This morning one of the smoke detectors started to make the telltale beeping that signals that the 9-volt battery needs to be changed. Not having one on hand, I briefly considered running out to get one, but upon thinking of the convoluted and tortuous path to go and get a simple battery, I decided to wait. The outside temperature was 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Getting a simple battery would involve walking to the garage, warming up the car, driving half a mile, parking in the hardware store lot, stepping inside, and then reversing the process on the way back. All told, even if I were quick, the journey would take at least thirty minutes. In most of America and the modern world, simple tasks become all-day journeys.
 

It didn't have to be this way; for most of human history, it wasn't. Even the world's most ancient town Catal Höyük (pictured below) was built close together nine thousand years ago. So close, people walked on the roofs to get from house to house. Until the car broke nine thousand years of compact urbanism by giving as much space to our gas-fired oxen in the form of roads and parking as to the human environment, walking was the easiest way to get around. One can easily ask if we build our cities for cars or people, because most sure aren't made for walking.

Creative Commons Via Wikimedia

 

Several years ago, I spent a several weeks in Scandinavia. The ancient medieval core of Stockholm called Gamla Stan, or Old Town, where I spent a few days was a favorite. When visiting, it was striking how small and compact the old city was with its narrow streets, most just wide enough for one compact car to drive, but cars were not allowed. 

 

With its relative youth, most of its urban infrastructure hailing from the car era, America is mainly built on grids with wide streets, large yards, single-use zoning, and huge parking lots. Even if I lived right next to a store, which I did once living next to a Kmart, the walk across the tundra of a parking lot is enough to dissuade someone from walking.  

 

 Where Are All Our Front Yard Bushiness ? , an article by the intelligent urbanism organization Strong Towns asks an important question. Again, part of it can be blamed on the car and the search for the Downton Abbey ideal, but most of the blame lies with restrictive zoning. Restrictive zoning of the American model is unique because it is underlain by racism and classism. Racism has underlain the ordering of space in America since its inception and its legacy remains. In its aim to keep people apart, it ensures that only the most socioeconomically affluent can buy homes, and segregating storefront businesses away from dwellings, enforces a unique form of isolation in many communities and prevents home based business from creating social mobility.

 

In the Philippines, every neighborhood has a little hole-in-the-wall store called a sari sari store. These little stores often based in front of homes, usually no bigger than a proprietor can stand in, have all the little things one needs within a short walk. That type of store found throughout history and common in much of the world is illegal in most of the residential United States. While many people run home-based businesses, opening up a storefront in your home is often unlawful.  It is interesting that in a country with very little restrictions, these small storefronts are so common that you are never more than a couple minutes walk from one. Their closeness and convenience is what makes them worth going to. What would arise naturally in the United States if there were no restrictions?

 

If I had such a store nearby, I would have been able to run over there this morning and get my battery, saving time, wear and tear on my car and the environment through wasted resources.  Not only are we wasting resources because the combination of poor urban design and wind and snow swept climate "forces" us to get in the car, but we are wasting money as well. In America, we are burdened by the extra tax of needing to drive for every little thing. It is not just an economic tax, but an environmental one as well, as countless small trips raise our environmental footprint. Of course I am not even mentioning the many with disabilities, the old and the young and socioeconomically disadvantaged who are unable to drive. So essentially, we have created urban spaces where most people cannot get what they need without help.

 

In icy North Dakota, and other cold, windy places, more well-designed and close-set communities would make more environmental and economic sense. We have lamented the death of mainstreet, but mainstreet died because of urban design as much as the car. Especially in small towns, businesses were almost always zoned away from most housing, meaning a choice between driving to pay more or driving a little further to spend less. Most of our towns are not designed on the time-tested historical models of Catal Höyük or Old Town Stockholm.

 

Bad urban design has led us to cities that most live in, but no one likes. Nobody travels to the suburbs of New York for the walkable neighborhoods, picturesque urban spaces, and street culture; they go to Manhattan. Instead of building at a human scale, we spend thousands traveling to places like Gamla Stan, or the tight streets of Paris or Hong Kong, where we feel good and take lots of photos. We wish for cozy urbanism because, like the American lawn that recreates the comforting grassy savanna or our evolution, it recreates the tight spaces of the village that goes back almost as far. Instead of housing, shops, and walkable neighborhoods, we travel home to live chained to our cars and roads. 

 

As a form of relaxation, or when I write, I put on a soundless walk through a picturesque urban landscape on YouTube. The most pleasant choices are always the compact, walkable streets of Europe or Asia, where combinations of deep history and good urban design make for enjoyable watching. It is telling that while there are many videos of the cafe-filled streets of Paris or the mixed urban spaces of Asia, there are few, if any, of the vast wastelands of sameness of suburban North America.

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