Can ‘Open Streets' Outlast the Pandemic?

Bogotá is largely credited with originating the concept of “open streets” —where city roads are closed to car traffic and given over to people for fun and fitness—but it has grown beyond that city, surfacing in Pennsylvania.

Cars heavily influence building planning in the U.S. due to a historical preference for suburbs, but a town in Illinois improved its economy by thinking like a city. They created transit-oriented development which prioritizes pedestrians and attracts millennials.

In an attempt to address liver disease, diabetes, obesity and other health issues, Brownsville has launched a comprehensive, cohesive approach to promoting health, being named a model for other communities across the country.

A Dallas urban neighborhood was dilapidated with abandoned storefronts and offered no vitality for pedestrians. A group of artists and community members created Build a Better Block, in which local artisans and small businesses took over a vacant block and transformed it for a limited time to encourage the ingredients for more permanent urban renewal.

Alleys in Seattle were once places of illicit, illegal, and unsanitary activity. The International Sustainability Institute in Seattle began organizing music and art events to bring in people, which, in turn, cleaned-up the crime and garbage. As an urban development strategy, adjacent vacant storefronts re-opened for business and beautification could be seen in new gardens.

The Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas suffered from recession-closed businesses and crime. Then community members used placemaking, in which people shaped their own environment to improve the quality of life, and the concept of Build a Better Block, which was a pop-up event showcasing art, food, music, and local faire. The idea gives citizens a fresh look at the possibilities through which to transform the space in which they live, and it has attracted attention across the country and around the world.

Cities tend to be dangerous and difficult places to live for older residents. A private public partnership in New York is catering to seniors through small changes in the city such as para-transit options and seniors-only hours at public establishments.

Sweden's "Vision Zero" program has used a comprehensive approach to infrastructure and regulation to drastically reduce traffic-related deaths, making Swedish roads the safest in the world.

Conventional merchants are afraid to lose parking spaces to bike parking or bike lanes. New York and Portland are finding cyclists increase local economies, and spend more money too.

Paris is a city plagued by traffic jams and air pollution. In 2007, the local government created a public bicycle sharing program called Velib that has drastically reduced the number of cars on the roadways and parking lots. During five years, over a hundred million people have used the program and it has a quarter of a million subscribers.