Let me preface this by saying: I like cars, just not for everyday use.
If you’ve never lived in a city where you don’t need a car, it probably doesn’t seem like a big deal, it’s just part of life, but this is a major misconception that needs to be addressed.
There’s always been something about cities that appealed to me. I just couldn’t put it into words until I started digging deeper and understanding the why.
This is not a new problem, the traffic dilemma is something that dates back thousands of years.
Julius Caesar was so interested in the problem of street congestion that he banned wheeled vehicles from Rome for the first 10 hours of the day. Singapore was the first modern-day city to introduce a “congestion tax” in 1975, since then other cities have started to implement similar plans.
London introduced a congestion fee in 2003 and within just one year it led to a 30% reduction in traffic delays. Another benefit of the London Congestion Charge is it has generated over £1.6 billion to invest in transportation & traffic solutions.
Stockholm introduced a congestion tax in 2007 and Milan did the same in 2008.
Cities like Beijing and Shanghai have adopted transport demand management (TDM) strategies and are looking to expand on these policies to combat traffic issues. These strategies are designed to reduce private vehicle travel which helps create safer, more livable cities.
Lost time…
The average person in the US commutes 52.2 minutes a day going to and from work.
That means that they spend 408 days of their life commuting.
One study from the University of West England found that a 23-minute commute had the same effect on happiness as a 19% reduction in income.
If you’ve been to Miami anytime in the last 10 years you’d know that road construction is never-ending. This excerpt from iHeart Radio sums it up perfectly:
“In the TriCounty, that’s a total of six major road construction projects that are in the process right now, another 21 behind them currently being designed, and five more behind those in the study phase – for the Turnpike alone.
The reality is, for as annoying as the road construction has been and currently is... all signs suggest it’s going to be a whole lot worse in the future. That’s because there’s a whole lot more road construction within our communities.”
One of the reasons Americans flock to Europe every summer is because cities here were built for pedestrians. When they were originally built, automobiles did not exist.
Humans on foot have little need for wide or even straight streets.
Vehicles demand street space, and because much of the architecture of Europe was already in place prior to the automobile, many older cities never really adapted. Well, actually they did adapt, but in a way that was favorable to pedestrians.
I love wandering through the small winding streets of the Gothic Quarter and El Born. These areas function as great public spaces for pedestrians, but they’re practically impassable for vehicles.
Every corner you turn there’s a beautiful plaza with children playing or people sitting out on the terraces enjoying tapas and a glass of wine. Instead of being confined to a little bubble all by yourself traveling from one place to another in solitude, there is an abundant social life happening all around.
The issue with suburbs and single-family housing is that they cause us to spread out, leading to significantly increased distances and travel time.
And yes, there is urban sprawl in European and Asian cities, just not nearly as bad as in the US.
In his book Energy and Equity, Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich says:
The model American male devotes more than 1600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling. He parks it and searches for it. He earns the money to put down on it and to meet the monthly installments. He works to pay for gasoline, tolls, insurance, taxes, and tickets. He spends four of his sixteen waking hours on the road or gathering his resources for it. And this figure does not take into account the time consumed by other activities dictated by transport: time spent in hospitals, traffic courts, and garages.
It’s important to note that he wrote this in the 1970s when we were driving much less.
In Illich’s day, 1 out of 10 people walked to work, now it’s fewer than 1 out of 40.
So ask yourself, is driving around and around really how you want to be spending your time and money?
Quality of life…
Less commuting means more time for leisure, hence better quality of life.
And since cities tend to be on the cutting edge of what’s happening, you open yourself up to more social, emotional, and intellectual connections.
In other words, cities put you proximity to a variety of entertainment options:
Museums, theaters, art exhibitions, and other cultural attractions
Easy access to fun events such as concerts and sports matches
Live workshops and meetups
Exposure to a wider range of teachers and in-person classes
This is how you build your community, establish relationships, and make new friends.
Towards the end of last year, my buddy Jake started something called Show Up Barcelona.
We meet on the beach every Wednesday for breathwork and a sunrise swim. It started as just 6 friends and it’s grown exponentially from week to week. We’re now up to over 200 people who Show Up every week and there’s no sign of it slowing down.
I love the way Kevin Kelly, the founder of WordPress, describes cities.
He says that we should think of them as giant possibility factories.
You have more choices to do all the things you want to do. Imagine Mozart being born to a hunter-gatherer tribe before symphonies were invented. Wouldn’t that be a shame?
By choosing to live in this type of environment, you’re more likely to find people who share your hobbies, interests, and values. It opens up more opportunities in both your professional and personal life. This then increases your chances of meeting the perfect friend, business partner, comrade, or soulmate.
Apart from opening yourself up to new and unique opportunities, living in a city can also make it easier to accomplish certain tasks. Ayelet Fishbach from the University of Chicago talks about something called social facilitation.
Social facilitation is when other people are around us, and it makes it easier to pursue certain tasks. That’s why we go to cafés and gyms.
Think about it, why go to a gym when you can just buy some weights and do a workout at home?
Show Up is a perfect example of this, the water is fairly cold in the winter time but since we’re with a large group of people it makes it easier to get in and go for a dip.
It’s because being surrounded by others who are performing similar tasks can motivate and inspire us. Social facilitation is also why many records are broken in front of large audiences.
So now that we know our quality of life increases with regards to a social aspect, let’s explore some of the physical benefits.
Health and longevity…
Our built environment is killing us.
We’re spending too much time in cars and not enough time walking. Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogota said:
“God made us walking animals - pedestrians. As a fish needs to swim, a bird to fly, a deer to run, we need to walk, not in order to survive, but to be happy."
This thought is both beautiful and obvious, but difficult to prove. We know we need to be active to be healthy and walking is the easiest way for most humans to be active.
Fun fact: In 1991, no states had an adult obesity rate over 20 percent.
By 2007 only one state (Colorado) was under 20 percent.
The rising obesity rates can be attributed to the time-restricted lifestyles of people with long commutes. Being stuck in a car for hours on end reduces the number of opportunities for everyday recreational activities.
Here’s another shocker: one-third of American children born after the year 2000 will become diabetics.
This is partly due to diet, but also because of a shift in how much physical activity they are exposed to on a regular basis. In 1969, 50 percent of kids walked to school. Now fewer than 15 percent do.
On top of that, our children are growing up more sheltered than ever. As I was writing this, I came across an article where a Florida mother was arrested for child neglect because she let her son walk to a nearby park less than half a mile from their home.
Unsupervised play is crucial for a child’s development and they are not getting enough of it.
And it’s not just our children who suffer from the consequences of living in suburbia…
According to the US military, 25 percent of young men and 40 percent of young women are too fat to enlist. Again, this is due to a combination of diet and physical activity, but still embarrassing either way.
Based on this information, it’s obvious we should be walking more. It’s one of the simplest ways to integrate movement into our day and it’s proven to make us happier.
Here are a few ways to increase your step count:
Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
Park farther away instead of circling the lot multiple times to find the closest spot.
Take a walk during breaks at work instead of eating lunch at your desk.
Make phone calls while going for a walk instead of sitting on your couch.
Any of these can still be applied even if you live in the ‘burbs. But in walkable cities where you’re not dependent on a car, it’s much easier to get your step count up.
It’s not something you have to think about. It comes naturally because the proximity to everything makes walking a better option than driving.
Set a goal of 10,000 steps per day and see how your life changes.
I’ve yet to touch on the topic of bad seat belt laws, bad drunk driving laws & fatalities caused by speeding… but I’ll leave that for another day.
Final thoughts…
When I moved to Europe in 2018, I noticed a dramatic change within a few months. I shed weight without trying and my days became more exciting.
We’re witnessing a shift in the way we live. Over the last century, urban sprawl has caused people to abandon downtown living for single-family homes in the suburbs.
Things seem to be changing though. There is a growing understanding that a sustainable city is a place for people, not cars.
As I’ve gone deeper down the rabbit hole, I’ve discovered YouTube channels like Not Just Bikes and books such as Happy City. There’s even an entire anti-car Reddit community (r/fuckcars) that has tripled in members over the past year.
On that note, I’m going to wrap this one up for now, it’s time to enjoy this beautiful spring weather we’re having here in Barcelona and go for a nice long walk :)
I recently sent a goal for myself to get 10,000 steps a day. And I can see the difference in my energy levels. As someone who lives in a city and doesn’t have a car it felt really pathetic that on most days I wasn’t even getting close to 2,000 steps a day. I would spend my days so focused on school I wouldn’t save time for me. Now getting my steps in is a priority. I also live close to the water so maybe morning swims are in my future also.