[tomkat0789]

I’m reading this while vacationing in Barcelona. We’re staying in the city’s Gothic Quarter, which has this labyrinth of narrow medieval streets. This evening we realized that the whole week of our visit we never got into a car, not even a cab.

I can see the reason why people walking around spend more than people in cars. Today while returning from a tourist site a little early, we remembered there was an ice cream store we wanted to try, which turned out to be close to our subway station. On the last part of our walk back, we randomly noticed a unique indoor mall and walked around it just to pass the time (Malda Galeria? Turned out it has lots of board games, anime merch, and other “nerd” stuff!). I had made a purchase the day before on a similarly casual browse, so I resisted!

Comparing this to a trip to Houston a month ago: we were on highways the whole time. Even if we did see something interesting (unlikely while flying through Houston’s confusing highways), there’s no way we’d stop navigation on Google maps, find an off ramp, make a left turn through busy traffic, then search for a parking spot… just to casually browse for stuff. How are you supposed to catch the notice of passerbys if you’re a little shop keep? The fun stuff we did required planning, paying for parking, traffic, etc.

Another YouTube channel that might convince you cars are horrible for cities: CityNerd is some sort of urban planning professional and has great videos about induced demand and a particularly good one about how expensive paying for a car is when you consider the full accounting (it’s something like $10k a year).

Bothering my local politicians about bike infrastructure has been on my to do list for months. I need to get to it!

[udkl]

> there’s no way we’d stop navigation on Google maps, find an off ramp, make a left turn through busy traffic, then search for a parking spot… just to casually browse for stuff

That's probably why the concept of malls is popular in the US. Get to a single shopping destination and walk around the complex for variety.

[asdff]

It's like, you hollow out your town making it as efficient as possible to leave rather than spend any amount of time. So then you have to build this artificial downtown where you actually can have that interaction space, because you destroyed your original interaction spaces. Only the more insidious problem with this is how malls suddenly control the entrants. Notice how most malls are filled with major chains who can actually afford the rent on these sprawling retail spaces rather than small owner-operated businesses like what used to make up these interaction spaces around the main street or square in these small towns. Plus you can't exactly add a shop to this mall. It's one giant hulking thing. Whereas back in the day, if you lived near the town and wanted to open a shop, you might have built one yourself in the setback in front of your house.

[hilbert42]

"This evening we realized that the whole week of our visit we never got into a car, not even a cab."

"Comparing this to a trip to Houston a month ago: we were on highways the whole time."

At the end of a rather long reply to throw0101a's comment on my original post, in passing I mentioned that things were somewhat different in Europe. (My reply to throw0101a was principally in reference to his link to the book High Cost of Free Parking by UCLA professor Donald Shoup who has an underlying Georgist philosophy in connection with these matters.)

My original post wasn't well accepted by about half the voters (upvotes and downvotes in about equal numbers) and I expected that when I posted it. I mention this specifically as my original comment was made from my perspective here in Australia; here the 'average' shopping conditions are very different to both the US and to much of Europe (I've lived in Europe and I'm also very familiar with US roads, shops and shopping conditions).

In essence, I've little doubt that the original story is correct when it comes to US conditions, and I've no doubt that your experience (and the article) are correct when it comes to your experience in Barcelona. Here where I am it's a mixed bag but the vehicle/parking/shopping problem is nothing like as bad as it is in the US (in that shops are far more accessible from roadside parking (despite my earlier cynical assertions seemingly to the contrary).

I'll avoid a lengthy discussion involving examples so I'll just say this. The issue that cars detract from spending in the US and the Barcelona setting is, I reckon, pretty clear-cut. It's not so clear-cut here and in some other European cities. For example, in a German-speaking city (which I won't name out of deference) where I was living for quite some while has shops with easy walking access à la Barcelona and people actually shop by walking around—and public transport is as good as it gets (I've seen no better anywhere). That said, the number of cars parked in the side streets (and anywhere else their owners can find to park them) is quite unbelievable—it's nothing to see cars parked at 45 degrees across the 90 degree junction of two sidewalks if that's the only space available—moreover, it happens all the time. Most people who live there DO NOT need a vehicle and yet they have an obsession to own one (seems as if their psyche remains unfulfilled unless they own a car even if they rarely use it). So much for eliminating cars by providing easy walking access to shops! Despite this and excellent public transport—which they all use with gusto—it still hasn't eliminated the vehicle problem.

It seems to me that we need to be very careful how we measure the benefits of planning our cities to be more human-friendly. There seems to be no one-plan-fits-all, generalizing seems a risky business. If there's an underlying car culture as there is there (and here where I am now) then the benefits of good planning and having ready access to shops by foot may be much harder to realize than it first seems.

Unfortunately, it seems to me the same problem arises when it comes to invoking Donald Shoup's underlying Georgist philosophy which underpins many of these new ideas about planning our cities. (I know, this is somewhat esoteric matter but unless we can genuinely equate it out of the discussion then it might come back to bite us).