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New Urbanism: Planning healthier cities and retrofitting suburbia

(The third in a series highlighting U.S. Movements to celebrate, support, and spread the word about.) Suburban sprawl has been the dominant development pattern for the last fifty years. By 2000, more people lived in suburbs than in cities, small towns, and the countryside combined. Most of these suburbs were built after 1950 to accommodate the automobile,…

Suburban Life Minus the Cars

Imagine a suburb with no cars. No traffic jams. No drive ways. No garages. Vauban, Germany, a suburb of Freiburg, is pioneering this revolutionary concept. The 5,500 residents of Vauban are not forbidden from owning a car. But they must purchase a parking space in a shared garage at the edge of the development for $40,000. 70% of the residents do…