On The Rise In American Cities

Reference
Wood, D. (2007, May 2). On The Rise In American Cities: The Car-free Zone. The Christian Science Monitor, csmonitor.com. Retrieved September 18, 2007, from http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0502/p01s03-ussc.html?page=1

This article is written by D. Wood, who writes that there are several cities that name suspended or stopped driving spaces and released more spaces for pedestrians, bikers or people who want to have physical activities since three years ago. The most important reasons that more and more cities do that are to make more active environments and promote active people. Although banning cars might cause some traffic problems or economic decreasing, researcheres find the situations will get better but not worse. Furthermore, to change usage spaces seems to cost a lot, but leaders should know that to transform the using purpose of basic infrastructures is simple and inexpensive. There are many small or poor cities that do it well and it has become a trend in the world, especially when global warming and the obesity rate have become serious. People have to treat the go-carless trend as an important strategy to maintain health.

To relieve suitable room sounds great, for non-car users to exercise or get enough entertainment spaces during weekends or leisure time. Overdevelopment of land made our living environment full of cars, roads and bad air. However, non-car users’ leisure spaces are not developed in adaptive proportion. To take the effect of going carless is really a complicated progress; telling the information to people from everywhere, telling them where to find parking lots, and altering the purpose of roads will cause cities to suffer from some traffic troubles directly and some unexpected problems, even if the final results are a benefit to the city and their people. During the interim time, how to reconcile local people’s views and turn their view into supportive roles is vital. The successful experiences in Europe and the US bring the other countries out to change their urban plans, above all the developing ones.

In my opinion, promoting people’s right to have fun in the natural environment, in other words, building an active environment, is more than promoting people’s health, it’s also promoting the world’s.