A Goofy Way to Design Our Cities

A Disney cartoon from 1950 shows how streets were transformed from a commons for everyone into the exclusive property of motorists

Posted by Jay Walljasper

As wild as it might seem today, streets were once a commons used by everyone. People walked there, biked there, boarded streetcars there, even stopped there to have conversations with their neighbors.

But in the second half of the 20th Century, that all changed. Streets became the exclusive property of automobiles, and everybody else had better get out of the way— or else!

An old Disney cartoon, starring a character looking likes very much like Goofy, shows how this Tragedy of the Streets came to pass. It can be watched on the website of Bike Walk Twin Cities , one of many organizations that have popped up recently to reclaim the streets for pedestrians.

See it here

p(photo-credits). photo by photojordi.com under a Creative Commons license with no commercial use or adaptions

POSTED 30 JUN 2009

Jay Walljasper covers urban, community, environmental, cultural, international and travel issues. His most rcent book is the The Great Neighborhood Book, a guide to how people can change the world on their own block He is a Senior Fellow at Project for Public Spaces and Senior Editor at Ode magazine and writes a blog on green cities for the National Geographic Green Guide and covers sustainable travel for National Geographic Traveler. For many years Jay was editor of Utne Reader.
Reader comments

I'm a member of the OnTheCommons.org Community

Email address
Password
Remember me on this computer

I'm not a member, but I'd like to leave a comment as a guest

Your comments