Posted
June 30, 2009

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

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