I got my driver’s license exactly three days after my 17th birthday and promptly proceeded to never use it. Well, that’s not entirely true—I’ve rented cars maybe six times in the last decade, mostly to visit my parents during those awkward holiday periods when the train schedule goes to absolute pot and a trip that should take two hours somehow morphs into a seven-hour odyssey involving three rail replacement buses and an inexplicable stop in a town I’ve never heard of.
My dad, bless him, finds my car-free existence both baffling and mildly concerning. “But what if there’s an emergency?” he’ll ask over Sunday dinner, conveniently forgetting that ambulances exist precisely for medical emergencies and that my showing up in my hypothetical car would probably just add to the chaos. Last Christmas he gifted me a roadside emergency kit—complete with jump leads and a high-visibility vest—that’s currently serving as extra storage for my winter scarves. Sorry, Dad.
The thing is, I’m not actually anti-car in principle. Cars make perfect sense in many contexts—rural areas with no public transport, people with certain disabilities, specialized professions that require transporting equipment. What I am against is the bizarre 20th-century experiment where we redesigned our entire cities around private metal boxes that sit unused 95% of the time, pollute continuously, kill thousands annually, and somehow became so normalized that suggesting alternatives gets you looked at like you’ve suggested we all start traveling exclusively by pogo stick.
But here’s the wonderful thing—this car-centric design isn’t actually the natural order of things. It’s a choice. And increasingly, cities around the world are making different choices. Better choices. Choices that are making car-free living not just possible but preferable. And I’ve been lucky enough to experience many of them firsthand through my work.
Take Paris, where I spent three weeks last summer reporting on their urban transformation. Mayor Anne Hidalgo has been on an absolute mission, removing around 140,000 on-street parking spaces, creating hundreds of kilometers of bike lanes (including the famous “corona lanes” that popped up during the pandemic and thankfully stayed put), and pedestrianizing the banks of the Seine. The result? A 45% increase in cycling and areas that were once glorified parking lots transformed into vibrant public spaces full of cafés, children playing, and actual human interaction.
I remember sitting at a little café on Rue de Rivoli—once a congested, exhaust-filled nightmare and now a thriving pedestrian and cycling thoroughfare—watching Parisians of all ages glide by on bikes, scooters, and on foot. An elderly gentleman at the next table caught me scribbling notes and asked what I was writing. When I explained my article about car-free urban design, he laughed and told me in charmingly accented English: “I have lived in this neighborhood for sixty-three years. I never thought I would see it like this—so quiet, so full of people instead of cars. Now I can hear the birds in the morning. Progress is not always forward, sometimes it is returning to what we had before.”
That conversation has stuck with me. Because he’s absolutely right—in many ways, designing cities for people rather than cars isn’t some radical new concept but a return to how cities functioned for thousands of years before the automobile came along.
But it’s not just Paris. Barcelona’s superblocks (or “superilles” in Catalan) are another brilliant example I had the pleasure of experiencing. These are groups of city blocks where through traffic is diverted around the perimeter, and the interior streets are reclaimed for community use. Speed limits drop to 10 km/h, and the road space is transformed with benches, playground equipment, outdoor dining, and pop-up markets.
I visited the Poblenou superblock on a sweltering June day and found children playing in the street—actual children playing in an actual street in a major European city!—while their parents chatted on newly installed benches under freshly planted trees. A little girl zoomed past me on a scooter, completely carefree, no parent tensely watching for approaching cars. An impromptu ping pong game had broken out on a table installed where parking spaces once stood. It was gloriously alive in a way that car-clogged streets simply never are.
The data backs up these casual observations. In Barcelona’s superblocks, local air pollution has decreased by around 25%, noise levels have dropped significantly, and—contrary to the dire predictions of chaos—traffic in the surrounding areas hasn’t massively increased because—shocker!—people adapt and find alternatives when driving becomes less convenient.
Speaking of convenient alternatives, let’s talk about the “15-minute city” concept that’s been gaining so much traction. The basic premise is beautifully simple: design neighborhoods so that residents can reach all their daily necessities—groceries, schools, healthcare, work, recreation—within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. It’s not about banning cars (despite what certain conspiracy theorists might claim); it’s about making them unnecessary for everyday life.
I experienced this firsthand during a three-month stay in Melbourne for a writing project. I was living in an apartment in Carlton, and within a five-minute walk, I had a supermarket, library, doctor’s office, fantastic parks, and about 50 cafés serving flat whites that would make an Italian weep with joy. My daily life involved precisely zero time sitting in traffic, hunting for parking, or contributing to Melbourne’s carbon emissions. It was liberating in a way that’s hard to describe to committed car users.
But the most impressive example I’ve experienced was Copenhagen, where I spent two weeks hanging out with urban planners and transport engineers (wild vacation choice, I know, but this is genuinely my idea of fun). Copenhagen has been systematically prioritizing cycling since the 1970s, and the results are extraordinary. An astonishing 62% of residents cycle to work or education daily. Not because they’re all super-eco-warriors, but because it’s simply the most practical option.
The infrastructure is key. Copenhagen’s cycle lanes are wide, separated from traffic by physical barriers, and—crucially—form a comprehensive network that actually takes you where you need to go. No more of those absurd bike lanes that suddenly disappear just when you need them most, dumping you into busy traffic like some kind of cruel practical joke played by transit planners.
I rented a bike during my stay and joined the morning flow of cycle traffic—everyone from suited businesspeople to parents with cargo bikes full of children, elderly folks on electric assist bikes, and students heading to university. What struck me most wasn’t just the volume of cyclists but the diversity. In cities with poor cycling infrastructure, you typically see mostly young, fit men brave enough to battle with traffic. In Copenhagen, cycling isn’t an act of bravery or a political statement—it’s just how you get around.
One morning, I found myself cycling alongside an elderly woman who had to be at least in her 80s. At a red light, I commented on the lovely weather (original, I know). This sparked a conversation where she told me she’d been cycling these same routes for over 70 years. “When I was young, there were more cars,” she said. “Now the bikes have taken back the city. It’s better this way.” I nearly fell off my rental bike from the poetic perfection of this statement.
But what about cities that don’t have Copenhagen’s cycling culture or Paris’s political will for transformation? What about sprawling cities built entirely around car dependency? Can they change? The answer, cautiously, is yes—though the path is more challenging.
Portland, Oregon, has made remarkable strides despite its American context of car-centric development. When I visited in 2019, I was impressed by their neighborhood greenways—residential streets optimized for walking and biking with traffic calming features, lower speed limits, and barriers that allow cyclists and pedestrians to pass through while preventing cars from using them as shortcuts. It’s a clever, relatively low-cost approach to creating safe, car-light corridors through existing neighborhoods.
Even in Houston—perhaps the poster child for car-dependent urban sprawl—there are promising changes happening. During a surprisingly enjoyable conference there last year (where I was expecting to feel completely stranded without a car), I discovered their reimagined bus network, which increased frequent service and strategically connected major activity centers. No, it’s not at Amsterdam levels yet, but it’s a meaningful improvement that gives at least some Houstonians a viable alternative to driving.
Of course, critics of car-free urban design love to bring up the weather. “Sure, cycling works in Copenhagen, but what about when it rains/snows/gets hot?” Having cycled through Copenhagen’s winter sleet, I can assure you that proper infrastructure, clothing, and a bit of cultural normalization make weather a surprisingly minor barrier. As the Danes themselves say, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.”
The other common objection is about accessibility—the concern that car-free designs disadvantage people with mobility impairments. It’s a legitimate concern that deserves attention, but it’s also frequently misused as a blanket argument against any car reduction measures. The reality is that well-designed car-light cities can actually improve mobility for people with disabilities by providing better public transport, more accessible pedestrian infrastructure, and clearer policies for those who genuinely need vehicle access.
I learned this firsthand from Maja, a disability rights activist I interviewed in Ljubljana, Slovenia—another city that has successfully pedestrianized its center. Maja uses a wheelchair and was initially concerned about the car-free zones. “But now,” she told me while effortlessly navigating the smooth, wide pathways of the city center, “I have more freedom here than in areas with cars, where I have to worry about distracted drivers and where sidewalks are often blocked by parked vehicles.”
The common thread in all these successful examples isn’t actually about banning cars—it’s about providing genuine choices. It’s about designing cities where walking, cycling, and public transit are as convenient, safe, and pleasant as driving has been made through a century of car-centric planning.
For me, the most hopeful sign is how quickly people adapt when given these choices. After the pandemic prompted many cities to create emergency bike lanes or expanded pedestrian spaces, officials expected to revert them once the crisis passed. Instead, they found residents fighting to keep them permanently. Once people experience how pleasant urban life can be with fewer cars, there’s no going back.
The last time I visited my parents, my dad surprised me by suggesting we walk to the local pub instead of driving. It was only a mile, he reasoned, and parking was always a nightmare anyway. As we strolled through his suburban neighborhood, he pointed out things he’d never noticed from his car—a tiny nature reserve, an interesting bird’s nest, a neighbor’s impressive vegetable garden. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “maybe you’re onto something with this walking business.”
I nearly fell over in shock. I didn’t tell him that this small walk was barely the beginning of what I envision for our cities. Baby steps, after all. And maybe someday, I’ll actually tell him what I did with that emergency car kit he gave me. But probably not until I’ve convinced him to try cycling to the garden center instead of driving. One journey at a time.
