2,000 Years of Romans 100 Years of Cars

Two thousand years ago, the ancient Romans designed their towns inside a border wall surrounded by moats or aqueducts and farmland. A gateway through the walls led to a network of gridded streets forming blocks. Two main streets intersected at a right angle in the center of town creating a town square, a forum and market space. The towns were compact and built for people to walk from origin to destination. Villages and cities all over Europe and the Middle East began this way. Then 1,500 years later, the European explorers who grew up in these towns exported the town planning ideas from their mother nations to their colonies in the Americas and even Asia. Thus today, many of our beloved cities, from Florence to St. Augustine to Singapore, have roots in ancient Roman planning practices.

Enter the automobile. It was invented in the late 1800s and by the 1920s, Ford, GM and Chrysler were in business. Mass production of cars took off in the 1940s, fueling the birth of suburbia, and the projectory of man’s impact on the earth’s landscape was forever changed. The new city planning paradigm was no longer people oriented. It was automobile oriented and codified by zoning. 2,000 years of designing for walkability is now overshadowed by only 100 years of designing for auto convenience. The impact has been immense.

Driving and the need for more roads is self-perpetuating. The more we drive, the more roads we need. The more roads we build, the more we drive. The results are more miles of roads, more lanes of traffic, more parking spaces, and more parking lots with three critical environmental impacts. First, the farther we travel, the more CO2 we produce, the more air pollution we create, the worse climate change will be. Second, the more roads and parking lots we have, the more impervious surface we create, the greater our stormwater is, the more we pollute our waterways. Third, more roads and parking lots means less nature, less habitat, less wildlife, less trees to absorb our CO2, and less dirt to absorb rainwater to restore aquifers and our drinking water.

Pile these impacts on top of the public financial costs, crash statistics and health issues created by vehicles and it goes without saying that auto-oriented societies are not sustainable even if autos become uber fuel efficient. It’s time to fix our streets and public spaces to allow a balance of transportation options. Jack wants to ride his bike to school. Grandma wants to walk to the coffee shop. And mama bear wants to stroll her baby. We need an Extreme Makeover Home Planet edition!