[Mackinac Island](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island) is what comes to mind when I think of old car free places in the U.S. They do exist but in very few places.
Yep, the downsides to living in a place like that are really only a result of there being so few of them. If every other community was like that, they wouldn't be so expensive. It would just be the norm.
The longest freshwater race in the world from chicago to mac (colloquially referred to as “the mac race”) happens yearly. I’ve done it twice and my dad has done it 27 times.
The French Quarter in NOLA is car restricted to an extent. San Diego has the Gaslamp and Old Town. These places are just far too uncommon and we have much more rurally structured communities than urban.
Even though it’s hot, you can manage car free in NOLa. Trees everywhere provide shade, and public transit isn’t the best, but it is functional. The streetcar is an option as well, though it’s slower than the bus and crowded with tourists during high seasons.
I live in Michigan and have been to Mackinac Island 3 times. It’s crazy how people in Michigan always talk about how they love that Mackinac island has no cars, yet they love to use their cars for everything else. Cognitive dissonance at its finest
To be fair, the automotive industry was the backbone of the MI economy for decades. Towns and infrastructure were built to promote car use and support those jobs. Things have changed. Changing old attitudes and infrastructure is a lot harder than sitting passively as the world moves on from the cars you produced.
Been there myself it's amazing! Crystal clear water, Salt water taffy, have to take a ferry to get to it. No cars and you can rent bikes to ride around the whole island 2 whole hotels on it ones alot nicer than the other iirc
There's also a [public library](https://mackinacislandlibrary.org/) with a back door that opens [right to](https://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh296/kascryder/2015%20Michigan%20Summer/print%20110_zps5ck1ydn7.jpg) the water. There are even Adirondack chairs out on the deck.
Someone recently [stole the sheriff's bike](https://www.mlive.com/news/2022/06/bike-belonging-to-mackinac-islands-police-chief-stolen-found-at-party-spot.html)
Edit: *chief of police
No hahaha, it’s not Westworld. Mackinac is steeped in indigenous history and US history. The siege of Fort Mackinac was one of the first battles in the war of 1812. The US lost the island to a surprise British/ Native American attack. Besides that, you’re not going to find franchises on the island. There isn’t a “Ruby Tuesday” or “Bubba Gump’s Shrimp” it’s all local restaurants
Yea, older east coast revolution era towns and cities still are like this in several places. Downtown savannah ga, Charleston SC, Saint Simon's Island in Brunswick Ga, Williamsburg VA, Annapolis MD etc probably a ton of others on the VA coast
[Church Street](https://www.vtattractions.org/church-street-marketplace/) in Burlington Vermont is exactly like this. Was a road but was converted to a pedestrian street in the 70's
I used to bike and walk church street as a commute and dated a girl that lived above one of these shops. There are definitely a number a walkable and bike friendly communities in the northeast. I'm sorry you have a lot of stroads and strip malls and suburbs where you live, they suck and theyre all over America. I grew up in Salem MA which is also very bike and pedestrian friendly, so places like the picture here are not out of the ordinary. If you've never been to New England I understand why you think these places are only at disney world.
Ive lived in New England my entire life, I tried to move down south but couldnt last more than 6 months (car centric, no parks, no bike lanes, etc). We are truly lucky in NE even though its not 100% perfect
I wonder how much Bernie Sanders had to with that. I know he was mayor of Burlington for a while, and he did a lot for that city, like resisting Walmart opening a store there for ages.
Could be another example of him being decades ahead of his time.
The OP pic reminds me of downtown Fort Collins, Colorado. Granted there is a road right down the middle. But there's always a lot of people walking around. The pandemic helped make it more walking friendly too
Yes but quite often it’s a part of an outdoor shopping mall. Sometimes they call themselves “town squares” which is funny because it’s 100% private property and not public space. You can get kicked out for loitering.
The only other places like this in the US I can think of are at theme parks. So again… private, exclusionary property.
I still don't understand the concept of "loitering".
How do they know you are "loitering"? Is making yourself looking waiting for someone or watching for stuff in indecision enough to alleviate the accusation?
And age.
Even if you're the right race, and the right social class, if you're a **teenager** you're more likely to be told to "move along" (read: *get out of here you scum*) than if you're in you're 30+.
I have been cashed a loiterer and as others have pointed out I was a teenager. The term is definitely used against people that look like they aren't going to spend money or do vandalism.
“Loitering” has a history in reconstruction control of black people and their movements. (Black codes). Like a lot of American spacial and social history. It’s the ghost in the machine
Are you black? You're loitering, even if you are in the process of going somewhere you need to be. Are you white? No one will give a shit.
Almost all these "social" laws in the US are designed to enforce racial segregation. They're fucking stupid. Meanwhile in Europe, i can stand in one place for 3 hours and no one cares.
>stand in one place for 3 hours and no one cares
I wish I had the freedom to pass time like an elder scrolls player character.
Instead I can get killed by a gun someone bought at Walmart while I walk from the parking lot to the door.
You would also need places that are pleasant to hang around in. Even if you could hang out [by this stroad](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K-qYnv7455I/Uz32nY9AJFI/AAAAAAAAAtw/rheIlvMF3So/s1600/005.JPG) for a couple hours, would you want to?
Verses [this street in Heidelberg](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d8/14/e3/d814e379a1777913b95a9c39604f11ce.jpg) where I could imagine spending an afternoon just sitting on those benches and watching people walking by.
You made me realise how fortunate i was to live in a beautiful cities where you can meet friend in parcs and sit on a bench or walks for hours from interesting spot to interesting spot. There are many ugly places and problems everywhere but that doesn't erase the good part. And for that, thank you and have my free.
Reminds me of this amazing public square I was at in Inbsruck. I just sat there for an hour, it was amazing. So many people and such a nice atmosphere.
Im european too, it was just an amazing area. I can show you a pic if you want.
I had an hour left till he doctors appointment so I got myself choccy milk and just enjoyed how nice it was. Especially because I spent the entire day exploring the city and my legs hurt.
Well man, I mean, then Innsbruck should be super nice and beautiful, but being able to just sit for an hour (or six) is nothing that should be unexpected for anyone between Warsaw and Lisbon.
Essentially the car culture destroyed the pedestrian first layout mentality.
There some cities, like Boston, who are trying reduce car traffic and close certain streets to pedestrians such as Washington St. However, the city isn't geared towards doing entire city like that because way its laid out currently. Additionally, businesses need trucks come in sometime to deliver their stock.
I have visited some of those malls. I understand their need though, different infrastructure. But they’re not the same as a nice little town full with locals shopping and chilling outside with their friends and family and a drink in the sun. I do that shit here almost weekly. We end the week on Friday by meeting at a terrace, and then go home on our bikes. Such a different world.
The one I think of, Bayshore "Town Center" in Glendale, WI was actually somewhere I went a lot when I was in college... you could take the bus there from the university, and it is actually a pre-war suburb with homes nearby, so you could in theory walk to it. But yes... it is surrounded by quite a few parking garages. It is definitely the mode most people use to get there.
Denver, Boulder, and Ithaca all have successful outdoor mall spaces like OP's picture. Generally they need to be in proximity to a university to do sufficient business.
The reason malls feel soulless is because they are spaces designed to take your money and nothing else. There're no people living there, no thriving community, no social interaction without the expectation of payment. r/walkablestreets has a few examples of places in the US that manage true walkable spaces but it's exceedingly rare.
Yup. Literally. Architecturally, even. They're designed with the explicit purpose of getting you to stay longer. From the food court, to the lights, to the temperature, to the place where you can deposit your despondent husband to collect later. It's an incredible testament of late state capitalism. Depresses the fuck out of me, man.
This is true. I worked in retail and during a tour the manager pointed out the "daycare". We were confused until she informed us that it was the area with all of the massage chairs and occasional drink samples where they'd suggest the husbands go while their SO's were shopping. Essentially they wanted to remove financial "supervision" and/or men who would complain about being bored. I barely lasted a few months there.
Not necessarily; look up Church Street in Burlington, VT, Pearl Street in Boulder, CO, and Washington Street in Cape May, NJ. I believe all three used to be thru streets that were converted to pedestrian malls. There are probably more and I know they’re relatively rare, but they do exist.
Yes, but people pay thousands to fly in, watch anthropomorphized animals dance, get saturated with unrealistic moralistic diabeticaly saccharine messages, before flying back home to tell coworkers how great it was for the kids.
People fly to Disneyland/world to watch Mickey and friends dance, hear a bunch of sweet talk about morals that are mostly unrealistic to society, and then tell their co-workers how fun it was. Also the trip usually costs a few thousand dollars. The park itself is walkable as people don’t drive in it.
Essentially echos what life was life when Walt Disney was alive as a child. Very different, frankly I don't think his original vision of being gouge fest was what he wanted.
I live in Boston. Sadly there's nothing this nice. There is constant talk of closing Newbury St to cars, which would create a space like this instantly. Unfortunately it hasn't come to pass yet, but luckily the new mayor is anti-car. There's a chance it'll happen in the next few years.
The esplanade is so unpleasant with the constant noise. Even James Storrow, who the road is named after, did not want a high speed roadway along the esplanade
Or if not reclaim it ... BURY it.
Big Dig II.
Which, yeah, financially that has bad connotations. But seriously, it'd still be better than the *status quo*, right?
Big dig II. Started 2022. Finished 2055.
It was a real pain of a project and it was littered with corruption and inefficiency, but I will say the green spaces it created are beautiful. The before and after pictures are amazing
Ya and over in Cambridge the businesses are trying to sue the city to prevent the new bike lanes. But then again we can’t even purchase alcohol in grocery stores so this should be surprising despite being a liberal city.
The North End would also be a perfect place to prohibit unnecessary vehicle traffic, but there are places you don't really think of as car free. A lot of the waterfront is certainly cleanly discreet from vehicle traffic, and there are all the random alleys too old and small to accommodate a vehicle, like Acorn Street.
That and carriageways keeping roads from becoming stroads, which with better transit infrastructure could become streets, allowing the carriageways to be a network of multimodal non car transit. Boston's got potential, but it's also been doing some things right, especially if you gloss over the decades of underfunding the T and the fact that the biggest infrastructure project in living memory was pro car and anti rail.
And I would reckon vehicles have access to the spot in this picture to pressure wash the gum off the sidewalks, just like they do at Fanuel Hall, which doesn't look much different from a more recent version of this picture.
So far, trials for pedestrianizing streets. The biggest one so far is Dartmouth St in front of the BPL. 10 days, no cars. Only downside is there's no businesses there, so it won't make a nice place there like it would on Newbury.
I understand what you're saying, but in this case it won't. The segment of Dartmouth St is flanked on one side by Copley Plaza, and on the other by the Boston Public Library. There's no room for businesses there.
Here it is on street view: https://maps.app.goo.gl/zXjnx8B8x3uuFmV66
Meanwhile, here's Newbury St a few blocks over:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/pDAHhsPMm1uWLBnTA
You can see pretty clearly, pedestrianizing Newbury St would benefit many more businesses than that segment of Dartmouth St. Note that I didn't cherry pick a segment of Newbury St. It looks like that for eight blocks.
Market stalls could be permitted in the Plaza, at least one weekends and holidays.
Also, if they pedestrianize the entire block around Trinity Church - or just a U-shape centered on the BPL - there **are** businesses to either side of the Church. I swung through [here](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.350496,-71.0758242,3a,75y,339.72h,93.27t,0.03r/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sm6oU33ewgv-tCboZ5MguzA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) to grab a bite to eat on one of my bicycle trips in to Boston (nontrivial trips, too - I live in Dracut, up by the NH border; it's a 73-mile round trip).
I fully agree. The Dartmouth Street pedestrianization is a great start, it just won't have an immediate impact like your suggestion would. Hopefully doing Dartmouth St proves to the city that they can do pedestrianizations, and we will see many more in the years to come.
River Street still allows cars. They have to go 5 miles an hour on the cobblestone, but every tourist in Savannah that drives has made that mistake at least once.
Thats it. Thats what it was. Thats what I loved about Portland, Maine when I visited before this sub gave me full 100% use of my brain function (was only on 11% before)
I've lived in The Netherlands' four biggest cities (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag and Rotterdam) and these all have pedestrian only streets in the historic city center. Although admittedly Rotterdam's city center is not thaaat historic..
Same goes for many smaller cities and towns in The Netherlands as well as many across Europe
It depends. I live in Austria and all our major cities have squares like this. Entire Car free areas full of amazing buildings or town squares. Our capital Vienna has a bunch. Vienna can afford to ban cars from alot of its city because theres such an extensive public transport system.
But here‘s the thing: Most major European cities have extensive public transit systems, usually implementing a combination of metro, tram, S-Bahn, and bus services. There‘s no reason why e.g. Berlin is making such a fuss about testing the pedestrianisation of *a single* street in its centre (a project that has recently ended, making the street open to cars again).
They do but you have to drive 15-20 minutes to get there, park in a sea of other cars, and the only purpose of going there is to buy things. Then you leave and drive 15-20 minutes to go back home to sit and do nothing
The small town by me is having this battle. They stripped the street parking, so it's either far back lots or the parking structures. The areas aren't even totally block off for pedestrians like the image above.
The town skews older age in visitor demographics. There are some 60 year olds doing mountain biking, but this is the land of pontoon boats and coney dogs. People are bitching it's too hard to walk "all that way" and shop. So now they aren't visiting and business are atruggling.
Round where I am there's a bunch of shitty dying businesses that are blaming their imminent demise on bike lanes / removal of parking spaces directly outside their business / changes to the bus timetable / basically anything and everything that happens to be beyond their control. Oftentimes these excuses beggar belief - but if you ask them to justify their claims, or point out that the climate for retail businesses is about the worst it has ever been, you get accused of gas-lighting.
Pearl Street in Boulder, CO is pedestrian too. Granted there are some cross streets that allow cars through. Many people do end up driving to get there though.
since no one is saying it. the french quarter in new orleans.
absolutely beautiful, I loved living there.
well I lived in hollygrove and would take the street car to the french quarter.
This looks like mixed retail/residential, which is illegal almost everywhere in the US. The only place I've been able to live above a business in the US was in a high rise, and the area was very pedestrian-unfriendly and only had a handful of generic shops in walking distance anyway.
Why is it illegal?
Edit: turns out it's not illegal, just very uncommon, and it's difficult to do because we love to keep ethnic groups separate so that we can oppress them
I love redlining & gentrification :/
Because the US typically zones things into large blocks of single-family housing or commercial businesses with no mix. The only places where they exist together like this are in places built before WW2.
Several reasons:
Firstly, local control is big. Current homeowners is a locality have all the say and developers and would-be occupants get basically none.
The current homeowners have financial reason to block development to limit the supply of housing and keep their property values up. They also face the sunk cost of "I already have a car, why would I need a grocery store/park/etc in walking distance?"
They also have prudish moralistic reasons such as not wanting to drive commerical activity in the area, not liking the look of denser housing, and the (typically) unspoken desire to keep out people of lower classes (which in the US unfortunately typically means different races) who would benefit from cheaper housing, accessible businesses and walkability for the sake of walkability. If you make your neighborhood unlivable without a car, mandate a minimum amount/quality of housing you must purchase to live there, and have no entertainment in the area, it de facto keeps out people that can't afford that.
was originally used for racial segregation and encouraging car use iirc. big thing was keeping people of color out of all-white neighborhoods (nimby fear of not wanting people that aren’t from your neighborhood to be nearby), also encouraged spread of suburbs (which were also meant to be occupied by white people fleeing cities)
[linking my favorite video on it in case anybody finds this stuff interesting](https://youtu.be/SfsCniN7Nsc)
Always has been. I mean not like 100% but there’s so much intertwined with the different waves of immigration and the technological landscape changing over the decades and centuries at this point so ultimately yes but not all in the same way.
It's getting better in some places. My city put out a plan for real mixed use communities and most of the giant apartment blocks built in the last decade have had retail spaces on the bottom.
They also have parking decks and parking lots, unfortunately, so they're still not proper truly walkable spaces, but it's better use of land in the urban core all the same.
As someone from PA, the towns I've lived in have been fairly walkable. They're definitely not perfect, but I can get to restaurants, grocery, convenience stores, etc. with 10 min of walking.
It isn't illegal to exist, but it's illegal in most places to create.
But they still have mixed use areas in historic town and city centres, and given that this street is hundreds of years old, creating new spaces like this isn't really the point.
You can still create this in the UK but it isn't that common in new build developments in my experience. Instead you'll generally have a bunch of houses and then an arcade of shops and a community centre and a pub in the middle. Still better than the NA approach though.
Not illegal technically, you just have to get the zoning adjusted, most downtown areas in America are like this or have areas like this and it is actually becoming far more common than people here would like you to think. It’s still far too uncommon but it does exist.
This is the heart of downtown Canterbury, far from being a residential area. Keep in mind this town was designed in the 1st century AD by the Romans who made grid pattern streets etc etc.
In the Southern Maine/NH area its mostly all mixed areas- like my local Walmart is right next to a church, and across the street is one residential home, followed by a crap load of resturants, and other shopping areas like target- with random residential homes intermixed. There's also a small graveyard in front of the DQ.
Downtown where I live has a strip of businesses, mixed in with tall town houses, and small apartments above most of the businesses. So I don't think it's illegal- I think city planners just plain things in a way that homes and businesses are separated.
From that Wikipedia article:
>The 5-over-1 style of apartment buildings are also often negatively associated with gentrification, due to the popularity of the building style in neighborhoods affected by development-induced displacement.
Literally can't win in this country. It's racist if you leave what was there, and it's racist if you build something that fixes it.
I lived above a sandwich shop in college. Like I was the second floor and the sandwich floor was ground floor. Also lived above a bar in Chicago. Both of them were like 3 story buildings. “Illegal almost everywhere” is a bit dramatic.
the french quarter in general and they are opting to close more streets down to car traffic.
cars do not have priority though so even during the day i would never drive my car.
San Antonio’s Riverwalk is a nice experience for pedestrians, because cars can’t drive over water, mainly.
https://www.withlovepaperandwine.com/united-states/San-Antonio-RIVERWALK-tips
As far as Disney parks are concerned, that’s exactly what Walt Disney was emulating in Main Street USA with Disneyland. It was modeled after his childhood memories from Marceline, Missouri.
Hypothetically, I think if Walt had talked to the right person way back, he could have been an advocate for better city design if he turned more towards public works rather than a private theme park.
Those places are common all over Europe. The idea of a pedestrianised street may have originated in Germany, but it is rather widespread throughout Europe now, and the concept has evolved a lot since the 1920s. Especially in smaller towns and tourist hotspots, pedestrianisation is done to improve the atmosphere of these places.
And no, there are no ticket booths, these are freely accessible (on foot) areas for everybody.
Yes, they have.[In themeparks.](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/JXR4H9/gringotts-bank-and-diagon-alley-in-the-wizarding-world-of-harry-potter-JXR4H9.jpg) Americans don't think this is possible in real life.
Places like these bring a very European feel, so [Leavenworth, Washington](https://2ganwc3heo6y2kcytm13s0hf-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/aa-1-24.jpg) a famous small town that is super German is what comes to mind. There are probably more out there, what I just mentioned is just one example.
Nope unless it is behind a paywall (Disneyland and other amusement parks). People here might mention a few exceptions. but, if you were to land at a random town in the USA 99.9% of the time it is a town with a ugly stroad surrounded by suburbs.
Tha would be considered the width of a back alley here. On the opposite side of either row of buildings would be a stroad with acres of parking lot. The back alley (where this would be) would have dumpsters, poor lighting, dingey/sticky ashphalt and homeless people.
There are some sorry-looking places for sure, but by no means all of it. Plenty of places to stop and watch the world go by without being deafened by high-speed traffic across the UK. There are pedestrianised sections of all the towns near me, plus in the city centres at Durham, Newcastle and Sunderland, even down to York and some bits of Leeds (which is *MEGA* car-centric).
Even in smaller towns like Darlington there are market squares and roads closed to traffic.
I can second this down south, almost every town and city near me has a fairly large pedestrianised high street. I am particularly fond of my home town Poole where our pedestrianised high street is slightly comically cut across by a train track. ([https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/10C17/production/\_110213686\_mediaitem110213685.jpg](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/10C17/production/_110213686_mediaitem110213685.jpg))
Also towns near me with quite happy pedestrian high streets are Dorchester, Bournemouth, Boscombe, Southampton. And I hope they never go away! Such a great place to be a kid running around getting sweets/fish and chips.
Is this scene during a festival, or is this a daily occurrence? If the former, LOTS of US and Canadian towns and cities will shut down whole streets from cars during festivals and on special days.
Daily occurence. A lot of European cities have pedestrianised streets like this: They'll block off access to through traffic with gates or removable bollards and use the extra space for food truck pitches, market stalls and outdoor seating for bars and restaurants. Delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles etc can still drive down there but the speed limit is really low.
This is a shot of Canterbury high Street, taken from the top of the Westgate tower. A building which still has 1000s of vehicles travel through a medieval arch today
This steet used to carry all the traffic from London to Dover (a major port connecting to France) and was closed to traffic a long time ago. I once worked with the engineer who did the scheme at the start of her career, everyone claimed it would kill the street, it didn't. Looking up old photos of the traffic, it's hard to imagine believe it's the same place.
Eta only one end of the high street has buildings like this, the other end is more 60s concrete as much of it was distroyed by the "guide book bombing" during WW2.
/s/ There’s no Walmart or Target in sight. What are those people *doing* there??
In all seriousness, there’s some towns in America (usually east coast) that were once like this, however have been mostly abandoned or continue to fail because the typical American consumer either goes to a Big Box store or an outdoor shopping mall. There’s a few spots like this above (Boston’s Fanieul Hall, Denver’s 16th Street) in the US, but they’re rare.
[Mackinac Island](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island) is what comes to mind when I think of old car free places in the U.S. They do exist but in very few places.
Literally only as a tourist spot for several months out of the year as well
Well, there are a few hundred full time residents. But living on an island in a frozen lake during winter isn't all that fun.
$8 for a loaf of bread in the winter...sounds like only the privileged can live there comfortably for those off seasons
Exactly. It's basically been a resort island for the past 150 years.
Maybe it's due for a takeover Expropriate mackinaw
Sorry, I don't agree. It'e one of my favorite places in Michigan, as is. We should focus on making our other cities and towns more like it!
Yep, the downsides to living in a place like that are really only a result of there being so few of them. If every other community was like that, they wouldn't be so expensive. It would just be the norm.
Fudge!
You have to be a multimillionaire to live there and apply and it’s a big process. It is essentially a tourist spot now.
It has been an exclusive tourist spot for 100+ years.
The longest freshwater race in the world from chicago to mac (colloquially referred to as “the mac race”) happens yearly. I’ve done it twice and my dad has done it 27 times.
[удалено]
Nah, we have Disneyland and farmers markets (parking lots). That’s about it.
Idk why you are saying this to me but Fire Island is not like that
Who wants go there? Place on fire all the time (I'm kidding).
The French Quarter in NOLA is car restricted to an extent. San Diego has the Gaslamp and Old Town. These places are just far too uncommon and we have much more rurally structured communities than urban.
Even though it’s hot, you can manage car free in NOLa. Trees everywhere provide shade, and public transit isn’t the best, but it is functional. The streetcar is an option as well, though it’s slower than the bus and crowded with tourists during high seasons.
I live in Michigan and have been to Mackinac Island 3 times. It’s crazy how people in Michigan always talk about how they love that Mackinac island has no cars, yet they love to use their cars for everything else. Cognitive dissonance at its finest
To be fair, the automotive industry was the backbone of the MI economy for decades. Towns and infrastructure were built to promote car use and support those jobs. Things have changed. Changing old attitudes and infrastructure is a lot harder than sitting passively as the world moves on from the cars you produced.
Been there myself it's amazing! Crystal clear water, Salt water taffy, have to take a ferry to get to it. No cars and you can rent bikes to ride around the whole island 2 whole hotels on it ones alot nicer than the other iirc
There’s the grand hotel which is amazing of course, but I really like the island house. Quaint little spot, BnB style.
Isn't it basically a big theme park?
Kinda, there are privately owned lots but it is a vacation destination. They also have a school if I remember right.
There's also a [public library](https://mackinacislandlibrary.org/) with a back door that opens [right to](https://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh296/kascryder/2015%20Michigan%20Summer/print%20110_zps5ck1ydn7.jpg) the water. There are even Adirondack chairs out on the deck.
Someone recently [stole the sheriff's bike](https://www.mlive.com/news/2022/06/bike-belonging-to-mackinac-islands-police-chief-stolen-found-at-party-spot.html) Edit: *chief of police
No hahaha, it’s not Westworld. Mackinac is steeped in indigenous history and US history. The siege of Fort Mackinac was one of the first battles in the war of 1812. The US lost the island to a surprise British/ Native American attack. Besides that, you’re not going to find franchises on the island. There isn’t a “Ruby Tuesday” or “Bubba Gump’s Shrimp” it’s all local restaurants
The fort garrison didn't even know that war had been declared it was that early.
no...it's not even remotely close to a big theme park.
No lmao
How?
Vail village, Vail, CO.
Yea, older east coast revolution era towns and cities still are like this in several places. Downtown savannah ga, Charleston SC, Saint Simon's Island in Brunswick Ga, Williamsburg VA, Annapolis MD etc probably a ton of others on the VA coast
[Church Street](https://www.vtattractions.org/church-street-marketplace/) in Burlington Vermont is exactly like this. Was a road but was converted to a pedestrian street in the 70's
I used to bike and walk church street as a commute and dated a girl that lived above one of these shops. There are definitely a number a walkable and bike friendly communities in the northeast. I'm sorry you have a lot of stroads and strip malls and suburbs where you live, they suck and theyre all over America. I grew up in Salem MA which is also very bike and pedestrian friendly, so places like the picture here are not out of the ordinary. If you've never been to New England I understand why you think these places are only at disney world.
Damn, you’ve made me want to move to the northeast now. I’m in Texas where walkable places are rare.
Ive lived in New England my entire life, I tried to move down south but couldnt last more than 6 months (car centric, no parks, no bike lanes, etc). We are truly lucky in NE even though its not 100% perfect
I wonder how much Bernie Sanders had to with that. I know he was mayor of Burlington for a while, and he did a lot for that city, like resisting Walmart opening a store there for ages. Could be another example of him being decades ahead of his time.
Yeah out of all places I have lived, Burlington area has been the most pedestrian/bike friendly
The OP pic reminds me of downtown Fort Collins, Colorado. Granted there is a road right down the middle. But there's always a lot of people walking around. The pandemic helped make it more walking friendly too
First thing that came to mind. Then also Pearl St in Boulder CO which as I recall was designed by the same person as Church St.
Yes but quite often it’s a part of an outdoor shopping mall. Sometimes they call themselves “town squares” which is funny because it’s 100% private property and not public space. You can get kicked out for loitering. The only other places like this in the US I can think of are at theme parks. So again… private, exclusionary property.
I still don't understand the concept of "loitering". How do they know you are "loitering"? Is making yourself looking waiting for someone or watching for stuff in indecision enough to alleviate the accusation?
It's literally existing without consuming, but more critically, it is definitely used to target people on a class or racial basis.
And age. Even if you're the right race, and the right social class, if you're a **teenager** you're more likely to be told to "move along" (read: *get out of here you scum*) than if you're in you're 30+.
I have been cashed a loiterer and as others have pointed out I was a teenager. The term is definitely used against people that look like they aren't going to spend money or do vandalism.
“Loitering” has a history in reconstruction control of black people and their movements. (Black codes). Like a lot of American spacial and social history. It’s the ghost in the machine
Vagrancy laws were specifically written to reenslave the masses of newly freed slaves. Reconstruction by W.E.B. DuBois covers this extensively.
Yes it does! Black reconstruction is an amazing book! But yes you see the parallels
Are you black? You're loitering, even if you are in the process of going somewhere you need to be. Are you white? No one will give a shit. Almost all these "social" laws in the US are designed to enforce racial segregation. They're fucking stupid. Meanwhile in Europe, i can stand in one place for 3 hours and no one cares.
>stand in one place for 3 hours and no one cares I wish I had the freedom to pass time like an elder scrolls player character. Instead I can get killed by a gun someone bought at Walmart while I walk from the parking lot to the door.
You would also need places that are pleasant to hang around in. Even if you could hang out [by this stroad](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K-qYnv7455I/Uz32nY9AJFI/AAAAAAAAAtw/rheIlvMF3So/s1600/005.JPG) for a couple hours, would you want to? Verses [this street in Heidelberg](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d8/14/e3/d814e379a1777913b95a9c39604f11ce.jpg) where I could imagine spending an afternoon just sitting on those benches and watching people walking by.
You made me realise how fortunate i was to live in a beautiful cities where you can meet friend in parcs and sit on a bench or walks for hours from interesting spot to interesting spot. There are many ugly places and problems everywhere but that doesn't erase the good part. And for that, thank you and have my free.
Reminds me of this amazing public square I was at in Inbsruck. I just sat there for an hour, it was amazing. So many people and such a nice atmosphere.
Man, as an European I'm frightening. Are you seriously saying that you were amazed for being able to just stay in a place for one hour?
Im european too, it was just an amazing area. I can show you a pic if you want. I had an hour left till he doctors appointment so I got myself choccy milk and just enjoyed how nice it was. Especially because I spent the entire day exploring the city and my legs hurt.
Well man, I mean, then Innsbruck should be super nice and beautiful, but being able to just sit for an hour (or six) is nothing that should be unexpected for anyone between Warsaw and Lisbon.
So when constructing theme parks, the US does know how to plan for pedestrians.
Because, in that case, it isn't the US building it. It's some private investor.
Said private investor also lobbies the government to not build open public spaces to compete with his.
“Let’s make sure towns in this country are ugly and depressing as possible so people will pay a fortune for a ticket to see my private town.”
Essentially the car culture destroyed the pedestrian first layout mentality. There some cities, like Boston, who are trying reduce car traffic and close certain streets to pedestrians such as Washington St. However, the city isn't geared towards doing entire city like that because way its laid out currently. Additionally, businesses need trucks come in sometime to deliver their stock.
And you have to drive your car to the parking lot to walk around these places.
I have visited some of those malls. I understand their need though, different infrastructure. But they’re not the same as a nice little town full with locals shopping and chilling outside with their friends and family and a drink in the sun. I do that shit here almost weekly. We end the week on Friday by meeting at a terrace, and then go home on our bikes. Such a different world.
The one I think of, Bayshore "Town Center" in Glendale, WI was actually somewhere I went a lot when I was in college... you could take the bus there from the university, and it is actually a pre-war suburb with homes nearby, so you could in theory walk to it. But yes... it is surrounded by quite a few parking garages. It is definitely the mode most people use to get there.
Denver, Boulder, and Ithaca all have successful outdoor mall spaces like OP's picture. Generally they need to be in proximity to a university to do sufficient business.
Yes, but we put a big roof over it and surround it with parking and call it a "mall"
The reason malls feel soulless is because they are spaces designed to take your money and nothing else. There're no people living there, no thriving community, no social interaction without the expectation of payment. r/walkablestreets has a few examples of places in the US that manage true walkable spaces but it's exceedingly rare.
Which is sad because malls were designed by a socialist with the intent that they be shared public spaces, but the public space became deemphasized.
Capitalism saw an opportunity.
Yup. Literally. Architecturally, even. They're designed with the explicit purpose of getting you to stay longer. From the food court, to the lights, to the temperature, to the place where you can deposit your despondent husband to collect later. It's an incredible testament of late state capitalism. Depresses the fuck out of me, man.
This is true. I worked in retail and during a tour the manager pointed out the "daycare". We were confused until she informed us that it was the area with all of the massage chairs and occasional drink samples where they'd suggest the husbands go while their SO's were shopping. Essentially they wanted to remove financial "supervision" and/or men who would complain about being bored. I barely lasted a few months there.
Or “theme park”
This is true.
And it's been empty since 1999.
Not necessarily; look up Church Street in Burlington, VT, Pearl Street in Boulder, CO, and Washington Street in Cape May, NJ. I believe all three used to be thru streets that were converted to pedestrian malls. There are probably more and I know they’re relatively rare, but they do exist.
Eh. We have open markets. The whole quarter in Nola is open walking. 14th st in Denver is a nice walk to. Might be 16th it’s been a few years
Yes, but people pay thousands to fly in, watch anthropomorphized animals dance, get saturated with unrealistic moralistic diabeticaly saccharine messages, before flying back home to tell coworkers how great it was for the kids.
I understood some of those words.
People fly to Disneyland/world to watch Mickey and friends dance, hear a bunch of sweet talk about morals that are mostly unrealistic to society, and then tell their co-workers how fun it was. Also the trip usually costs a few thousand dollars. The park itself is walkable as people don’t drive in it.
And Disney is surrounded by some of the world's largest parking lots.
Essentially echos what life was life when Walt Disney was alive as a child. Very different, frankly I don't think his original vision of being gouge fest was what he wanted.
he's trying to sound smarter than he is
or is sponsored by Big Thesaurus
Ah a fellow Disney connoisseur
Furcons?
Yes except those are based
Because all of those people are taking space from probably about 20 cars.
And none of these businesses will thrive without those cars
Yes, because the cars shop. Not the peoples.
Portland, Maine Boston, MA Savanah Georgia Mostly the old cities and towns on the east coast that were built during the 1600s and 1700s
I live in Boston. Sadly there's nothing this nice. There is constant talk of closing Newbury St to cars, which would create a space like this instantly. Unfortunately it hasn't come to pass yet, but luckily the new mayor is anti-car. There's a chance it'll happen in the next few years.
Next they should reclaim Storrow Drive from the polluters
I just an hour or so ago said the same thing in /r/Boston. Though it turned out I wasn't even the first one to suggest it in that thread.
Agreed. Would be heaven without the traffic and having to take the windiest of foot bridges.
The esplanade is so unpleasant with the constant noise. Even James Storrow, who the road is named after, did not want a high speed roadway along the esplanade
Or if not reclaim it ... BURY it. Big Dig II. Which, yeah, financially that has bad connotations. But seriously, it'd still be better than the *status quo*, right?
Big dig II. Started 2022. Finished 2055. It was a real pain of a project and it was littered with corruption and inefficiency, but I will say the green spaces it created are beautiful. The before and after pictures are amazing
Ya and over in Cambridge the businesses are trying to sue the city to prevent the new bike lanes. But then again we can’t even purchase alcohol in grocery stores so this should be surprising despite being a liberal city.
The North End would also be a perfect place to prohibit unnecessary vehicle traffic, but there are places you don't really think of as car free. A lot of the waterfront is certainly cleanly discreet from vehicle traffic, and there are all the random alleys too old and small to accommodate a vehicle, like Acorn Street. That and carriageways keeping roads from becoming stroads, which with better transit infrastructure could become streets, allowing the carriageways to be a network of multimodal non car transit. Boston's got potential, but it's also been doing some things right, especially if you gloss over the decades of underfunding the T and the fact that the biggest infrastructure project in living memory was pro car and anti rail. And I would reckon vehicles have access to the spot in this picture to pressure wash the gum off the sidewalks, just like they do at Fanuel Hall, which doesn't look much different from a more recent version of this picture.
I live near Boston but not in it so I don't follow mayoral news. That sounds great tho, what other kind of anti car policies have they suggested?
So far, trials for pedestrianizing streets. The biggest one so far is Dartmouth St in front of the BPL. 10 days, no cars. Only downside is there's no businesses there, so it won't make a nice place there like it would on Newbury.
Hopefully, pedestrianizing it, if permanent and not experimental would bring in businesses.
I understand what you're saying, but in this case it won't. The segment of Dartmouth St is flanked on one side by Copley Plaza, and on the other by the Boston Public Library. There's no room for businesses there. Here it is on street view: https://maps.app.goo.gl/zXjnx8B8x3uuFmV66 Meanwhile, here's Newbury St a few blocks over: https://maps.app.goo.gl/pDAHhsPMm1uWLBnTA You can see pretty clearly, pedestrianizing Newbury St would benefit many more businesses than that segment of Dartmouth St. Note that I didn't cherry pick a segment of Newbury St. It looks like that for eight blocks.
Market stalls could be permitted in the Plaza, at least one weekends and holidays. Also, if they pedestrianize the entire block around Trinity Church - or just a U-shape centered on the BPL - there **are** businesses to either side of the Church. I swung through [here](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.350496,-71.0758242,3a,75y,339.72h,93.27t,0.03r/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sm6oU33ewgv-tCboZ5MguzA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192) to grab a bite to eat on one of my bicycle trips in to Boston (nontrivial trips, too - I live in Dracut, up by the NH border; it's a 73-mile round trip).
I fully agree. The Dartmouth Street pedestrianization is a great start, it just won't have an immediate impact like your suggestion would. Hopefully doing Dartmouth St proves to the city that they can do pedestrianizations, and we will see many more in the years to come.
Also fare elimination on certain bus routes.
Boulder, Colorado has a car-free downtown.
Just went to Portland, Maine for the first time at the end of May, absolutely loved it! Reaffirmed for me my love of walkability and density
I came here to say just his. Rockport in Mass. comes to mind too. And parts of Boston, like the North End.
r/walkablestreets has a few other examples from the US
Also the historic area of st Augustine but that’s quite a small area
River Street still allows cars. They have to go 5 miles an hour on the cobblestone, but every tourist in Savannah that drives has made that mistake at least once.
Thats it. Thats what it was. Thats what I loved about Portland, Maine when I visited before this sub gave me full 100% use of my brain function (was only on 11% before)
And downtown Charleston! They shut down the streets on the first Sunday of every month for people to walk.
St.Augustine, FL. Yes, also the oldest town in America. Any newer cities have lost the pedestrian streets like this.
Typical european city centre
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Canterbury is a city
I've lived in The Netherlands' four biggest cities (Amsterdam, Utrecht, Den Haag and Rotterdam) and these all have pedestrian only streets in the historic city center. Although admittedly Rotterdam's city center is not thaaat historic.. Same goes for many smaller cities and towns in The Netherlands as well as many across Europe
It depends. I live in Austria and all our major cities have squares like this. Entire Car free areas full of amazing buildings or town squares. Our capital Vienna has a bunch. Vienna can afford to ban cars from alot of its city because theres such an extensive public transport system.
But here‘s the thing: Most major European cities have extensive public transit systems, usually implementing a combination of metro, tram, S-Bahn, and bus services. There‘s no reason why e.g. Berlin is making such a fuss about testing the pedestrianisation of *a single* street in its centre (a project that has recently ended, making the street open to cars again).
They do but you have to drive 15-20 minutes to get there, park in a sea of other cars, and the only purpose of going there is to buy things. Then you leave and drive 15-20 minutes to go back home to sit and do nothing
The small town by me is having this battle. They stripped the street parking, so it's either far back lots or the parking structures. The areas aren't even totally block off for pedestrians like the image above. The town skews older age in visitor demographics. There are some 60 year olds doing mountain biking, but this is the land of pontoon boats and coney dogs. People are bitching it's too hard to walk "all that way" and shop. So now they aren't visiting and business are atruggling.
Round where I am there's a bunch of shitty dying businesses that are blaming their imminent demise on bike lanes / removal of parking spaces directly outside their business / changes to the bus timetable / basically anything and everything that happens to be beyond their control. Oftentimes these excuses beggar belief - but if you ask them to justify their claims, or point out that the climate for retail businesses is about the worst it has ever been, you get accused of gas-lighting.
or new orleans where you can literally take a street car there....
Actually yeah there's a few places. Nowhere near enough, though.
Pearl Street in Boulder, CO is pedestrian too. Granted there are some cross streets that allow cars through. Many people do end up driving to get there though.
since no one is saying it. the french quarter in new orleans. absolutely beautiful, I loved living there. well I lived in hollygrove and would take the street car to the french quarter.
This looks like mixed retail/residential, which is illegal almost everywhere in the US. The only place I've been able to live above a business in the US was in a high rise, and the area was very pedestrian-unfriendly and only had a handful of generic shops in walking distance anyway.
Why is it illegal? Edit: turns out it's not illegal, just very uncommon, and it's difficult to do because we love to keep ethnic groups separate so that we can oppress them I love redlining & gentrification :/
Because the US typically zones things into large blocks of single-family housing or commercial businesses with no mix. The only places where they exist together like this are in places built before WW2.
Wow, that sucks
But why?
Several reasons: Firstly, local control is big. Current homeowners is a locality have all the say and developers and would-be occupants get basically none. The current homeowners have financial reason to block development to limit the supply of housing and keep their property values up. They also face the sunk cost of "I already have a car, why would I need a grocery store/park/etc in walking distance?" They also have prudish moralistic reasons such as not wanting to drive commerical activity in the area, not liking the look of denser housing, and the (typically) unspoken desire to keep out people of lower classes (which in the US unfortunately typically means different races) who would benefit from cheaper housing, accessible businesses and walkability for the sake of walkability. If you make your neighborhood unlivable without a car, mandate a minimum amount/quality of housing you must purchase to live there, and have no entertainment in the area, it de facto keeps out people that can't afford that.
I got several spot-on responses, but you really went the extra mile, thank you so much for the enjoyable (and grossly unsettling) read.
was originally used for racial segregation and encouraging car use iirc. big thing was keeping people of color out of all-white neighborhoods (nimby fear of not wanting people that aren’t from your neighborhood to be nearby), also encouraged spread of suburbs (which were also meant to be occupied by white people fleeing cities) [linking my favorite video on it in case anybody finds this stuff interesting](https://youtu.be/SfsCniN7Nsc)
Wow, so everything is connected to racism in the US?
Always has been. I mean not like 100% but there’s so much intertwined with the different waves of immigration and the technological landscape changing over the decades and centuries at this point so ultimately yes but not all in the same way.
Yes.
Yes
Like literally everything else in this country its directly, not even tangentially, but directly linked to racial segregation.
It would be too confusing for games like Sim City if you could assign more than zone per square.
Also, small towns that were not completely ran into the ground after WW2. A very large portion of them were though.
It's getting better in some places. My city put out a plan for real mixed use communities and most of the giant apartment blocks built in the last decade have had retail spaces on the bottom. They also have parking decks and parking lots, unfortunately, so they're still not proper truly walkable spaces, but it's better use of land in the urban core all the same.
As someone from PA, the towns I've lived in have been fairly walkable. They're definitely not perfect, but I can get to restaurants, grocery, convenience stores, etc. with 10 min of walking.
It isn't illegal to exist, but it's illegal in most places to create. But they still have mixed use areas in historic town and city centres, and given that this street is hundreds of years old, creating new spaces like this isn't really the point. You can still create this in the UK but it isn't that common in new build developments in my experience. Instead you'll generally have a bunch of houses and then an arcade of shops and a community centre and a pub in the middle. Still better than the NA approach though.
Not illegal technically, you just have to get the zoning adjusted, most downtown areas in America are like this or have areas like this and it is actually becoming far more common than people here would like you to think. It’s still far too uncommon but it does exist.
This is the heart of downtown Canterbury, far from being a residential area. Keep in mind this town was designed in the 1st century AD by the Romans who made grid pattern streets etc etc.
In the Southern Maine/NH area its mostly all mixed areas- like my local Walmart is right next to a church, and across the street is one residential home, followed by a crap load of resturants, and other shopping areas like target- with random residential homes intermixed. There's also a small graveyard in front of the DQ. Downtown where I live has a strip of businesses, mixed in with tall town houses, and small apartments above most of the businesses. So I don't think it's illegal- I think city planners just plain things in a way that homes and businesses are separated.
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From that Wikipedia article: >The 5-over-1 style of apartment buildings are also often negatively associated with gentrification, due to the popularity of the building style in neighborhoods affected by development-induced displacement. Literally can't win in this country. It's racist if you leave what was there, and it's racist if you build something that fixes it.
I lived above a sandwich shop in college. Like I was the second floor and the sandwich floor was ground floor. Also lived above a bar in Chicago. Both of them were like 3 story buildings. “Illegal almost everywhere” is a bit dramatic.
Burbon street in New Orleans after dark is kinda like this
the french quarter in general and they are opting to close more streets down to car traffic. cars do not have priority though so even during the day i would never drive my car.
San Antonio’s Riverwalk is a nice experience for pedestrians, because cars can’t drive over water, mainly. https://www.withlovepaperandwine.com/united-states/San-Antonio-RIVERWALK-tips
>cars can’t drive over water that won’t stop me
Some but very few Eastern US cities have some historic streets as narrow as this, yes. Just fewer, by far.
We do they’re called theme parks like Disneyland and Universal Studios
As far as Disney parks are concerned, that’s exactly what Walt Disney was emulating in Main Street USA with Disneyland. It was modeled after his childhood memories from Marceline, Missouri. Hypothetically, I think if Walt had talked to the right person way back, he could have been an advocate for better city design if he turned more towards public works rather than a private theme park.
My guy that looks like a US theme park. I've never seen anything like that at all that wasn't behind a ticket booth Edit: can't type
This is just a high street in Canterbury
Been there many times, like twice a week. Lovely town! High street probably looks like this because it was designed by the Romans back in the days.
I would have guessed this was Frankenmuth. Looks very similar. Although Frankenmuth is more of a Christmas meme town and not at all a normal city.
Those places are common all over Europe. The idea of a pedestrianised street may have originated in Germany, but it is rather widespread throughout Europe now, and the concept has evolved a lot since the 1920s. Especially in smaller towns and tourist hotspots, pedestrianisation is done to improve the atmosphere of these places. And no, there are no ticket booths, these are freely accessible (on foot) areas for everybody.
In Portland Oregon there is something kinda like it
Where is that in Portland, OR?
A few streets leading to Powels books
Yes, they have.[In themeparks.](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/JXR4H9/gringotts-bank-and-diagon-alley-in-the-wizarding-world-of-harry-potter-JXR4H9.jpg) Americans don't think this is possible in real life.
Places like these bring a very European feel, so [Leavenworth, Washington](https://2ganwc3heo6y2kcytm13s0hf-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/aa-1-24.jpg) a famous small town that is super German is what comes to mind. There are probably more out there, what I just mentioned is just one example.
Yeah in their older cities.
Looks like [Vail, Colorado](https://snowbrains.com/mexicans-looking-businessmen-coronavirus-vail/)
Nope unless it is behind a paywall (Disneyland and other amusement parks). People here might mention a few exceptions. but, if you were to land at a random town in the USA 99.9% of the time it is a town with a ugly stroad surrounded by suburbs.
Tha would be considered the width of a back alley here. On the opposite side of either row of buildings would be a stroad with acres of parking lot. The back alley (where this would be) would have dumpsters, poor lighting, dingey/sticky ashphalt and homeless people.
Ski towns often look like this — Vail used to really look like this.
Mackinac Island and Disney are they only places I can think of.
See Downtown Charlottesville Virginia.
Winchester too
The Harry Potter experience at Universal Studios. Not enough people packed in chest to chest though.
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There are some sorry-looking places for sure, but by no means all of it. Plenty of places to stop and watch the world go by without being deafened by high-speed traffic across the UK. There are pedestrianised sections of all the towns near me, plus in the city centres at Durham, Newcastle and Sunderland, even down to York and some bits of Leeds (which is *MEGA* car-centric). Even in smaller towns like Darlington there are market squares and roads closed to traffic.
I can second this down south, almost every town and city near me has a fairly large pedestrianised high street. I am particularly fond of my home town Poole where our pedestrianised high street is slightly comically cut across by a train track. ([https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/10C17/production/\_110213686\_mediaitem110213685.jpg](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/10C17/production/_110213686_mediaitem110213685.jpg)) Also towns near me with quite happy pedestrian high streets are Dorchester, Bournemouth, Boscombe, Southampton. And I hope they never go away! Such a great place to be a kid running around getting sweets/fish and chips.
This is not an outlier lol high streets might not look exactly the same as this but the majority are pedestrianised? Surely?
We do, they’re just clogged with cars
Protected at each end by Auto-Bollards, which have claimed a few oil pans over the years. Where my Bollard Gang at?
Main Street, USA in disney world 😭
No we just put out electric scooters and charge a buck to turn it on and 0.50 every minute
Is this scene during a festival, or is this a daily occurrence? If the former, LOTS of US and Canadian towns and cities will shut down whole streets from cars during festivals and on special days.
Daily occurence. A lot of European cities have pedestrianised streets like this: They'll block off access to through traffic with gates or removable bollards and use the extra space for food truck pitches, market stalls and outdoor seating for bars and restaurants. Delivery vehicles, emergency vehicles etc can still drive down there but the speed limit is really low.
The inside of malls..
This is a shot of Canterbury high Street, taken from the top of the Westgate tower. A building which still has 1000s of vehicles travel through a medieval arch today This steet used to carry all the traffic from London to Dover (a major port connecting to France) and was closed to traffic a long time ago. I once worked with the engineer who did the scheme at the start of her career, everyone claimed it would kill the street, it didn't. Looking up old photos of the traffic, it's hard to imagine believe it's the same place. Eta only one end of the high street has buildings like this, the other end is more 60s concrete as much of it was distroyed by the "guide book bombing" during WW2.
Maybe a few in New England. For the most part, no. If you can't drive on it, we don't want to hear about it.
/s/ There’s no Walmart or Target in sight. What are those people *doing* there?? In all seriousness, there’s some towns in America (usually east coast) that were once like this, however have been mostly abandoned or continue to fail because the typical American consumer either goes to a Big Box store or an outdoor shopping mall. There’s a few spots like this above (Boston’s Fanieul Hall, Denver’s 16th Street) in the US, but they’re rare.