This Arizona City Has Joined The Car-Free Revolution

A new neighborhood in Tempe, Arizona, is turning heads for what it doesn't have: parking.

With more than 700 apartments but zero parking spaces, Culdesac aims to be the ultimate car-free living experience in the U.S.

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 Residents trade parking a vehicle on-site for a comprehensive package of transportation benefits, including transit passes for light rail, streetcars and buses; on-site scooter rentals with a 14% discount; and lift discounts with dedicated pickup spots. A handful of electric cars are available to rent by the hour for errands where you need one. Culdesac also provided free e-bikes for the first 200 residents.

The neighborhood, which opened to residents last May, has a restaurant, coffee shop, food market, and micro-retail program that helps small businesses start up.

"We focus on mobility, community and open space, and for each of those, we have amenities we can build because we don't have to have a big parking garage or asphalt parking lot," Culdesac CEO Ryan Johnson told Cronkite News.

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According to a study published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, the way neighborhoods are planned and maintained influences the happiness, health, and trust of their residents. People like having a sense of connection and are happier when they feel part of a community.

Johnson told CNBC "Make It" that Culdesac is "the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S.," but the concept is not new — several European cities have redesigned streets to prioritize uses other than cars, including public transportation and parks.

In Barcelona's Poblenou neighborhood, for example, some former intersections are now playgrounds and some vehicular traffic lanes have been replaced with benches and potted plants, according to Fast Company. Reconfigured in 2016, the neighborhood is the city's first "superblock," a nine-block section that favors pedestrians, cyclists and neighbors who want to sit outside over cars.

When Barcelona declared a climate emergency in 2020, it said it would convert another 15 kilometers of streets into new superblocks.

A neighborhood in Utrecht, Netherlands, will be home to 12,000 residents but none will own cars. The 59-acre neighborhood includes stores, parks and other amenities within a short walk of the residential area, which is close to the city's central train station. The neighborhood also offers a car-sharing program for residents who need to travel farther. The Dutch city started experimenting with car-free streets in its center in 1965.

Over the past few years, hundreds of parking spaces in Oslo, Norway's city center, have been removed. Bike lanes and a bike-share system have been installed, and the city is working to improve public transit. The city implemented these measures to encourage people to drive less without specifically banning motor vehicles.

"I am certain that when people imagine their ideal city, it would not be a dream of polluted air cars jammed into endless traffic or streets filled up with parked cars," Oslo Vice Mayor of Urban Development Hanne Marcussen told Fast Company in a 2019 interview.

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