12 August

Was out for my lunchtime walk this week, and saw an older person zip by on their mobility scooter. And it made me think, for a lot of the journeys even young and healthy adults do every day, something like this would be enough. A car is complete overkill. Sure cars are useful if you need to carry a lot of shopping, or passengers, or the weather is rubbish. But a lot of those problems were actually created BY cars. It was cars that shifted shops from walking distance from your home. Cars that made it normal to ferry the kids around everywhere all the time, meaning nothing ended up organised for them close to home. Cars shaped the way we designed our towns and cities, so that it then became almost impossible to function without them. The Italians and their scooters recognised this years ago. Ditto for Bali. Most of the things you can’t do without a car got done just fine, before we had cars. Cars changed how we built cities. Most urban design serves vehicles, not people.