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After a century of driving, we have less freedom—here’s how to get it back

On the surface, “freedom” on the road can seem like having a car and driving it everywhere. But when you look at how transportation and land use have changed over the last century, a different story emerges.

A hundred years ago, many more people lived close to what they needed and could reach daily life by walking, biking, or riding transit. Today, we travel farther, spend more of our income on transportation, are exposed to more peril, and are leaving a large and growing share of people who cannot easily drive stranded and stressing public services.

The unfortunate reality is that after a century of cars, we have fewer mobility options and our ability to thrive and even survive is more dependent on a profit-making industry that has nearly complete control over our freedom of movement.

The good news is that the same kinds of policies that have led us to where we are today can liberate us.

Transportation options a century ago

In the mid‑1920s, a large share of Americans in cities and towns lived within a short distance of daily life. In 1920, roughly half of the U.S. population lived in urban areas. Those cities were much denser and more compact than today’s metropolitan regions.

Streetcars and interurban rail shaped growth. In the 1910s and early 1920s, street railways carried on the order of 13 to 14 billion trips a year, well over 100 trips per resident. In many cities, most workers reached jobs by walking or riding transit. New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago all depended heavily on streetcars and early subways for commuting.

Urban neighborhoods were mixed and close‑knit. Apartments and boarding houses stood near factories and warehouses. Many people lived in walking distance of small grocers, corner shops, schools, and churches. Developers built “streetcar suburbs” whose very business model depended on buyers being able to walk to a transit stop and ride into town.

People had real options. Walking was normal for short trips. Transit was normal for work and school. Bicycles expanded personal range for many who could not or did not want to buy a car. Streets carried slow traffic and a mix of users, which made cycling and walking more plausible for daily needs even without modern protected lanes.

Most important, you could live a full life without a car. Proximity and transit made that possible. That mix of short distances and multiple modes provided a kind of everyday freedom that many people do not have now.

Transportation options today

By the 2020s, the picture has flipped. About four out of five Americans now live in metropolitan areas, but those areas cover far more land than in 1920. Homes, jobs, and services are spread over large distances.

A typical pattern in newer development is clear. Single‑family houses fill large subdivisions. Shops cluster in centers along wide arterial roads. Offices sit in business parks and edge cities near freeway exits. Schools and hospitals stand on big sites fronted by parking lots and fast traffic. Sidewalks are missing on key links. Networks for safe bicycling are nearly nonexistent. Transit lines, where they exist at all, can be rare and hard to reach on foot.

Most people now use a car for almost every trip. Around 85 percent of U.S. workers commute by driving. Transit handles only a small share of trips, often around five percent of work commutes and less of total travel. The average one‑way commute has climbed to roughly 27 or 28 minutes, up from about 20 minutes in 1980, and often covers many more miles.

The money and safety costs are high. Household transportation spending often falls between 13 and 17 percent of the budget, with higher shares for lower‑income families. For many people, transportation is the second‑largest expense after housing. Owning and operating one car can easily cost several thousand dollars per year and two‑car households are common.

At the same time, the U.S. suffers tens of thousands of traffic deaths every year and hundreds of thousands of serious injuries. That adds up to roughly a dozen or more deaths per 100,000 people in many years. People walking or biking face particular danger on multi‑lane, high‑speed roads. Pedestrian deaths have risen sharply over the past decade.

This system also limits the freedom of many groups. Young people who cannot yet drive often cannot reach jobs, activities, or friends without rides. Older adults who stop driving for health or safety reasons can become isolated if they live far from stores or transit. People with disabilities who cannot drive or can drive only in limited circumstances face long waits and logistical hurdles. Lower‑income workers may spend a large part of limited earnings on cars or endure long, unreliable commutes on underfunded transit.

Cars can feel like they offer freedom on an individual trip. At the system level, we have built a world where long distances and missing alternatives turn cars into a requirement rather than a choice. That is a narrower kind of freedom than the one many people had a century ago.

What caused the “drive” towards less freedom

The shift from a closer, multimodal world to a distant, car‑based is a consequence of policy choices, backed and promoted by industries profiting from it.

One major force was highway building. Federal and state governments invested heavily in roads, especially after the 1950s. The Interstate Highway System alone created more than forty thousand miles of high‑speed routes. Urban freeways cut through city neighborhoods and made it possible to live and work much farther apart. For decades, most national and state transportation dollars went into highways, while transit received much less.

A second major force was zoning and land‑use control. After the 1920s and especially after World War II, many cities and suburbs adopted zoning maps that reserved most residential land for detached single‑family houses. In many communities, as much as two‑thirds or more of residential land allows only that one housing type. Local codes also imposed large minimum lot sizes, deep setbacks from the street, and generous parking requirements for homes and businesses. Commercial and residential uses were often separated. This legal structure made compact and mixed neighborhoods much harder to build.

As populations grew, new residents could not easily move into central or transit‑rich areas because those areas were limited to low‑density housing by law and were often already full. Instead, they were funneled into outer subdivisions and farther‑flung towns. Everyday distances grew. Driving became a necessity rather than a preference.

A third force was the decline and partial reinvention of transit. Private streetcar and bus companies lost riders as cars grew more common. They were tightly regulated on fares and often required to maintain streets along their tracks. Without public support, many systems cut service or shut down. Public agencies later took over and federal funding began in the 1960s and 1970s. New rail lines opened in some cities. But transit was often treated as a service for those without cars, not as the backbone of regional mobility, and funding levels reflected that.

A fourth force was road design and safety thinking. Mid‑century traffic engineering focused on vehicle speed and carrying capacity. Designers widened lanes and intersections and made turning radii large. Many older city streets that once worked at human scale turned into fast conduits for through traffic. Safety programs improved cars and driver behavior in some respects but left the basic structure of dangerous roads largely intact.

Finally, housing and civil rights policies shaped who had access to what. Redlining, discriminatory lending, and exclusionary zoning kept many Black families, immigrants, and lower‑income households out of new suburbs and often concentrated them in neighborhoods cut by new highways. These communities sometimes lost both housing and access when freeways arrived, with lasting effects.

Together, these choices stretched distances, removed compact options from the menu in many places, and made driving the default way to participate in normal life. They also divided access and burden along lines of income, race, age, and ability.

How to take our freedom back

Just as creating a car-centric system has made us less free, and we can restore freedom by rebuilding proximity, restoring variety in how neighborhoods are built, and supporting many ways to travel. This does not require banning cars. It means no longer building everything as if the car is the only option that matters.

One step is to change the rules about what can be built and where. Cities and suburbs can allow more housing types in more places, especially near jobs, schools, and transit. That includes legalizing duplexes, triplexes, and small apartment buildings in areas that now allow only detached houses. It also includes allowing mixed use buildings in more locations so people can live near shops and services. Reducing or removing minimum parking requirements lets builders use land for homes and businesses rather than long‑term car storage. Over time, these changes allow more people to live closer to what they need.

Another step is to treat transit as essential infrastructure. Regions can fund frequent, all‑day service on key routes and protect those routes from congestion with bus lanes or rail priority where it makes sense. Land use and transit planning can be linked so that new housing and jobs cluster along strong transit lines rather than scattering randomly. Good transit gives people who drive another choice and gives those who do not drive a real right to the city and the region.

Street design needs attention as well. Many high‑speed arterials can be rebuilt so that they are safer for everyone. Narrower lanes, shorter crossings, better crosswalks, and protected space for cycling lower the chance and severity of crashes. Filling sidewalk gaps and improving lighting make walking more attractive and safer. Campaigns that aim to eliminate deaths and serious injuries can focus on the places and designs that create the most harm and track results.

We also need to focus on people with the fewest options today. That means strong paratransit and accessible fixed‑route service for people with disabilities. It means safe routes so children and teenagers can walk or bike to school or activities without relying on adults to drive them. It means better and more frequent transit in lower‑income neighborhoods, along with fares and passes people can afford. Supporting e‑bikes and other small electric vehicles with safe places to ride can also extend the reach of non‑car travel for many people.

Finally, transportation policy can line up more clearly with goals for health, climate, equity, and economic opportunity. Leaders can favor projects that shorten trip distances, improve access by walking, biking, and transit, and repair past harms from highways. Measures of success can shift from how fast cars move on a segment of road to how many people can reach jobs, schools, grocery stores, and doctors within a reasonable time without a car.

A hundred years ago, many urban Americans enjoyed a quieter form of freedom built on short distances and many ways to travel. Today, in spite of higher incomes and more advanced vehicles, many of us have less real choice and more dependency. By changing how we build and connect our communities, we can move back toward a world where people are free to use cars when they want, but do not have to use them for every part of life.

References

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (2024). Fatality Facts. IIHS.
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics

American Automobile Association (2023). Your Driving Costs. AAA.
https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/aaa-average-cost-of-owning-a-car

Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023). Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2022. U.S. Department of Labor.
https://www.bls.gov/cex/

U.S. Census Bureau (2021). American Community Survey 1‑Year Estimates, Means of Transportation to Work and Travel Time to Work.
https://data.census.gov

U.S. Census Bureau (2020). Urban and Rural.
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/urban-rural.html

Federal Highway Administration (2017). Interstate System Facts. U.S. Department of Transportation.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/facts.cfm

American Public Transportation Association (various years). Public Transportation Fact Book (Historical Tables). American Public Transportation Association.
https://www.apta.com/research-technical-resources/transit-statistics/public-transportation-fact-book/

Norton, Peter D. (2008). Fighting Traffic. The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. MIT Press.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/

Flink, James J. (1988). The Automobile Age. MIT Press.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262560559/the-automobile-age/

Seely, Bruce E. (1993). Building the American Highway System. Engineers as Policy Makers. Temple University Press.
https://tupress.temple.edu/books/building-the-american-highway-system

Rose, Mark H. (1979). Interstate. Express Highway Politics, 1939–1989. University of Tennessee Press.
https://utpress.org/title/interstate/

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Policy priorities for good living, thriving communities, and next-level climate action

Policy priorities to advance wellbeing and climate solutions together through urbanism broadly

Working draft

1. Legalize abundant homes in walkable places

Decades of exclusionary zoning push homes far from jobs and services, lengthening car trips and worsening housing scarcity, costs, and emissions.

Solution: Allow more homes near transit and job centers—small apartments, duplexes, ADUs, mixed-use buildings—by-right and with fast approvals. Pair with inclusionary tools and tenant protections so added supply also supports affordability and equity.

2. End parking minimums and start or strengthen Transportation Demand Mangement (TDM) initiatives

Parking mandates inflate housing costs, consume valuable land, and induce more driving, congestion, and pollution.

Solution: Eliminate minimums citywide; price on-street parking by demand; convert excess lots to housing, trees, and storefronts. Manage for TDM and access. Use parking revenue for better sidewalks, transit passes, and neighborhood safety.

3. Prioritize Complete Streets + Safe Speeds (Vision Zero)

Traffic crashes are a leading cause of death, and unsafe, high-speed streets deter walking, rolling, and biking—locking in car dependence and emissions.

Solution: Design for human life: 20–30 mph limits on urban streets, narrower lanes, daylighting, raised crossings, protected intersections, and quick-build materials. Make safety the performance metric, not vehicle flow.

4. Build safe, connected bicycle networks

Most people won’t bicyle outside of a convenient, low-stress network; fragmented lanes leave big gaps in access, health benefits, and mode shift potential.

Solution: Build citywide, protected, all-ages-and-abilities bikeways every quarter mile; add secure bike parking and e-bike charging. Integrate bikeways with transit so longer trips become bike+bus or bike+rail.

5. Invest in frequent and rapid transit, electrified

Slow, unreliable buses and diesel fleets drive riders away and pollute the air, especially in low-income neighborhoods.

Solution: Frequent all-day service, dedicated lanes, signal priority, off-board fare payment, and legible networks—then electrify buses and trains. Invest early in high-ridership corridors and zero-emission depots to cut both CO2 and soot.

6. Move towards 15-minute neighborhoods (complete, mixed-use districts)

Zoning that separates homes, shops, schools, and parks forces long, car-only trips and erodes community health and time.

Solution: Allow and incentivize daily needs within a short walk or roll: mixed-use zoning, corner stores, schools and clinics embedded in neighborhoods, and safe routes that stitch these places together.

7. Enact congestion pricing and fair road use charges

Underpriced driving creates gridlock, unsafe streets, and high emissions while starving transit of funds.

Solution: Charge for scarce road space in peak periods and set delivery/ride-hail fees at the curb; rebate or discount for low-income travelers. Reinvest revenue in faster buses, safer streets, and cleaner air in impacted communities.

8. Build trees, shade, bioswales, and other natural infrastructure into streets

Heat waves and flooding hit cities hardest, raising mortality and damaging infrastructure, with disproportionate impacts on heat- and flood-vulnerable blocks.

Solution: Plant and maintain street trees, cool pavements, bioswales, and rain gardens—prioritizing low-canopy areas and bus stops. Pair with maintenance funding to lock in long-term cooling, cleaner air, and flood resilience.

9. Enable equitable transit-oriented development

Transit-rich land is underused or becomes unaffordable without safeguards, missing climate benefits and displacing the very riders who rely on transit.

Solution: Upzone around stations with minimal parking, mixed incomes, and strong tenant protections. Use value capture, land banking, and community land trusts to deliver permanently affordable homes and local businesses near transit.

10. Reuse and retrofit buildings with clean heat in compact areas

Buildings emit large shares of urban CO2 and air pollution; demolition wastes embodied carbon and money.

Solution: Make adaptive reuse easy; require energy upgrades at point of sale or major renovation; electrify space/water heating with heat pumps; and deploy district energy where density supports it—starting in walkable, transit-rich neighborhoods to maximize uptake and benefits

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Key climate solutions for communities

To unlock new climate progress, apply the power of local communities. Communities are key to most of the climate action needed as well as types of action that can make daily life safer, healthier, and more affordable for everyone.

What follows is a list of community‑oriented solutions that:

  • Are key areas of climate action overall;
  • Offer some of the most effective climate opportunities for communities;
  • Fall within local authority and influence, representing unique power by communities; and
  • Advance equity and public wellbeing, which can lead the way to support for doing more.

Estimates reflect typical North American urban conditions and results vary by context.

#1. Make it legal and attractive to put housing near destinations, and amenities near homes: Reform zoning for more homes in job‑ and transit‑rich areas, permit “missing middle” housing and accessory units, reduce minimum parking, enable small mixed‑use corner stores, clinics, and childcare, and streamline approvals for affordability and inclusion. 

Infill homes lower household VMT 20–40% versus sprawl; shifting 10–20% of growth to infill can cut regional on‑road emissions ~2–6% over a decade, while multifamily/attached homes use 10–30% less energy per unit. If 40%+ of new housing is transit‑oriented, metro transport emissions can fall 10–20% by 2040, with shorter trips, lower costs, and inclusionary policies reducing displacement pressures.

#2. Neutralize the threat of being killed or seriously injured by a driver: Design streets to self‑enforce safe speeds, build connected, protected bike networks, daylight intersections, prioritize pedestrians at crossings, and target high‑injury corridors with data‑driven design, paired with fair enforcement and universal access to safe mobility. 

Such programs typically cut VMT 3–10% citywide within 5–10 years (about 2–8% on‑road CO2e, or 1–4% of total community emissions), with sustained mode shift reducing per‑capita transport emissions 20–50% over 10–20 years. Fewer severe crashes, reliable low‑cost mobility during fuel price spikes or outages, and better access to jobs and services especially benefit low‑income residents, youth, seniors, and people with disabilities.

#3. Deliver high‑quality walking, bicycling, and public transit for everyone: Build safe, direct bike routes and frequent, reliable transit with all‑door boarding, bus lanes, and integrated fares, and complete trips with wayfinding, lighting, benches, shade, and safe crossings. Network upgrades and service improvements reduce corridor VMT 5–15% and citywide 3–10%, and over time enable car‑light lifestyles that can halve household transport emissions. Redundant, multimodal networks also keep people moving during storms and outages while cutting mobility costs and improving access to essentials.

#4. Create abundant places to meet, interact, and belong outside of commerce: Invest in parks, plazas, libraries, greenways, and car‑free streets with free programming, designed for comfort—trees, water, seating, restrooms—and cultural expression. 

Nearby amenities reduce short car trips (often 0.5–2% VMT citywide) and shaded, tree‑rich public spaces lower cooling demand for adjacent buildings. Social infrastructure strengthens mutual aid, and shade and cooling reduce heat risk while free programming expands wellbeing without raising household costs.

#5. Restore and steward nature in the city with climate‑resilient landscaping and urban forestry:  Install bioswales, rain gardens, permeable pavements, and green roofs; landscape with native, drought‑tolerant species; expand and equitably distribute tree canopy; and restore wetlands, riparian corridors, dunes, and living shorelines. 

Shade and evapotranspiration cut cooling loads 5–30% for shaded buildings (roughly 0.05–0.3 tCO2e per home per year), while each new street tree sequesters 10–25 kg CO2 annually; 100,000 trees store 1–2.5 ktCO2e per year and avoid more via energy savings. Citywide canopy gains of 10 percentage points can reduce peak electricity demand 2–5%, while bioswales and rain gardens reduce flooding and heat in historically underserved neighborhoods.

#6. Grow local, plant‑rich food for health, climate, and resilience: Support community gardens, urban farms, edible landscaping, school gardens, greenhouses and rooftop farms; expand farmers markets and CSAs with SNAP matching; prioritize culturally appropriate crops and cut food waste. 

Plant‑rich diets reduce 0.5–1.6 tCO2e per person per year, while shorter cold chains for local produce trim 10–50 kg per person annually and compost‑amended soils store additional carbon. These measures increase food security, lower food bills, build community cohesion, and create local jobs and skills.

#7. Turn waste into soil with municipal composting: Provide universal organics collection (including multifamily) and business service, convenient drop‑offs, clear bin standards, and edible food recovery, and apply finished compost in parks, street trees, and urban agriculture. 

Diverting 1 t of food scraps from landfill avoids 0.2–0.6 tCO2e; with 75% diversion, communities avoid 20–80 kg CO2e per person annually, and compost use adds soil carbon and displaces synthetic fertilizer, totaling 40–120 kg per person per year. Programs create local jobs, improve soils that retain water, support urban food, and reduce odors and pests near facilities often sited in low‑income areas.

#8. Create systems for water conservation and efficiency: Offer instant‑rebate upgrades for high‑efficiency fixtures and appliances, smart irrigation, and turf replacement with climate‑appropriate landscaping; deploy smart meters with leak alerts; promote rainwater harvesting and safe graywater reuse; and set fair, affordability‑protected rates. 

Hot‑water efficiency (fixtures plus heat‑pump water heaters) lowers 0.6–1.8 tCO2e per home per year, while outdoor water efficiency and smart irrigation save 50–200 kg per home via the water‑energy nexus; utility‑scale leak detection and efficiency can cut water‑system electricity use 10–30%. The result is lower bills, improved drought resilience, reduced shutoff risk, and cooler neighborhoods where turf gives way to drought‑tolerant landscapes.

#9. Make buildings efficient and electric: Require and finance tight envelopes, passive cooling (shade, ventilation), and all‑electric systems; add rooftop solar and vehicle‑to‑home readiness; and harden for heat, smoke, fires, and floods. 

Typical retrofits and heat pumps save 1–3 tCO2e per home per year, heat‑pump water heaters 0.5–1.5 t, and induction 0.1–0.3 t; retrofitting 2–3% of stock annually cuts building emissions 3–7% in five years, and with grid decarbonization achieves 60–90% cuts by 2040–2050. Efficient envelopes keep homes habitable during outages, indoor air is healthier without combustion, and targeted no‑cost programs reduce energy poverty.

#10. Make electrification available for virtually everything—and beneficial to users: Provide simple, up‑front rebates for heat pumps, induction, electric water heaters, cars, e‑bikes, and chargers; implement equitable rates, managed charging, and community solar; and invest in workforce training and local contractors. 

Accelerated adoption increases cumulative 2030 reductions 10–30% versus slow rollout; each e‑bike that replaces car trips avoids ~0.3–1 tCO2e per year, and each home fuel‑switch avoids 1–3 tCO2e annually. Lower operating costs and cleaner air accrue broadly when access programs ensure renters and low‑income households benefit first.

#11. Build shared, neighborhood‑scale clean energy and resilience: Create resilience centers with solar, batteries, clean‑air rooms, and cooling/warming, link buildings via microgrids, deploy district geothermal/geoexchange networks, organize block commitments to decommission gas laterals and upgrade electrical capacity, and add curbside and hub EV charging. 

District geothermal cuts heating/cooling energy 30–60% and GHGs 40–80% today; microgrids with solar+storage reduce feeder peaks and displace diesel backup (1–3% local electricity emissions), and coordinated gas retirement plus electrification can eliminate 10–20% of total city emissions from building combustion and leakage over two decades. Shared systems keep critical services powered, lower costs for renters and small businesses, and should be prioritized in frontline neighborhoods.

#12. Keep people collectively safe from disasters, shocks, and stressors: Combine nature‑based defenses (trees, wetlands, dunes) with modern standards (cool roofs, updated codes, elevation, floodable parks), add resilient hubs, cooling centers, and clear risk communication, and plan jointly for heat, smoke, floods, and outages. 

These measures safeguard crucial clean energy and other assets that reduce emissions, contribute to a faster adoption of such systems and reduce the likelihood of maladaptations such as increased use of diesel generators, and prevent high‑emission disaster recovery and support reliable operation of clean energy systems. Clean air and cooling access, language‑inclusive alerts, and social infrastructure protect those most exposed.

#13. Tamp down air pollution across its many sources. Tackle tailpipes and smokestacks together with land use, travel‑demand fixes, and clean technology: legalize compact, mixed‑use infill near jobs and transit and pair it with transportation demand management (congestion and curb pricing, employer commute benefits, school travel plans, demand‑based parking, delivery consolidation) to shorten trips, cut VMT and idling, and curb non‑exhaust PM. Accelerate zero‑emission cars, buses, and trucks; electrify buildings; restrict the dirtiest vehicles in dense areas; and expand urban forests and cool corridors. Focus on ports, freight corridors, and overburdened neighborhoods with shore power, yard‑equipment electrification, clean‑truck rules, and fenceline monitoring. Drive down PM2.5 (including diesel black carbon and brake/tire/road dust), PM10, NOx, SO2, VOCs and air toxics (e.g., benzene, formaldehyde, 1,3‑butadiene), carbon monoxide, and methane leaks that fuel ozone—verified with continuous monitoring and transparent public reporting.

Greenhouse‑gas benefits start with light‑duty vehicles: citywide VMT reduction of 3–10% from compact development and TDM typically yields ~2–8% on‑road CO2e cuts in 5–10 years; sustained mode shift to walking, biking, and transit can lower per‑capita transport emissions 20–50% over 10–20 years; and rapid LDV electrification adds 60–90% per‑mile CO2e reductions as grids decarbonize, with each e‑bike that replaces car trips avoiding ~0.3–1 tCO2e per year. Building electrification removes on‑site combustion; each e‑bus avoids ~50–80 tCO2e annually; and medium/heavy‑duty truck electrification cuts 60–95% per‑mile CO2e, while area‑focused clean‑air zones deliver additional, localized multi‑percent transport‑sector cuts. Health gains are largest for residents near ports, warehouses, and arterials, and fewer combustion appliances indoors reduce asthma triggers.

#14. Invest in public infrastructure efficiently and price disproportionate impacts fairly: Use lifecycle cost and carbon accounting, standardized designs, open data, and fair user fees such as weight‑ and distance‑based road charges, curb and congestion pricing, demand‑based parking, and stormwater fees tied to impervious areas, all with protections for low‑income users. 

Congestion and curb pricing reduce VMT 10–20% in priced zones and 2–5% citywide, demand‑based parking trims 2–4%, and stable revenue enables sustained transit and active‑mode expansion that underpins 10–20% transport‑sector cuts over time. Pairing pricing with income‑based discounts and reinvestment delivers fairer outcomes and lowers long‑run costs.

#15. Save money and materials with sharing and lending: Launch tool, toy, sports‑gear, and baby‑gear libraries; repair cafes and fix‑it clinics; clothing swaps and reuse marketplaces; and shared equipment for schools and small businesses, in partnership with public libraries for memberships and reservations. 

Avoided production dominates the climate benefit—sharing a handful of seldom‑used items can avert 50–200 kg CO2e per person per year, with mature programs achieving 0.1–1% community‑wide cuts and broader normalization of reuse delivering 2–5% consumption‑based reductions by 2035. These programs provide low‑cost access to essentials and skills and build social networks that matter in emergencies.

#16. Offer local services and experiences as affordable alternatives to high consumption:  Invest in arts and culture passes, maker spaces, community kitchens, skill‑shares, recreation, local tourism, and nature access, and support small businesses that provide repair, care, wellness, and learning, using vouchers and memberships to ensure inclusion. 

Shifting 5% of household spend from goods to low‑carbon services and experiences reduces ~0.2–0.8 tCO2e per household per year, with scaled programs cutting community consumption‑based emissions 1–3% over time. The result is more wellbeing per dollar, local jobs and skills, and inclusive access to community life.

#17. Organize public decision‑making around measurable collective wellbeing: 

Use participatory budgeting, citizens’ assemblies, language access, evidence‑based pilots and A/B tests, transparent dashboards, and delivery‑focused timelines that give frontline communities real power, not just voice. 

Faster, smarter adoption increases cumulative reductions—programs that double deployment rates can boost 2030 impact 10–30% versus business‑as‑usual rollout—while policies reflecting lived experience deliver fairer, more durable outcomes.

#18. Make large‑scale change possible and practical: Build project pipelines and pattern books, pre‑approve typical designs, procure at scale, train a climate‑ready workforce, and start with quick‑build projects that become permanent as data show benefits.

Standardization and bulk buys lower costs and speed deployment across sectors, compounding reductions, while predictable pipelines create local careers and let small and minority‑owned firms compete and thrive.

Putting it all together

Communities that pursue these strategies in parallel can plausibly cut total emissions 35–60% by 2035 (from a 2020s baseline) while reducing heat and flood risk, improving air quality, lowering household bills, and creating good local jobs. The fastest paths pair demand reduction (land use, mobility, efficiency), rapid electrification, neighborhood‑scale clean energy, water and materials stewardship, and joyful, lower‑consumption ways of living—implemented through equitable programs that prioritize those with the greatest energy and health burdens.

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Calling changemakers for urbanism (part 2 of 2)

Time for new changemakers to step up

Urbanism is the business of all changemakers who care about public wellbeing and climate action. And indeed, most likely, urbanism needs you.

Here are some of the roles that especially need to step up for urbanism.

Policy professionals

Keep asking why things work they way they do in a city–or why they dont, or what it’s so hard to change–and you will find policy. An ordinance, a procedure, an expression of values or priorities (or lack thereof) by electeds, an implied understanding about what those electeds want. An adopted budget, one of the most concrete expressions of policy of all.

So urbanism needs elected officials, staff policymakers, and advocates. What they can do:

Align rules with outcomes: Shift from prescriptive codes to outcome-based standards that prioritize safety, access, housing supply, and emissions reduction. Reform parking minimums; allow more housing types near jobs and transit; legalize gentle density.

Integrate health and climate: Bake active transportation, heat mitigation, flood resilience, and zero-emissions targets into land use, capital planning, and procurement. Require climate risk and health impact assessments for major projects.

Make permitting predictable and fast: Transparent timelines and digital workflows speed good projects without sacrificing review quality. Pair speed with community benefits and accountability.

Fund the right things: Invest in sidewalks, transit priority, street trees, and maintenance—not just expansion. Use value capture and impact fees to support affordable housing and public realm upgrades.

Pilot, measure, iterate: Start with place-based pilots; track safety, access, small-business vitality, emissions, and equity; scale what works.

Facility professionals

One of the most formative aspects of a town is its accumulation of physical facilities–the buildings, community centers, campuses, and neighborhood districts that draw people in and bring them together. A town in not much without these facilities, and the way these facilities are made up and operate together have a great impact on the wellbeing of a town’s residents.

Urbanism needs real estate developers, owners and operators of buildings and other places where people work, study, shop and visit, and administrators of community centers and campuses. What they can do:

Treat sites as part of the city, not isolated parcels: Open campuses to neighbors with permeable edges, public pathways, and welcoming ground floors. Prioritize mixed-use and human-scale design.

Reduce travel demand and improve access: Offer transit benefits, manage parking smartly, provide bike and micromobility amenities, and coordinate with cities on first/last-mile solutions and safer streets.

Build and operate for climate and resilience: Deliver high-performance buildings, green roofs, shade and trees, stormwater capture, and onsite renewables. Join or create district energy and thermal networks.

Support local economies and inclusion: Lease to small, local businesses; adopt community hiring and procurement; create flexible, affordable ground-floor spaces; invest in public realm and shared amenities.

Make places people want to be: Provide third places, restrooms, water, seating, and wayfinding. Good operations—security that’s welcoming, maintenance that’s responsive—shape perception and use.

Anchor institutions as civic partners: Hospitals, universities, stadiums, malls, and airports can act as resilience hubs, workforce pipelines, and transit anchors when they align their capital plans with civic goals.

Local government executives

The practice of urbanism has rapdily evolved over the last couple of decades. The field now has the benefit of science and evidence-based practices throughout. However, a lot of the things that best practices point to are not intuitive, and the change inherent in making things better is instrinsically disruptive. Yet at the ened of the day, expert staff are foremost employees, and the plans and proposals they bring forward are limited by their organizational mandates.

So urbanism needs city managers, other local public agency top officials, and their senior leaders. What they can do:

Break silos and deliver as one city: Stand up cross-department delivery teams (planning, transportation, housing, public works, public health, sustainability, finance) with shared KPIs, pooled budgets, and a single accountable owner for priority corridors and districts.

Set and fund a short list of enterprise outcomes: Choose measurable targets (e.g., fewer serious traffic injuries, faster buses, more housing approvals, cooler neighborhoods, lower emissions) and tie them to the budget, capital plan, and leadership performance agreements. Publish dashboards and report progress.

Make permitting and project delivery predictable: Create one-stop shops, concurrent reviews, clear service-level agreements, and escalation paths; digitize workflows and inspections; empower project managers to unblock issues quickly.

Resource authentic co-design: Fund compensated engagement, translation, and community partners; share data in plain language; build feedback loops from pilots into permanent programs.

Use procurement and partnerships as levers: Write outcome-based RFPs, prequalify innovative vendors, include pilot/scale clauses and social procurement; align investments with regional agencies, utilities, school districts, and anchor institutions.

Invest in care and operations: Protect O&M budgets; implement asset management and preventative maintenance for streets, lighting, trees, and transit stops; measure and improve reliability and cleanliness.

Build capacity and manage risk: Modernize classifications and training; use risk-based approvals; bring legal and procurement in early to enable innovation with compliance; maximize federal and state funding.

Public-interest investors

Urbanism presents profound opportunities to make life better and deliver important climate solutions at scale, including for groups who have been and continue to be the most left out. However there is incredible inertia in the forces that govern communities, and the work of making change–through policy, politics, public education, and more–needs resources.

So urbanism needs philanthropic funders, government grantmakers and providers of incentives, and impact investors. What they can do:

Align capital with public outcomes: Tie grants and investments to clear metrics for safety, housing affordability, emissions, and equity—and fund measurement and independent evaluation.

De-risk and crowd in capital: Offer first-loss, guarantees, PRIs/recoverable grants, and credit enhancements; fund predevelopment, technical assistance, and community engagement to get projects to “shovel ready.”

Reward enabling environments: Prioritize jurisdictions with predictable permitting, equitable zoning reforms, complete streets, and anti-displacement protections; use challenge grants and outcome payments to accelerate delivery.

Fund operations and stewardship: Support ongoing maintenance, activation, and care of streetscapes, trees, and transit amenities—not just capital ribbon cuttings.

Build local capacity: Invest in civic intermediaries, CDFIs, community land trusts, and city capacity for grant writing, data, and compliance—especially in smaller and under-resourced cities.

Scale what works: Back multi-year funds that replicate proven pilots; require open data and knowledge sharing to speed adoption.

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Urbanism needs a deeper bench (part 1 of 2)

Time for new changemakers to step up

Urbanism isn’t just about attractive streetscapes or elegant master plans. It’s the ongoing, collective work of shaping how cities and towns function and evolve—what gets built, who benefits, how life works, how people move, and how places weather shocks.

For too long, that work has rested mostly with a narrow set of specialists. If we want healthier, greener, more equitable places, we need a much broader coalition to step in and share the work.

Who traditionally works on urbanism

The practice and thought of urbanism has historically been led by a few groups of people. One is accredited trade professionals. City planners, engineers, and architects—often with credentials like AICP, PE, AIA—who translate big ideas into codes, drawings, infrastructure, and approvals. They steward the built environment through regulations, environmental reviews, traffic analyses, and capital projects.

Another is academics. Researchers in planning, architecture, geography, public health, economics, and sociology who build the evidence base, critique policy, and train practitioners.

This group brings rigor and essential expertise. But they alone cannot fulfill the potential of shaping towns for a better life and more livable future. They are limited in part by professional silos, risk-averse processes, and limited mandates.

Plans can look visionary yet stall at implementation; codes can seem to protect safety while inadvertently locking in car dependence or housing scarcity. To accomplish more, we need a fuller team of changemakers who influence how cities work day-to-day and new ways for all “urbanists” to work together.  

Why urbanism must involve a broader array of changemakers

The challenge is huge. Climate risks, housing affordability, public health, social inequity, and aging infrastructure are interconnected and urgent. No single department, profession, or sector can solve them.

How cities work is the sum of vast numbers and kinds of decisions. The urban fabric emerges from thousands of daily choices by landowners, employers, institutions, lenders, utilities, schools, and households—not only from formal planning processes and design studios.

Operations matter as much as plans. How buildings, streets, and campuses are operated determines safety, emissions, access, and cost over decades. Operators must be part of the design from the start.

Legitimacy affects durability. Projects that reflect lived experience and community priorities gain trust, survive political cycles, and deliver equitable benefits.

Little happens without financing and incentives. Policy can unlock or block capital. Private and civic actors will act faster and at scale when incentives line up with public goals.

Urbanism belongs to all of us. Specialists are essential, but the future of our cities depends on advocates, officials, operators, and owners stepping in. People who control rules, budgets, operations, narratives, and more. Working together, with shared goals and shared accountability, urbanism can deliver so much more.