Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

New German community models car-free living

Walking path, Vauban, Freiburg, GermanyPhotos from the Vauban community website.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on a brownfield redevelopment in Freiburg, Germany, where the community was constructed by the local government to be the epitome of sustainability, including transportation. The Vauban community is car free! If you read German, you can poke through the community website, this summary in English, and here for photos. From the article:

Welcome to Germany's best-known environmentally friendly neighborhood and a successful experiment in green urban living. The Vauban development - 2,000 new homes on a former military base 10 minutes by bike from the heart of Freiburg - has put into practice many ideas that were once dismissed as eco-fantasy but which are now moving to the center of public policy...

There are numerous incentives for Vauban's 4,700 residents to live car-free: Carpoolers get free yearly tramway passes, while parking spots - available only in a garage at the neighborhood's edge - go for €17,500 (US$23,000). Forty percent of residents have bought spaces, many just for the benefit of their visiting guests.

As a result, the car-ownership rate in Vauban is only 150 per 1,000 inhabitants, compared with 430 per 1,000 inhabitants in Freiburg proper.

In contrast, the US average is 640 household vehicles per 1,000 residents. But some cities - such as Davis, Calif., where 17 percent of residents commute by bike - have pioneered a car-free lifestyle that is similar to Vauban's model.

This article from Builder Online, "World Tour 2006: Powerful Change: Two European cities transform brownfields into places people want to live," also discusses the project.
Rowhouses in Vauban, Freiburg, Germany

Index Keywords: ; ;

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home