Slow Cities

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• Mark C. Tue Jun 23 2020

  Slow Cities: Conquering our Speed Addiction for Health and Sustainability

  Slow your city, enrich your life Two days after I had moved to California, I saw an easy way to cross the street, thus avoiding two blocks of back-and-forth walking. No cars to my left, no cars right, I crossed. A policeman got out of his squad car, motioned me to approach, and then informed me that I had just “jaywalked”. I had moved to LA from one of those rare places where the street is for gathering, walking, cycling and even playing, with motorists that enter knowing they must slow down. The cop didn’t care about this argument. Either I could sign to pay a fine or take it to court. I decided to pay. If Paul Tranter’s and Rodney Tolley’s Slow Cities: Conquering our Speed Addiction for Health and Sustainability had existed at the time, I would have decided to take it to court, and I would have won. I would have learned that the “motordom” lobby had transformed cities around the world into clogged automobile circulatory systems, where “streets were redefined as places where people walking, particularly children, did not belong.” I would have lectured the judge that my case was the example of the “slow paradox” (Tranter, Tolley chapter 4) of how speed steals our time, as did the speed for automobiles on the street I crossed illegally. The authors have extraordinary multi-disciplinary credentials which help us experience the history, geography, culture, ecology, philosophy, planning and designing of the great humane places that cities around the world can become, are becoming or still renege against becoming. Their concept of “effective speed”, how a commuter can actually save time by ditching the car and taking the bike, is touted as “counter-intuitive” but in fact, it is the system that car-centered cities have in place that goes against the grain of common sense, health and the environment. With a wealth of sources, revealing graphs and stunning photos, “Slow Cities” will be a fast course for city urban planning practitioners and grad students in urban transportation and planning. But it’s also a great tool for people like me to take before the judge in order to defend the rights of pedestrians, cyclists, users of public transportation, children, seniors and citizens around the world. (Full disclosure: as a writer and activist on urban quality of life, I received a review copy from the authors. I had read their earlier work and was predisposed to like this book, but it has far surpassed my expectations.)