An anthropology professor gave me a little piece of advice that has stuck in my mind for years. When analyzing a culture, even your own, you should take the "view from nowhere." That is, analyze what you see outside of the context of social norms, leaving analysis of your observations to logic and reasoning alone.

At some point during the World War II era, our country was stripped away from under our feet, and handed over to an army of two-ton four-wheeled metal boxes. In most of the country, they have drained the life out of our cities, and transformed what was once a vibrant culture into a pack of zombies who stare through a windshield during the day, and a flat-screen television at night. The handful of urban areas which retain some sense of dignity have seen the majority of their public spaces bastardized and repurposed to serve this army of four-wheeled metal boxes. Despite the fact that the motoring lifestyle is responsible for prematurely ending thousands of American lives per year, the status quo still defends it (quite literally) to the death--all without paying any extra taxes to support this intrusive habit.

To me, livable streets is about more than just safe cycling infrastructure, or improved mass transit, or for having lively public spaces in which to enjoy a coffee and the paper. It's about how these ingredients (albeit oversimplified here for brevity) combine to reclaim our culture from the deadly, wasteful, almighty automobile, and the social attitudes it drags along with it.

Cycling, reading, mathematics, computer science, urban planning/theory, urban history