In my position as Mr. Cash Mustache, I do my greatest to be your one-stop-shop for Way of life Guru concepts. So over time we’ve lined not simply the Cash facet of life, but additionally the much more vital stuff like well being and health and the psychology of higher, happier residing. 

However there’s one single space of life the place all of those components come along with an virtually Nuclear Fusion stage of synergy and effectiveness. And due to that, if I may have one single want on this planet, that is what I would want for. It’s a change so huge that it might make each particular person on the planet higher off and repair most of our issues in a single grand sweep. And it’s in all probability not what you’d anticipate:

That we instantly swap to constructing our cities and nations round individuals, as a substitute of vehicles.

(after which repair all of our present ones too, in order that our total world is constructed round person-friendly residing.)

The advantages of this are method greater than virtually anybody can think about. We’re not simply speaking about eliminating a little bit of air pollution or a number of site visitors jams or automotive crashes. No. That is about far richer, more healthy, and most significantly extra enjoyable residing for everybody. 

To place even conservative numbers to this, we’re speaking a few life increase of over $20,000 per particular person per 12 months, which compounds into effectively over two million {dollars} per grownup lifetime.

On a nationwide scale, this is able to increase the wealth of the US by about seven trillion {dollars} per 12 months, which might compound into about 770 trillion over the subsequent 5 many years.

Which occurs to be greater than the present complete quantity of human wealth on all the planet.

You’ll have a home that’s each cheaper and extra lovely and spacious. Your physique and mind will likely be more healthy and stronger and sexier and price lots much less time and healthcare {dollars} to keep up. 

And all of our wallets and funding accounts, each private and non-private will likely be completely overflowing with surplus earnings, decreased bills, and gas an funding and prosperity increase just like the world has by no means seen.

“WTF?”,  you might ask 

“Isn’t city planning just a stuffy thing that your city council does in the background while we’re all off living our lives?”

Effectively, sure it’s proper now. And that’s the entire drawback: cities are constructed by individuals whose main job is to keep up the established order and forestall disruptions. And people committes are elected and inspired by crusty outdated corporations and organizations, and plain outdated grumpy neighbors who simply don’t have the imaginative and prescient to see what they’re lacking. 

I’m satisfied that if everybody may see by means of the smoggy haze of the established order, we’d all agree that this concept of a radical change is just not solely one of the best thought, however the one affordable thought to even contemplate. 

So our job is to study and clarify simply how large and the way simple that is. And what it boils all the way down to is fairly damned easy. 

Let’s begin with this image 

Whoa, that’s a little bit of a shock.

 So for a similar quantity of house you may have an total fairly good two bed room condo, or you may have simply sufficient house for 2 (small) vehicles to park and pull out. But it surely will get even crazier than this. Take a look at this random intersection right here in my very own metropolis:

WHAT?! So each time you have got two large automotive roads intersect, which occurs a whole bunch of occasions in each large metropolis, you’re losing sufficient house to construct an opulent, resort-like residing space with about 100 two-bedroom flats and nonetheless have room for a pool, a canine park, a grocery retailer, a few eating places, and so forth.

That is just the start of the madness, as a result of I’ve solely proven you two parking areas and one intersection. The fact is that our total cities are made virtually fully of silly, costly wasted house like this. 

And the issue is so excessive that the solely purpose we predict we’d like vehicles to get round, is as a result of we now have wasted most of our house on accommodating vehicles, which unfold the whole lot out to this point (and made the whole lot so loud and harmful) that no person seems like strolling or biking!

Cue the Complaints

Everytime you suggest any nice new thought, you’ll all the time get a bunch of smartasses who prefer to complain and resist change, with out even bothering to assume it by means of.

Most of them boil all the way down to, 

“But how are we going to keep driving our cars just as much as we do now?”

Which is ridiculous – as a result of the entire level is that as quickly as you chop out all the massive wasted areas we create to accommodate vehicles, you’re abruptly FREE from needing vehicles a lot!

As an alternative, you may simply weave a model new metropolis, with a bunch of variations of this lovely resort which additionally embrace places of work, grocery shops, climbing gyms and each different amenity.

 And sure, you’d nonetheless have some roads between them, however they might be principally for deliveries, emergency autos and individuals who want mobility help.

I hope you’re not going to make me experience the bus?

I’m all for public transit in concept, however to be trustworthy I don’t normally have the endurance for it. I don’t do lineups, and I don’t like to face round ready passively for my transportation to reach – when it’s time to go someplace, I simply wish to go, and go now, and get there quick. So my very own private selection is to take a motorbike for brief distances (underneath 2 miles) or an e-bike for bigger ones (as much as about 15 miles). 

Though that is usually information to automotive drivers, bikes are a lot quicker than vehicles for city transport, plus they offer me train and thrill, which is method higher than being caught on the pink mild with the vehicles.

 If you happen to take this already-superior technique of city transport and lower out the 90% of the land that we waste on accommodating the inferior vehicles, then you find yourself with a revolution: all people will get the place they’re going ten occasions quicker, at a lot decrease price, and has way more enjoyable doing it.

And certain, there will even be mild rail and quicker buses. And certain, you may nonetheless hop in an Uber and even carry your individual automotive right into a metropolis like this.However the level is that it’ll simply occur a lot a lot much less usually.

Okay I’m satisfied, however how can we truly accomplish this?

Mr. Cash Mustache can discuss a giant sport with all these fancy phrases and footage, however the reality is that I’m method too impatient to place up with all of the paperwork and complaints that come up once you attempt to truly change a metropolis. I’ve been doing my greatest right here in Longmont, and I’ve gotten nearly nowhere. We’re nonetheless simply stacking on increasingly more layers of ridiculous automotive shit the place I dwell.

Fortunately, different individuals are way more affected person and efficient than I’m at affecting change, and one group has made such unimaginable progress you can now go LIVE of their first creation: a 1000-person car-free neighborhood referred to as Culdesac Tempe. And as I write this, I’m staying in a lodge proper close by, having spent the previous two days touring and visiting and interviewing the founders*. 

Whereas we have been at it, my Phoenix-area-house-fixing good friend Tracy Royce and I additionally hosted a meetup for an enthusiastic group of our readers/viewers proper there in Culdesac’s rising central plaza.

Culdesac is Superior and Might Change All the things

If you happen to solely have a look at the monetary spreadsheet, you’ll assume this primary Culdesac mission is simply going to be a extremely worthwhile 1000-person cluster of condo buildings, unfold out throughout 17 acres of land. And whereas monetary sustainability is certainly a key purpose why this mannequin will succeed, the cash is the least thrilling half.

Once you have a look at these footage in comparison with a traditional housing complicated, the principle factor you’ll discover is that each one the house that will usually be wasted on parking tons, is as a substitute used for lovely strolling and gathering areas.

The following large improve is that they combined within the facilities for day by day life proper into the neighborhood, moderately than forcing all the longer term residents to get into their vehicles to drive out to search out them:

• Grocery retailer, comparable in fashion to a small-ish Dealer Joe’s
• Unbelievable fitness center (which I bought to tour – it’s a magnificence!)
• Coworking house 
• Canine park
• Pool
• Out of doors kitchens and shade buildings and backyard areas galore
• Semi-fancy Mexican restaurant with ample patio house
• And much extra retail house additionally within the building plans

I used to be additionally impressed with simply the really feel of strolling the Mediterranean-vibed areas between the buildings, even at this early stage when the whole lot remains to be underneath building.

As a result of scorching desert local weather of the area, the whole lot is constructed round offering shade, breeze, and reflecting warmth through the summer time, whereas additionally maximizing the joyful reality that there’s no winter there (the coldest month of the 12 months nonetheless has a mean day by day excessive of 65F/18C, which suggests palm bushes, leafy gardens and fruits and flowers ceaselessly.)

With a setup like this, and 999 new neighbors to fulfill, I’d hardly ever really feel the necessity to go away the place. Which actually cuts down on my want to make use of a automotive. However on prime of that, Culdesac has strategically positioned itself in Tempe, a metropolis proper within the middle of the Phoenix metro space, inside strolling distance of the principle college and proper on a light-weight rail cease which lets you attain virtually the whole lot (together with the airport) for FREE, since an annual move to the transit system is included together with your hire. 

However in fact, you too can get round on foot, bike, e-bike, scooter, or hop into one in every of Culdesac’s fleet of rideshare electrical vehicles for a visit to the mountains or no matter else you would possibly wish to try this’s outdoors of motorbike and transit vary.

It’s insane. In truth it’s so good that I’m going to aim to maneuver there myself on the finish of 2023, having fun with my first escape from Colorado winter and celebrating the truth that my boy will likely be a authorized grownup at the moment.

 However even that is only a pilot mission as a result of Culdesac has a lot greater plans.

The Culdesac Grasp Plan

From my conversations with the founders, I feel they wish to do that:

1. Begin with this small-scale group of leases, simply because it’s quicker
2. Use this to get the phrase out and study from the expertise earlier than going greater
3. Transfer as much as a larger-scale communities which will even embrace houses on the market
4. Go REALLY large, and make a complete part of a metropolis, then ultimately a complete city which grows into a complete metropolis
5. In the meantime encourage the relaxation of the US to go the identical method, as soon as they see that the sort of neighborhood is each extra fascinating for individuals, and less expensive (subsequently extra worthwhile) to construct.

So How Can We Profit From This, and Assist it?

• If this text gave you any stunning new data or modified your perspective in any respect, you’ve already made a distinction. As a result of your selections round housing and transportation will in all probability shift no less than just a little bit away from vehicles, which is able to change our future demand and growth patterns to be no less than just a little bit higher. Congratulations!
• If you happen to’d prefer to be one of many first residents of this primary neighborhood, join proper on their web site at https://culdesac.com/ . There’s a ready record, however it strikes quicker than you’ll assume – particularly when you’ve got a versatile transferring date.
• If you happen to’d prefer to make your personal metropolis a greater place to dwell, simply begin emailing your individual metropolis council, and even higher, signal as much as serve by yourself native planning board or metropolis council your self, because the heroic gentleman from Twitter did above. The issues to push for are: approve extra housing and extra bike paths, however remove minimal parking necessities and above all cease losing cash on street expansions! Each greenback spent on accommodating vehicles subtracts many {dollars} from the longer term wealth of your metropolis.
• In case you are a significant investor ($10M+) or land proprietor (20+ central acres in a high-density metropolis) trying to put money into and increase this effort, e mail the group immediately at traders@culdesac.com – extra data on their about web page.

And Then What Will Be Our Payback?

This entire change is thrilling, and it’s immense. 

Understanding these concepts round metropolis planning is the financial and social equal to being a physician, and discovering a 35-year-old affected person in a hospital who’s affected by each persistent illness, however then discovering that they’ve been following a weight-reduction plan of Coke and Donuts for his or her entire lives and by no means been out on a stroll, as soon as. 

In different phrases, the adjustments are so apparent, and the quantity of win/win synergy so nice, that each step we take in direction of making our cities higher, and each automotive journey we remove, will completely explode our private and nationwide wealth upwards for generations to return. 

The stakes simply couldn’t be increased.

Are you in?

Additional Studying:

One other collaborator within the total effort for automotive free cities is a bank-founding multi entrepreneur native good friend named Kevin Dahlstrom. His current Twitter rant on constructing car-free cities from the scratch gathered a stunning quantity of very constructive suggestions and attention-grabbing feedback.

* Regardless of my constructive raving about this neighborhood, I’ve no monetary or enterprise reference to the mission or any of the group members. I’m simply actually enthusiastic about their work and wish them to succeed!