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Life
used to be without cars. Over 5000 years of civilization, we've had cars for
only the last 100 years. Cities built before 1900 were (mostly) not designed for
cars. They were designed for people, or what we now call
"pedestrians."
December 21, 2008: Life Without Cars
Was
this so horrible? Not really. People living in Vienna in 1785 -- when Mozart
was in his prime -- weren't twiddling their thumbs thinking "only 140
more years before we get cars!" They got on with their lives. Quite
brilliantly, too.
"Our
research shows that we have only 140 years before the face of the Earth is
overrun with machinery."
"Are
you saying our great civilization will come to an end?"
"We
hold out hope that it will recover at some point in the future."
 
"Enjoy
it now! Not much time left!"
When
people think of "life without cars" today, they naturally think of
trying to get around today's Suburban Hell on foot or bicycle. Of course this
is horrible. Instead, we should be thinking of something like Vienna of 1785,
but with electric lights and good plumbing and cellphones that take pictures.
We've
seen many, many examples now of how to build carfree Traditional Cities.
Mostly it is a matter of Really
Narrow Streets
(designed for pedestrians, aka people), and buildings side-by-side. But these
are architectural considerations. Rather, today I want to give an overall
impression of the character of carfree living in a Traditional City. Instead
of giving the recipe, and the nuts-and-bolts method of actualizing this
process, we will give a more artistic impression of the desired outcome.
If you
look at images of past civilizations, one thing you notice is the total
over-the-top aesthetic creativity in all periods and all places. In our age
of machine-worship, we've crammed aesthetics (I need a better word) into a
tiny corner. Of course it can never go away. But, today, it is mostly a hobby
of a small subset of wealthy women, and appears only in a very small number
of personal residences. This is, I would say, less than 10% of our interior
spaces today. As for exterior spaces, it is under 1%. In the past, everything was an
artistic expression. This was true of middle class people, and also of the
poor. Although they were poor, they nevertheless aspired to the customs of
the period, and the customs of the period (all periods!) were some sort of
aesthetic ambition.
Men
today, especially in the United States, have almost completely abandoned all
aesthetic effort. The ideal today -- in Heroic Materialist style -- is a sort
of exaggerated functionality. This is the aesthetic of the factory and civil
engineering. Playthings for men almost always focus on their engineering
qualities. Who needs a 650 horsepower turbocharged automobile? Nobody. It
gets to Point B no faster than a Honda Accord. A Rolex is marketed as if it
was required equipment for that overland trek to the North Pole, but actually
a $19 plastic digital watch would work better in that function. Men of
stature today wear the crappiest clothes of any period in history.
Today,
everybody dresses like poor people!
Thomas
More, advisor to king Henry VIII. Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527
Henry
the Eighth, King of England. Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger.
George
the Second, Emperor of America, 2006
"You
white men dress like shit."
"Why
do you keep sending us your used clothes? We do not want to wear your crappy
clothes."
(Rural village in
Ghana.)
One of
the world's wealthiest men, 2005
One of
Bill Gates' cars.
OK,
maybe that is enough philosophising. Let's look at more pictures of Life
Without Cars.
I
particularly like the paintings of James Tissot depicting life around Paris
in the 1870s and 1880s.
That
last one sure has a Ralph Lauren look doesn't it? The difference is, in those
days it was real,
but today it is mostly a
marketing fantasy.
Osaka.
Osaka.
Edo (Tokyo).
Ooooh, sexy!
 .
Bathing women.
Edo (Tokyo), 1857
circa 1810.
circa 1755.
Elizabethan
(16th century England) architecture.
16th century
apartment building.
Elizabethan
gentleman.
Chester,
England.
(Note
access by emergency vehicles.)
Elizabethan
building.
Elizabethan
gentleman.
More Elizabethan
architecture.
Brussels,
Belgium.
Brussles.
Brussels.
Well,
I hope that gave you some ideas of alternatives to wandering around in
Suburban Hell for your whole life:
This
is a shopping center dating from the 1960s.
Below
is a shopping district in Amsterdam:
On the
right is a well-known ramen (noodle) restaurant, Yoyogi district of Tokyo. On
the left is a meat store.
This
is the ultimate Really Narrow Street -- when it becomes so narrow that it is
more like a passageway.
The
bright area at the top of the photo is not a light fixture, it is the sky.
Life
Without Cars is not so bad, right? I think that if
you look at enough of these photos, you will eventually conclude that life
WITH cars is completely intolerable, and also completely unnecessary.
Nathan
Lewis
Nathan
Lewis was formerly the chief international economist of a leading economic
forecasting firm. He now works in asset management. Lewis has written for the
Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal Asia, the Japan Times, Pravda, and
other publications. He has appeared on financial television in the United
States, Japan, and the Middle East. About the Book: Gold: The Once and Future
Money (Wiley, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-470-04766-8, $27.95) is available at
bookstores nationwide, from all major online booksellers, and direct from the
publisher at www.wileyfinance.com or 800-225-5945. In Canada, call
800-567-4797.
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