Delightful heresy: Urban values as accommodating automobiles in an environment dominated by people.

To rethink implies having the first thought, and as this pertains to New Albany's traditional ruling class, it's where the problems rend to start.

As you read, consider how the Gahan team already has commenced botching the rethink by refusing to THINK first: What sort of urban area do we want this to be? Here's the crux of it, and a ready-made mission statement for getting down to first principles.

We need to rethink our urban areas. They need to be redesigned around a new set of values, one that doesn’t seek to accommodate bikers and pedestrians within an auto-dominated environment but instead does the opposite: accommodates automobiles in an environment dominated by people. It is people that create value. It is people that build wealth. It is in prioritizing their needs – whether on foot, on a bike or in a wheelchair – that we will begin to change the financial health of our cities and truly make them strong towns.

By all means, read the whole essay.

BEST OF BLOG: FOLLOW THE RULES, BIKERS, by Charles Marohn (Strongtowns)

I spent much of the year working on the sequel to the Curbside Chat that has come to be known as Transportation in the Next American City. Where the Chat explains why our cities are going broke and how embracing an incremental approach to growth can put us on a path towards building productive places once more, Transportation in the Next American City explains why our auto-based approach to transportation is yielding negative returns and how our cities, to be prosperous again, need to be built for people, not cars. It is a radical rethink that I initially struggled with but have found a voice for as I've been forced to explain it to multiple audiences.