What We Lost

Cars Did Not Invade a Vacuum

Market Day, Luzzara, Italy. Paul Strand, 1953.

The streets are quieter now. A few days ago I fell into conversation with a bicyclist on Pine Street. An older man, possibly my age. He had just dismounted and was getting ready to take his bike into his house. It was a nice bike, and it was a nice house. He was wearing spandex and a helmet, and he'd just been on a ride to Norristown. I asked him how it had gone. He smiled. "They're not trying to kill you," he said. By "they," he meant the cars.

I like the quiet. You can speak on the street without having to raise your voice. We get used to things, and if the world was already that way before we came along, we assume it has always been that way. This is hardly ever true.

I think better when it's quiet. We've had cars for a little over a century. They just showed up and took over our streets, and I think most people today can't imagine streets that aren't dominated by cars.

There are noises I like. There's a school about a block from our house. I like the sound of the children playing in the schoolyard. They always sound so happy.

What I find wearing is the continuous, grinding hum of motor vehicles, punctuated by aggressively revving engines and the angry blare of horns. Some will say, well, it's a background hum. You learn to ignore it. I'm opposed to the concept of white noise, always filling the background. I'd rather hear the birds sing.

About the danger. I knew a fellow, years ago, when I was working at the New York City Planning Commission. He had written a bit about the South Bronx, including this line: "The streets vibrate with violence and fear." He was talking about the collapse of civilized society in a part of New York City.

Streets have always held their dangers. The Roman emperor Nero used to like to go out for a walk after dinner and beat up people he met in the streets, stabbing those who resisted and throwing their bodies into the sewers. He would also break into shops and loot them. (See Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy, 2015, p. 69.)

When the cars arrived, they brought something with them that was also new: massive death on our streets. Killing in these numbers had previously been seen mainly in wars and epidemics. And the drivers who did the killing were no more accountable than Mr. Nero.

The novel coronavirus has changed our lives temporarily, and I suspect in some ways permanently. Governor Cuomo of New York has suggested that we citizens take an active hand in shaping these changes while they are still malleable. He sees an opportunity to make our world better than it was before the pandemic came to visit.

I can think of a few changes I would like to see. Readers of this blog can probably guess what some of them would be.

But more broadly, I would like us to have a look at the history of cities before cars. You will find a lot of noise, by the way. And also a lot of filthy air. And you will find some good things that we should try to bring back in some form.

Take a look at the picture above. It's market day in the small Italian town of Luzzara, located near the Po River not terribly far from Mantua. The year is 1953, and yes, the people are poor.

And they have a gift to give us: a pedestrian street. What strikes me most in this picture is the freedom of human movement. There is nothing regimented here. Pedestrians are not marching down sidewalks like so many infantry soldiers, turning and crossing at the crosswalk, all on the command of a traffic signal. People here are behaving naturally, walking where they want, stopping and talking - even shopping. It is market day, after all.

Yes, Governor Cuomo, I want that back.

See also Jersey Homesteads; Small Streets Are Like Diamonds; Looking and Not Seeing, Listening and Not Hearing.