In 1981, scholar Donald Appleyard published the book “Livable Streets” (link is to the 2nd edition soon to be published) based on his research into how people experience streets with different traffic volumes. Streetfilms recently covered portions of his research findings in the video above and in their post Revisiting Donald Appleyard’s Livable Streets. As they wrote:
Today we’re revisiting Appleyard’s work in the second installment of our series, “Fixing the Great Mistake.” This video explores three studies in “Livable Streets” that measured, for the first time, the effect of traffic on our social interactions and how we perceive our own homes and neighborhoods.
Of course, some of these issues and the basic idea that cars are bad for the social environment of cities should be obvious, but look at the mistakes we have made as a society. Either these basic truths are not so obvious or we have been too confused or distracted to notice them.