I love California but it’s time to leave

In the United States, we live half-baked city life.

You may not need a car to live in one of our country’s major cities, but it still greatly impacts, if not dominates, your daily life. Closing or improving a street – even a Great Highway here or there – cars may help transform isolated areas, but they do next to nothing to change the overall look, feel and character of a city. Take a look at the once-vaunted city of Santa Monica Third Street Promenade fall into disrepair.

So, after more than 25 years in California, my wife and I are moving to Valencia, Spain, in January. I love San Francisco and Los Angeles as two distinct California cities that in many ways represent the best of America. If it weren’t for the perverse and never-ending impact of the automobile on the planet, our safety, and how we act and feel in our daily environments, I might be willing to continue paying a premium to live in either place.

My love of cities, which began during my seven years in San Francisco, led me to focus on urban studies at San Francisco State and to publish articles on the relationship between the built environment and the built environment. physically And mental health. But I decided I couldn’t handle the daily frustration of trying to make big things happen in seemingly impossible bureaucratic environments, let alone contentious ones. I want something in my backyard.

When urban planning is lacking, cities and citizens suffer. A fight is breaking out in San Francisco over the closure of a block of Hayes Street in Hayes Valley.

Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association wants to continue and expand Hayes Street closed to vehicle trafficWhich started At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Andrew Seigner, the association’s vice president, said the vast majority of businesses and residents on Hayes support closing the 400 block of the street. permanently.

The opposition led by a group called Hayes Valley VaultIt comes from a small handful of businesses that aren’t even located on the 400 block, according to Seigner. He told me that because of that work, his group agreed to reduce the plan from a three-block closure to a single block.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors at its Nov. 19 meeting expanded on the Neighborhood Association’s request for an extension of its permit, including extending the schedule to Saturday morning. Seigner called the decision a “win” and noted that this is the first time the SFMTA has expanded the program, which closes the 400 block of Hayes Street from 4 to 10 p.m. on Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays. The fight continues for a permanent closure.

The group opposing Hayes’ closure is putting the word “safe” in the website’s name. On average about 30 People die and 500 are seriously injured each year in motor vehicle crashes in San Francisco. nationwide, 18,720 People have been killed in traffic throughout the first half of 2024. Arguing about keeping a street safe by leaving it open to cars seems odd, if not heartless, especially considering that What happened in West Portal earlier this year.

in san francisco Vision Zero project With the safety changes, the goal is to achieve zero pedestrian deaths by 2024. Frankly, the program did not achieve its purpose.

Los Angeles It introduced a similar initiative nearly a decade ago, with a goal of zero deaths by 2025. 343 Traffic deaths in 2023 as of the end of September 228 for 2024.

A pro-car stance, especially in well-connected cities, goes against the data.

Opponents of street closures and other safety improvements often to say Pedestrianization of streets harms small businesses. Although research to test this intuition is lacking, several studies, including one from Spain, suggest that the intuition is wrong. Using transaction data provided by a national bank, to work It found that businesses in more pedestrian-friendly environments generated greater sales volume than those in less pedestrian-friendly environments.

A. to work In Seattle, the impact of the city’s Vision Zero program on retail activity was analyzed and found “no adverse economic impacts of highway safety projects,” arguing that local business owners should feel confident working with city officials to implement Vision Zero ideas.

Pedestrianization programs are only as good as their implementation, based on the support governments, businesses and people put behind them. If you lose even a minority on any of the three, you’re probably screwed. Or – as in Hayes Street – always in limbo.

I want to move to a place where things get done because the piecemeal approach is draining me. Random projects that do not change the current lifestyle, even if they are successful in big cities. Culture.

Rated as one of the best places to live in the world expats and lately named Valencia, the Green Capital of Europe, is the third largest city in Spain. It has approximately 1 million fewer residents than the city of Barcelona, ​​but it is also a symbol of Barcelona’s respected and pioneering urban planning.

Barcelona became a leader in urban planning. “super block” program It started its work in 2016 and continues its construction throughout the city. A superblock consists of (usually) nine blocks that alter public space to create more pedestrian-friendly environments that encourage walking and cycling and discourage car use. While cars are not banned from an entire superblock, they are often eliminated in inner segments or pacified and redirected to outer streets. In my opinion, Barcelona definitely uses superblocks to make driving difficult. And I’m all for it.

Barcelona is renovating large areas of the city to create a network of superblocks. Valencia has spent the last decade running similar practices plans – here again – citywide. Compared to the cities we are used to in America, cities like Barcelona and Valencia could do nothing and still remain superior from an urban planning perspective. Ultimately, II. While Europe after World War II chose to rebuild by focusing on density, the United States went in the opposite direction, building the interstate highway system and the subsequent proliferation of not only suburbs but, in many cases, less population. dense urban cores. Some urban planning experts believe that San Francisco, Boston, and Portland, Oregon, could be suburbs based on their European counterparts.

As Seigner told me, “it’s got to be a block of quiet” that he and his neighbors are looking for in Hayes. part of a larger network.” A whack-a-mole approach to pedestrian areas can make projects an innovation that local visitors and tourists will marvel at. In America’s urban neighborhoods, as in Spain and many European cities, car-free and pedestrian-friendly design should be the default — the norm — with easily accessible space right outside your front door.

This is the style of city life that I have been longing for for years. I have a vision of taking the routines, rituals, and seemingly mundane tasks of daily life that I enjoy in California to the next level in a country where the quality of life can be exponentially higher, in part because of bold but collaborative initiatives. – urban planning.

I’ll miss you, California, but not that much.

Rocco Pendola, who has been working as a freelance writer for the last 20 years, describes his move to Spain in the Never Retire newsletter On Substack.