What Happened When a Neighborhood Banned Cars for a Month

Teresa Deckert reviews a book called Neighborhood in Motion One Neighborhood, One Month, No Cars, by Konrad Otto-Zimmermann and Yeonhee Park. The book, as the title suggests, "shows how a one-month car-free festival in a neighborhood affects the urban spaces and the mindsets and lifestyles of the residents."

The one-month experiment was held during the September 2013 EcoMobility Festival in the neighborhood of Haenggung-dong in the South Korean city of Suwon. During the festival, according to Deckert, "1,500 registered cars were blocked from the neighborhood for 30 days." Moreover, "The district’s 4,300 residents were forced to switch over to alternative modes of transport, or ‘EcoMobility’ — walking, cycling, ‘wheeling’, public transport and car-sharing."

According to Deckert, the book provides insight into how festival organizers pulled off the car-free month as well as illustrations and descriptions of how the neighborhood changed as a result of the experiment.