text:
Zachary Sell, right, is researching stories from the Atlantic slave trade with help from Brown undergraduate students Jamie Solomon, Halle Bryant, Kaela Hines and Callie Bouton. All photos: Nick Dentamaro/Brown University
Topics Arts and Humanities
Jill Kimball
Students uncover uncharted histories of the slave trade for upcoming documentary series
On the 400th anniversary of the start of slave trade in the British American colonies, students and faculty at Brown's Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice are engaging in research for a PBS miniseries directed by renowned documentarian Stanley Nelson, hosting a two-day symposium on the lasting effects of slavery and more.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — From its title and cover image, "Historia del Jardín Botánico de la Habana" appears to be a straightforward chronicle of the creation and evolution of Cuba's national botanical garden. But as Brown history concentrator Jamie Solomon found out this fall, the book is so much more.
According to the book's author, Solomon said, the history of the garden can't be fully understood absent the context of the Haitian Revolution, the only successful slave revolt in history. When enslaved people in Haiti — many of whom worked on sugar and coffee plantations — overthrew their wealthy French owners, those Frenchmen fled to Cuba to start over. There, they built new sugar plantations, amassed new slaves and drew up plans to landscape Cuba in France's image — colonial squares, botanical gardens and all.
"The book essentially shows that the beginning of this botanical garden can be traced to European ideas of land and beauty and ownership," Solomon said. "I don't think it has ever been checked out of the library — I found the receipt from when it was purchased."
Halle Bryant is drawing upon her knowledge of French to translate journals, reports and other records of the Atlantic slave trade in the Caribbean and elsewhere.
In libraries across the world, hidden in plain sight, are books like the "Historia" — lesser-known testaments to the ways in which the Atlantic slave trade transformed the Western Hemisphere. Solomon found the book while conducting research for a graduate-level course on Atlantic history — but it's also proven relevant in her capacity as one of four undergraduate research fellows at Brown's Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice (CSSJ), where she's dedicated to digging up those stories for potential use in an upcoming documentary titled "Creating the New World: The Transatlantic Slave Trade."
The four-part miniseries, expected to air on PBS in 2021, is produced by Firelight Films and directed by Stanley Nelson, the filmmaker behind award-winning documentaries about the murder of Emmett Till, the history of the Black Panther Party and the life of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis.
Zach Sell, a visiting assistant professor who is directing the students' research, said the CSSJ has been involved in the project since 2017. During the 2017-18 academic year, the center and Firelight jointly hosted a global workshop series, where top scholars gathered in Providence, Johannesburg, New York City and Leiden, the Netherlands, to exchange ideas and scholarship on the Atlantic slave trade. Since fall 2018, Sell and a group of CSSJ student employees have worked with Firelight to delve into critical stories, historical figures and sites of significance related to the slave trade.
"College students don't often have the opportunity to engage in this kind of hands-on, direct work in film production on such a dramatic scale," Sell said. "This is a different way of learning and engaging in history. It's not just content transmission — teaching and learning — but also knowledge production. They are studying topics that have rarely, if ever, been studied before, and the results of their research could be broadcast to the world."
Slavery's legacy, in and beyond the U.S.
Firelight debuted news of its coming documentary earlier this year, as institutions across the United States began to recognize the 400th anniversary of the first arrival of African slaves to the British American colonies. In August 1619, a ship arrived in colonial Virginia carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans.
On this important anniversary, research for the documentary is one of many related projects underway at the CSSJ. The center is also gearing up to host a symposium titled "From Slave Ships to Black Lives Matter" on Dec. 5 and 6. The event will bring scholars to College Hill from across the globe for presentations, panel discussions and workshops focused on drawing connections between the transatlantic slave trade and racial injustice today.
"Racial slavery shaped the modern world, and hundreds of years later, it continues to do so," said Anthony Bogues, director of the CSSJ. "You cannot solve current issues related to democracy, freedom or equality without thinking about the legacy of slavery."
At the symposium, scholars and members of the public can hear from the likes of Cheryl Finley, a Cornell University art professor who has studied the engraving of a packed slave-ship hold that is featured in nearly every K-12 history textbook; researchers from the National Museum of African American History and Culture who search for underwater wrecks of slave ships; and esteemed scholars from Sudan, Ethiopia and Brazil who study slavery and its legacies.
Bogues said the symposium will demonstrate the historical global reach of the slave trade and its reverberations today.
"Everywhere you look around the world, wherever there was racial slave trade, there were people who benefited from this injustice and people who suffered even after slavery was abolished," Bogues said. "We want this event to focus not only on slave ships and on transatlantic slave trade but also on the reverberations and echoes of slavery in the U.S. and elsewhere today."
Two College Hill exhibitions of work by Haitian artist Edouard Duval-Carrié, right, delve into the legacy of slavery in the Caribbean. CSSJ staff member and Brown alumna Maiyah Gamble-Rivers, left, has teamed up with the artist and several Brown and RISD undergraduates to mount an additional exhibition this spring. The art in that exhibit will touch on the events of the Haitian Revolution and the lasting effects of slavery across the globe.
Though 1619 marked the beginning of slavery in the American colonies, Bogues said, it was not the first time Africans had been transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the so-called "New World." As early as the 1540s, the Spanish brought enslaved Africans to their colonies, including to present-day Florida. The Dutch, Portuguese, English and French followed suit, together with the Spanish bringing ships of millions of enslaved Africans to the Caribbean, Brazil and North America over the course of three centuries.
"On this side of the world, Brazil was the recipient of the most slaves during the Atlantic slave trade," Bogues said. "We of course have to talk about the ways America was shaped by slavery, and we do often. But the rest of the world was also shaped by racial slavery, and we live in an age of increasing globalization. So this event is bringing people together to talk about topics like housing, segregation and activism in several countries."
In addition to the symposium, the CSSJ and the Brown Arts Initiative have teamed up to mount a two-gallery exhibition of work by Haitian artist Edouard Duval-Carrié, who uses his art to delve into the Haitian Revolution and other stories of Caribbean slavery, migration, colonialism and Afro-religious practices. "Edouard Duval-Carrié and the Art of Embedded Histories" is on display through Friday, Dec. 13, at the CSSJ and at Brown's Granoff Center for Creative Arts.
Manuscripts and microfilm
The Haitian Revolution has been a major focus of Jamie Solomon's research work since she joined the CSSJ's Atlantic Slave Trade Research Group in August. Under the guidance of Sell and Firelight producers, the Brown junior has assisted in tracking down letters, manuscripts and other written artifacts from the 1800s to better understand Haiti's slave revolt and its international implications.
Solomon and the other student researchers — Halle Bryant, Callie Bouton and Kaela Hines — sometimes have the opportunity to view these centuries-old papers in person, which make for easier reading. But they are more often working from digitized copies provided by libraries thousands of miles away, and they grapple with issues such as blurriness, pixellation and missing pages. Some students have spent hours in Brown's libraries viewing documents on microfilm, zooming in close to parse archaic phrases.
Racial slavery shaped the modern world, and hundreds of years later, it continues to do so.
Anthony Bogues Director, Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice
"I'm working on transcribing a bunch of letters from the 1820s," Solomon noted in a mid-November meeting with Sell and the other student researchers. "They're about Haiti, and they're between the governor and his generals. It's interesting reading, but it's also super tough to read, because it's in Spanish calligraphy."
Solomon's many years of Spanish instruction have proved valuable to Sell, who said much of the written record of the Atlantic slave trade is in Spanish and French and hasn't yet been translated into English. Every student who has been part of the research, he said, brings a unique perspective and skillset.
"The history and impact of the Atlantic slave trade is so wide-ranging that individual students can look at it through the lens of their own interests, whatever they may be, and unearth new things," Sell said. "I worked with one student who was particularly interested in film and thought about the visual representation of the slave trade. Another student, Halle Bryant, is drawing upon her knowledge of French to focus on French slave trade materials. It's extremely impressive to see the extraordinary research that students can conduct."
Kaela Hines, a sophomore concentrating in English and modern culture and media, spent part of November reading the diary of a British official stationed in the slave-trading port of Calabar, Nigeria.
"I've learned about Britain's role in the slave trade, citing the U.S. as a primary source for cotton," she said. "I've learned about small and large slave revolts throughout the Caribbean. I've learned about slave traders who were of African descent, such as Antera Duke. I feel that the research we do is important and will educate people about a topic that is generally known, but often not in the intricacies we are researching."
Sell agrees. While many may know that the transatlantic slave trade brought 12.5 million enslaved Africans to the Americas, they may not understand how the slave trade affected their own cities and still does.
For example, he said, Rhode Islanders may not know that the state produced textiles that were sent to the South and became clothing for the enslaved there — or that merchants in Rhode Island sold candles, meat products, farming supplies and agricultural goods to European slave owners in the Caribbean, whose sugar plantations ran the economy in the 18th and 19th centuries.
"The extent of slave trading, the depth with which it changed the world, is so far beyond what is often presented in schools," Sell said. "Everyone involved in this documentary has put so much time, effort and care into finding well-known and lesser-known stories about slavery and recounting them accurately."
Unearthing narratives that can teach us more about the history and legacy of slavery, both locally and globally, isn't just at the heart of Sell's work in partnership with students and Firelight Films. It's also a key focus of the CSSJ, a regular gathering place for international scholars who examine stories of past racial slavery to make sense of present-day inequalities. For Sell, Bogues and others at the CSSJ, the search for those stories will continue well after the anniversary of 1619.
"Racial slavery is gone, but social structures and aspects of everyday life from that time period still shape people's lives," Bogues said. "The ongoing work of the CSSJ is to make those historical connections and examine how history affects the present."
Open details for Students uncover uncharted histories of the slave trade for upcoming documentary series


text:
How to make a city car-free?
Cars seems to be everywhere in most cities and they create a lot of problems.
dangerous pollution
pedestrian/cyclist insecurity
less human contact
health/obesity problems
congestion and less space for people
fewer green areas
Say you want to get rid of the cars, i.e. make your city car-free.
What could you do to accomplish such a goal if you:
are alone and not part of any organizations etc.
doesn't have any political position/power
have a normal job, so you don't have endless time/energy
have a tiny budget (say less than $10,000)
cities transportation
LouisaLouisa
$\begingroup$ Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. $\endgroup$ – Tim B♦ Sep 27 '16 at 8:26
$\begingroup$ London's congestion charges are a first step - not perfect but a start. $\endgroup$ – Criggie Sep 27 '16 at 8:30
$\begingroup$ A few of your problems are with current petrol powered human driven cars. In 2016 we're not too far away from the answer being to use your 10k to open your cities first electric self driving car dealership. $\endgroup$ – Nathan Cooper Sep 27 '16 at 9:08
$\begingroup$ Fill it as full of cars and traffic as it can possibly be but leave nowhere to park that doesn't cost less than $100/day, just like in a real city. Nobody with a car will accomplish anything on time or at a reasonable cost (also just like in a real city). Over time people will wise up and stop trying to use cars inside of large cities (this one doesn't seem to happen in real cities, for some reason). $\endgroup$ – aroth Sep 27 '16 at 14:18
$\begingroup$ @aroth: The problem with your solution is that it won't completely eliminate cars. Rather, some people will choose alternatives, which reduces the congestion so that cars once again become practical for some other people. Which is what we see in real cities, as some people choose public transit, bikes, walking, or telecommuting. $\endgroup$ – jamesqf Sep 27 '16 at 18:36
As with all things that seem impossible, like eating an elephant, the trick is to do it one bite at a time. So...
Start by using your 10,000 to get yourself elected to your district's city-council seat. Hopefully you are in a small city with district rather than at-large elections, and the 10,000 is enough. Mind you, you get above 100,000 people, and the 10,000 probably won't cut it. But you also need to be sure to follow a good strategy that will take years to implement, even to just get on the council.
Then start with small steps. Maybe start to encourage that the historic downtown get cordoned off for vehicles, so that people can park on the outside, and walk in. Change the roads to being for bicycles or other non-motorized transport. The city builds a parking garage right outside the cordoned off area and gets income from the parking fees.
Then start growing the idea. Just growing one spot may prove undoable, as it would be difficult to grow it large enough to make mass transportation viable, before people get too leg-sore to accept the change. So grow it by building on the success. The first spot is doing so well, that we cordon off another spot, in another part of the city. Maybe create a large park area on the outside of the city - trails, outdoor amphitheater - and/or maybe your city has a river, away from the historic downtown, so you convince the council to move towards developing a river-walk a la San Antonio river-walk.
Then add in mass transportation. You can start by adding it between the two spots that were pedestrian only. Can do some shopping and sight seeing in historic downtown, then zip over in the electric trolleys to the river-walk for more shopping and dinner.
Then start making spots in between the two areas, in the trolley's route, also pedestrian only. Now you have mass transportation and the community starting to get used to the pedestrian-only areas, so you can start growing it more.
Mind you, you'd have to be one crazy good demagogue. People are going to be incredibly reluctant and push back every step of the way. If you were someone with the charisma of an Obama or Bill Clinton (I may or may not be against disagreeing with their politics, but cannot deny their charisma), you may, one chance in a million, get the plan through.
But that would make for a good story. Someone with that kind of charisma who rather than going for power, decides to simply transform his own community for the better.
$\begingroup$ I had the same thought: do it piecemeal. I've been in many cities which restrict automobile access to one or more small areas, permitting only pedestrians, bicyclists, and cable trams. Increasing the number of these spaces rather than their size will gradually warm people up to the changes necessary to access the businesses in these areas, and will allow infrastructure to organically adapt itself to match. Eventually you can merge these areas together slowly, and one day they might all merge together to form a car-free city. $\endgroup$ – talrnu Sep 26 '16 at 16:54
$\begingroup$ @JPhi1618 - never assumed people lived downtown. I assume people live in neighborhoods all over town, and keep their cars to drive to this closed-off downtown and their jobs and whatever else. Eventually, as the areas that are closed off grow more numerous and larger and merge, there will be less and less reason to have a car, especially once every neighborhood has their own public transport stop that is at most a few blocks from any home. Why bother with finding parking and all those hassles when you can take a little walk to a trolley stop and be to your work or shop or whatever in minutes? $\endgroup$ – user11864 Sep 26 '16 at 18:10
$\begingroup$ I love how this answer starts with 'go win an election.' $\endgroup$ – The Nate Sep 27 '16 at 5:33
$\begingroup$ "Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten." - According to Terry Pratchett you're almost sure it'll work $\endgroup$ – Aaron Sep 27 '16 at 12:56
$\begingroup$ Check out the history of cities like Groningen, The Netherlands. They did this, though the process was difficult. The city center is in large parts cut off from traffic, and there is an excellent bike infrastructure, like in most parts of the Netherlands. $\endgroup$ – MauganRa Nov 8 '16 at 16:09
it depends on how committed you are to ridding the cars from the city, learn how to make bombs, put bombs in car-heavy people-light locations (car parks!) and make then inaccessible.
In addition, call in bomb threats/make more bombs and plant them on major roadways.
Then call up the local radio stations and announce that you hate cars, that anyone driving a car is a valid target and that you won't stop.
Then stop... for a while and keep committing these acts that hurt as few people as possible and make as much impact on traffic congestion.
Make sure that local transport is completely unaffected by your bombs...
Then it's just a case of not getting caught...
Chris JChris J
$\begingroup$ Get ISIS to fund and help you. Tell them it's for the greater Islamic good since they won't have to suffer from higher temperatures now. $\endgroup$ – Skye Sep 26 '16 at 13:23
$\begingroup$ @Skye the reason to not get others involved and limit the damage to the population is that you don't want to draw too much attention... if you recruit extremists more people will die and the response will be much more forceful when it comes... I prefer to captured by Navy Seals instead of executed and have my body dropped into the sea $\endgroup$ – Chris J Sep 26 '16 at 13:26
$\begingroup$ I understand that, but if you went around putting bombs everywhere... the FBI CIA or an equivalent organization is gonna hunt you down anyway. Doesn't this plan sound a bit extremist as well? I'm not condemning this answer though, it's fun. $\endgroup$ – Skye Sep 26 '16 at 13:29
$\begingroup$ @Skye they will hunt you down eventually, this plan is very extreme but I figure it's the only way one person could make it work... You'd have to spend years ahead of time building bombs and planting them so you aren't caught planting them, ideally making loads of dummy ones as well to lead investigators astray $\endgroup$ – Chris J Sep 26 '16 at 13:31
$\begingroup$ @ChrisJ How do you create traffic congestion which stops cars and doesn't stop buses? If you frighten people from using the roads, then surely you'll also frighten them from using buses which travel those same roads, drive past those same car parks, and so on? $\endgroup$ – DrBob Sep 26 '16 at 14:03
I don't own a car (and don't particularly want to). So I have to get to everywhere I want to by walking or using public transport. Here's what you would have to do in my small city to make people abandon their cars for walking/public transport. It'll cost way, way, way more than £10,000.
Make public transport really cheap, really frequent, really efficient... and really go everywhere people want it to. Buses/trams/tube trains/local trains which run every 5 or 10 minutes all day, every day and on every route to myriad destinations are what the public wants. They don't want to stand for long periods in the rain, with them, their children and their shopping getting soaked while they wait for a bus/train.
But because the bus companies are trying to maximise profits, they don't do this ultra frequent, ultra efficient timetabling. So there are buses which only run once an hour. Buses which don't run after 19.00. Buses which don't run on a Sunday or on public holidays. Buses which do run every 10 minutes but are so packed no more people can get on board. And Grud help you if you want to go from one side of the city to another - that'll meaning changing buses/trams in the city centre. Lucky you - you get to stand in the rain twice! Maybe 3 times if you live in a really big city. Then you get to do the same on the way home! :-)
Redesign your public transport. Parents with pushchairs want to use buses. People in wheelchairs want to use buses. People with luggage or big parcels want to use buses. Oh dear, 2 prams, 1 wheelchair user and 1 person with an enormous suitcase are waiting at the bus stop and the bus only has room for 2 of them, because of the way it is laid out. More waiting in the rain...
Redesign buses to have more room for families with prams, people carrying enormous stuff from Ikea, kids with scooters, etc. You'll have to sacrifice seating to do this, so you'll have to run MORE buses to compensate. Train and tram carriages should be the sort which can carry bicycles and lots and lots and lots of prams/wheelchairs. And have decent luggage racks, not the stupid little ones which barely fit a briefcase.
Completely redesign the layout of your city. All sorts of things in modern cities have been designed with cars in mind. Edge of town/out of town shopping centres, cinemas and/or industrial estates, for instance. When public transport is intregrated into these, it is usually as an afterthought: Ooh better ask the bus company if they want to run a bus to the new multiplex... Oh, they don't. Ah. well, never mind.
So don't let anyone build anything without incorporating a railway or tram line or tube line as part of it! Rail transport indicates you really mean it. Buses are a poor alternative.
Crash house prices and drop rents. People are commuting further and further by car, because they can't afford to live in or near the city centre. Housing estates are built on greenbelt land because it is cheap. If you make the centre and inner parts of the city affordable, people can walk or take a short bus ride to work.
Invest your $10,000 in a physics professor's research project and hope he invents teleportation. Public teleportation is pretty much the only way to sort out my city's transport problems!
DrBobDrBob
$\begingroup$ I don't know in what city you live in, but you should defintely speak to your mayor about bus shelters :) $\endgroup$ – Loufylouf Sep 27 '16 at 7:01
$\begingroup$ @Loufylouf - the shiny new bus shelters we've got are designed to display video adverts and be too awkward/uncomfortable for homeless people to sleep on the benches. Keeping the rain off passengers scores a poor third. :-) The old fashioned ones are better. Lots of stops don't have either. Neither kind is big enough to shelter all the commuters on a busy route. $\endgroup$ – DrBob Sep 27 '16 at 10:08
$\begingroup$ I believe that instead of wasting 10,000 dollars on some professor who has really, really slim chances of inventing teleportation device, you'd be better off at gambling or buying and selling market shares. This way, you have at least some chance of earning money, instead of just losing it. $\endgroup$ – MatthewRock Sep 27 '16 at 11:38
$\begingroup$ Cheaper solution. Move to Europe. $\endgroup$ – user24000 Nov 24 '16 at 13:14
$\begingroup$ @user24000 I'm already in Europe! Well at least until Brexit... $\endgroup$ – DrBob Nov 27 '16 at 15:21
To make a city car free you need popular support. You simply won't get that unless you provide replacements that are perceived as being superior.
Some alternatives already exist, which can be reasonably perceived as being superior, but in many cultures they are perceived as being inferior. Change the perception *.
A combination of bikes, public transport and road pricing works well in practice, in several cities. Removing cars altogether doesn't really work well in any cities yet (how do you restock shops or move furniture?), unless limited to a tiny area where some kind of motorized vehicles still are allowed, e.g. Zermatt.
*This is something an individual can help with in countless ways.
$\begingroup$ I think this is outside the bounds of 10,000 budget, unless you can provide more details on how to achieve it $\endgroup$ – Chris J Sep 27 '16 at 10:44
There is a boring but non-violent and, what is more, actually feasible possibility, that even has the benefit that you can keep your bucks.
Join a political party.
Work your bum off.
Find like-minded people, team up.
Develop a concept that provides an alternative to individual motorized transport. Find more like-minded people, and team up more. And work harder.
And then, maybe, after two or three decades, you might just be able to achieve what you are trying.
Motorized transportation is an actual necessity in many cases. While it is a commodity for a large part of shoppers, and even commuters, it is (almost?) impossible to replace for delivery, for anybody who carries heavy tools to work, ambulances and whatnot.
Also, such a drastic change requires time for people to accept, even when the alternative is already provided.
So, no, in a reasonably realistic world-setting, i don't see a different way given your setup.
BurkiBurki
Naturally there are, in the real word, people and organisations who have $10k and who all else being equal would prefer their cities to be car-free. They have not achieved it just by wishing it so. To do it without any allies, time, political power, or resources, is going to require an immense amount of serendipity, or else some form of power other than explicit political power or money.
Assuming that what you want is for some character to achieve this (or to have achieved it in the past) with minimal effort, then I would suggest they rode the crest of a wave not of their own making. That is to say, the city was already well-populated with people who did have time, money, dedication, and influence, and the character in question somehow catalysed them.
For example, perhaps some little old lady gets knocked off her bike three times in the same week and "accomplishes her goal" of getting rid of cars by soliciting enormous sympathy and outrage. The populace has to be on the verge of banning cars anyway, because a city in which driving is the primary means of transport would much rather cripple a few little old ladies than cripple its own infrastructure.
Another way would be someone who has no money or political position of their own, but has influence over someone who does. So for example the child of an autocratic mayor makes a passing remark that cars are stupid and should be banned, and the autocrat decides to make that wish come true at any cost.
Steve JessopSteve Jessop
Well, I know that you didn't give a reality-check tag, so based on some fictional world there's always the possibility that $10,000 can go much further than it does in our contemporary world.
Assuming that you mean in something based on our current reality, it would be virtually impossible.
Some ways that a city could be mad car-less would be:
Other forms of mass transportation: subway, light rail, trolley, even moving sidewalks could take the place of cars, but something would have to be available in their stead, and older, real examples of this (horse-drawn buggies) are not efficient in a modern city for the sheer volume of people that need to move about.
Applicable city zoning and residential regulations: residential areas would be more strongly intertwined with commercial and industrial zones, and people would be required to live near their jobs. This, of course, flies in the face of liberty and also would create hardship if someone left their job, a company closed, or if for any other reason they needed to be closer to a different zone. This would also make it difficult for a successful company to grow.
Replace cities with Arcologies (Arcos): this removes the need for #1, and really shores up #2, but the difficulties of #2 still remain. The idea of a self-contained metropolis is very appealing from many aspects, but there are a variety of reasons that none (of any useful scale) exist today.
All of these options require a significant amount of money and planning and time, and would require a large number of people to be on board with the idea and planning.
Jesse WilliamsJesse Williams
$\begingroup$ All "reality-check" denotes is suggesting an idea, and asking 'is it plausible' with an implied yes/no answer, per the tag's description. It doesn't imply any specific level of scrutiny or realism. To quote the tag's opening sentence, the tag is for: "...questions asking whether or not a particular concept is realistic in a given context." $\endgroup$ – Ranger Sep 26 '16 at 13:25
$\begingroup$ Right, and the context provided (though without a reality-check tag) didn't make this plausible. I was specifying that if the OP had included that, it wouldn't be plausible, however, here are some ways that a city COULD be made car-free without all of the specifics from the original post. $\endgroup$ – Jesse Williams Sep 26 '16 at 14:00
It's only going to be possible if you have one or more of the excluded list.
Cities need transportation in order to bring in commerce and jobs. Simply stopping cars/trucks from entering the city will cause huge problems in terms of overloaded public transportation and there being little way of distributing goods to anywhere not directly adjacent to a rail station.
In order to create a car-free city, you'll need to build the infrastructure that's going to support the whole city. For that, you'll need money and/or political clout.
And a lot of charisma too.
$\begingroup$ Screw the charisma, get Pablo Escobar :D $\endgroup$ – Skye Sep 26 '16 at 12:52
Giant Travelators
Basically I'm picturing two travelators going through the middle of the city, each going the opposite direction. These platforms are wide, with seats along the side, so you can either sit on the seats like on a bus and be carried to where you want, or you can walk to where you want, along the moving platform.
This means we get back to walking, which is healthy, and the travelators boost our speed by a good 5-20mph (you could have a few of varying speeds).
How can one man do such a thing with $10k? Kickstarter!
Too hard for electricity? Make some manmade rivers, and use their current as the underlying base.
If cheap travelator technology was developed, I can imagine cities as they are, but instead of static concrete, the streets are moving platforms you can use at your convenience.
Mirror318Mirror318
Revisiting the need of car free city
I don't feel making city car free is really needed, because
It presumes cars are behind all/most issues that you noted
Everything has some purpose / good purpose and I feel cars do provide some such purpose...
Solution: Education!!!
Education is the only source of prolonged and self-enduring change.
We need education because
to tell people that we REALLY REALLY don't need to have car when we are commuting alone (of course there are exceptions...say in India at very late hours in villages where there is really no means of public transport, we just need personal commuting option. But then it may be a car or a bike depending upon the need and situation. So here we have genuine case where cars do serve good purpose. Simply force fitting one rule to all can never be wise action.)
to teach people to not to interprete car (and any other possessable thing) as a luxury/status symbol. This is simply ill-interpretation. Prolonged practice of such perceptions makes our mind unhealthy. Our mind get caught in perception which when vanishes makes us miserable. Simply put we becomes slave of our own wrong-formed perception. The funniest thing is that we form such perceptions by practicing them for decades!!! And it becomes absolutely impossible to completely abandon such perceptions at the time when they fail to satisfy and we become miserable. Best thing to have schools which will teach us what is actually sensible to practice / to instead of just teaching maths and science.
to tell people that it bring happiness to bring more happiness to others in exchange of some pain to ourselves, to make world more cleaner/greener in exchange of some inconvenience/discomfort.
because education is (at least decade) long procedure to mold brains in sensible manner so that they will know
when is right time to take out personal car
when to follow public transport
when to take some discomfort and go by public transport
when to do right thing, in right manner, at right time (in general)
not to mention to give willpower to our politicians to honestly put efforts in building public transport and to do any other thing that they take up as their responsibility
last but not least, it educates Me. So change can start from Me!!! (I prefer this one over above)
We cannot achieve enduring, perfectly balanced solution to any issue overnight. We need to have long plan to ensure stuff will just work forever. We might build innovative zero emission transportation solutions...but then building them everywhere on earth wont be feasible. But educating people over a period of time is very much possible. And they will then do only right things, not just deciding about how / when to travel.
I believe proper education is the key to every problem. Today's education is centered towards employment, not empowerment (again of course there are exceptions, but I feel this is what a major outlook of current education). That's why after so many "Empowerment drives" we still feel world's misery is not yet over. (Some may feel its increased.) Pollution and other issues are just different forms of misery arising out of ill-education.
MahaMaha
Ok so this answer may be a bit more... extreme/silly, but it is very fast and efficient and your rules don't explicitly say anything against it.
Using your tiny budget (the more the better though) self-manufactor or buy explosives and then use them to destroy parts of the roads or throw it into a large area of cars.
However, the plan could be altered to have less evidence pointing towards you as the basic idea behind it is to remove the necessary infrastructure for cars, as well as cars themselves. Simply destroying the cars by tinkering with them when their owners have gone would also be viable, however the explosives idea would also remove a large amount of infrastructure needed.
It would sure get a lot of cars off the road, and hate too...
John HonJohn Hon
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged cities transportation or ask your own question.
What considerations does a city built on an oceanic platform have to make?
Growing a city (literally)
Can I make a movable medieval city?
What's the biggest medieval city I can make?
Vertical City - How High?
How big could a city possibly get?
Transporting cargo within a city using tiny rail cars, or conveyor belts, or pneumatic post
Mozart city proposal

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl