American Dream

Thirty years ago, urban planners in Philadelphia had a great idea: close a street of thriving retail shops to cars and turn it into a transit mall. Within five years, they managed to turn the street into "an abandoned, windswept strip."

It took ten more years to convince them to open up the street again and another ten to find the money to do it. When the cars were back, "almost mysteriously, so were people."

"There's a certain vibrancy, I think, that started after they opened up the street to cars," says one of the street's new retail developers. "There's so much more today, people moving up and down the street, than there was four or five years ago."

What a surprise. Of course, smart-growth planners today don't want to close streets to cars, they just want to "slow" the cars. But anything that reduces auto access is likely to harm retailers.