Where people are more important than cars. Imagine such a place, and you are in Portland. As in every other American city, cars fill the streets in Portland. The city is generally regarded as one of the most gridlocked in the nation. The usual solution to that gridlock, given our love affair with the automobile, is to tap the seemingly bottomless fund of federal highway dollars.
People surrender their neighborhoods to cars.
But this mythic notion that you will always be able to drive as fast as you want and park free in front of your destination doesn't work. Too often, though, cities build to that standard, said Blumenauer. They surrender their streets to cars. They widen lanes, chew up sidewalks and devote large tracts of real estate to parking lots. Portland's downtown, by contrast, is a place where visitors and residents are encouraged to lace up their walking shoes.