Have you ever looked closely at historic images of cities, say from the 1930’s? The social atmosphere is very different. The fronts of buildings were positioned close to the sidewalk, families lived close to the center of town with a place to sit outside to greet the passersby, and the traffic was chiefly pedestrian. As a result, dating has drastically been affected by modern changes in the past 50 years.
The pedestrian and social enemy, the automobile: Since the invention of the automobile, designers and builders had to make space for parking. Well, this was a challenge at best as each automobile requires around one hundred square feet. A person requires approximately four square feet of space. Vehicular lanes had to be accommodated, restricting space for pedestrians, and adding vehicular and pedestrian conflict. Moreover, the vehicle is now regarded as the most important component of our transportation infrastructure with regard to safety and efficiency. What does this do to our social space? After the engineers design a street, and the builders accommodate the parking at the front of the buildings, the once social space turns into dead, vehicular only,...