[Iowa-dx] Fwd: Car-free Living in a new community in Germany

[hhart@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1221-07.htm

Published on Thursday, December 21, 2006 by the Christian Science
Monitor

New German Community Models Car-free Living
by Isabelle de Pommereau


It's pickup time at the Vauban kindergarten here at the edge of the
Black Forest, but there's not a single minivan waiting for the kids.
Instead, a convoy of helmet-donning moms - bicycle trailers in tow -
pedal up to the entrance.

Welcome to Germany's best-known environmentally friendly neighborhood
and a successful experiment in green urban living. The Vauban
development - 2,000 new homes on a former military base 10 minutes by
bike from the heart of Freiburg - has put into practice many ideas
that were once dismissed as eco-fantasy but which are now moving to
the center of public policy.


The Vauban neighborhood in Freiburg, Germany, is being developed as a
model sustainable district on the site of a former military base.
Many of the houses produce more energy than they use. Other buildings
are heated by a neighborhood-scale combined heat and power station
burning wood chips. (Photo by Jayson Antonoff)
With gas prices well above $6 per gallon across much of the
continent, Vauban is striking a chord in Western Europe as
communities encourage people to be less car-dependent. Just this
week, Paris unveiled a new electric tram in a bid to reduce urban
pollution and traffic congestion.

"Vauban is clearly an offer for families with kids to live without
cars," says Jan Scheurer, an Australian researcher who has studied
the Vauban model extensively. "It was meant to counter urban sprawl -
an offer for families not to move out to the suburbs and give them
the same, if better quality of life. And it is very successful."

There are numerous incentives for Vauban's 4,700 residents to live
car-free: Carpoolers get free yearly tramway passes, while parking
spots - available only in a garage at the neighborhood's edge - go
for =8017,500 (US$23,000). Forty percent of residents have bought
spaces, many just for the benefit of their visiting guests.

As a result, the car-ownership rate in Vauban is only 150 per 1,000
inhabitants, compared with 430 per 1,000 inhabitants in Freiburg
proper.

In contrast, the US average is 640 household vehicles per 1,000
residents. But some cities - such as Davis, Calif., where 17 percent
of residents commute by bike - have pioneered a car-free lifestyle
that is similar to Vauban's model.

Vauban, which is located in the southwestern part of the country,
owes its existence, at least in part, to Freiburg - a university
town, like Davis - that has a reputation as Germany's ecological
capital.

In the 1970s, the city became the cradle of Germany's powerful
antinuclear movement after local activists killed plans for a nuclear
power station nearby. The battle brought energy-policy issues closer
to the people and increased involvement in local politics. With a
quarter of its people voting for the Green Party, Freiburg became a
political counterweight in the conservative state of
Baden-W=FCrttemberg.

At about the same time, Freiburg, a city of 216,000 people,
revolutionized travel behavior. It made its medieval center more
pedestrian-friendly, laid down a lattice of bike paths, and
introduced a flat rate for tramways and buses.

Environmental research also became a backbone of the region's
economy, which boasts Germany's largest solar-research center and an
international center for renewable energy. Services such as
installing solar panels and purifying wastewater account for 3
percent of jobs in the region, according to city figures.

Little wonder then, that when the French Army closed the 94-acre base
that Vauban now occupies in 1991, a group of forward-thinking
citizens took the initiative to create a new form of city living for
young families.

"We knew the city had a duty to make a plan. We wanted to get as
involved as possible," says Andreas Delleske, then a physics student
who led the grass-roots initiative that codesigned Vauban. "And we
were accepted as a partner of the city."

In 1998, Freiburg bought land from the German government and worked
with Delleske's group to lay out a master plan for the area, keeping
in mind the ecological, social, economic, and cultural goals of
reducing energy levels while creating healthier air and a solid
infrastructure for young families. Rather than handing the area to a
real estate developer, the city let small homeowner cooperatives
design and build their homes from scratch.

In retrospect, "It would have been much simpler to give a big
developer a piece of land and say, 'Come back five years later with a
plan,' " says Roland Veith, the Freiburg city official in charge of
Vauban.

But the result is a "master plan of an ecological city ... unique in
its holistic approach," says Peter Heck, a professor of material-flow
management at Germany's University of Trier, pointing out that this
was a community-wide effort involving engineers, politicians, city
planners, and residents - not just an environmental group's pilot
program.

Today, rows of individually designed, brightly painted buildings line
streets that are designed to be too narrow for cars. There are four
kindergartens, a Waldorf school, and plenty of playgrounds - a good
thing, because a third of Vauban's residents are under age 18,
bucking the trend in a graying country.

As Germany's population ages - and shrinks - experts say Vauban's
model will become more important as officials increasingly
tailor-make communities in an effort to attract citizens .

"We have fewer young people. What you need now is a good quality of
life with good services, a good infrastructure for kids and older
people," says Thomas Schleifnecker, a Hannover-based urban planner.

Across Europe, similar projects are popping up. Copenhagen, for
instance, maintains a fleet of bikes for public use that is financed
through advertising on bicycle frames.

But what makes Vauban unique, say experts, is that "it's as much a
grass-roots initiative as it is pursued by the city council," says
Mr. Scheurer. "It brings together the community, the government, and
the private sector at every state of the game."

As more cities follow Vauban's example, some see its approach taking
off. "Before you had pilot projects. Now it's like a movement," says
Mr. Heck. "The idea of saving energy for our landscape is getting
into the basic planning procedure of German cities."

Copyright =A9 2006 The Christian Science Monitor