No Cars Allowed: Arizona Multi-Family Development Tests the Market for Car-Free Living

"A $140 million Arizona development is banning residents from bringing their own cars in favor of scooters, bikes and ride-sharing, testing demand for a new type of walkable neighborhood," reports Laura Kusisto in a paywalled article for the Wall Street Journal.

"The 1,000-person rental community, which broke ground this month in Tempe, won’t allow residents to park cars on site or in the surrounding area as a term of their leases," adds Kusisto of the project, called Culdesac Tempe.

A Medium post by the developers, Ryan Johnson and Jeff Berens, explains more details about the development, as well the thinking behind the project. There is clearly some ideology behind the effort, which Johnson and Behrens pitch as a way to break the cycle of car dependency in the Phoenix area. Johnson and Behrens also claim that Culdesac is the first "post-car real estate developer" in the United States.

"We’re undergoing the first major shift in transportation since the interstate highway system," according to the Medium post. "Private car ownership is giving ground to transportation that is on-demand, shared, and (on average) more environmentally friendly. That 1-mile trip to get ice cream is increasingly happening on shared bikes, electric scooters, or on foot. Lyft Shared and Uber Pool make daily trips more affordable. And there is a renewed interest in public transit investment, including the expansion of the light rail in Phoenix."

The project is already underway, with an opening data expected in Fall 2020.