Tempe’s ‘Car-Free’ Planned Community: Miracle or Mirage?

Is Tempe’s ostensibly ‘car-free’ Culdesac development a victory for walkability advocates — or just a mirage?

In a piece for Strong Towns, Ben Abramson aims to answer this question, describing the planned community that purports to be one of America’s first car-free communities.

As Abramson notes, Culdesac is “located in a metropolitan region that is overwhelmingly car-centric, and Culdesac’s developers made the admirable decision not to contribute to that pattern.” The neighborhood offers transit passes, scooter rentals, and discounts on ride hailing services and electric car rentals.

The problem with Culdesac and other planned developments like it, according to Abramson, is that “While such developments can be built to resemble traditional neighborhoods, they lack the historical benefits of long-term, incremental growth.” While “Culdesac is an improvement over most of what gets built around Phoenix and similar metropolitan areas,” it fails to replicate the economic and social diversity of more organic, incremental development. For Abramson, it’s a tiny step toward progress in a country still largely dedicated to car-centric development.