CARFREE TOKYO

- a collection of notes and reflections on urban living from the perspective of a family of five in Tokyo. My epiphany was many years ago, but being hit by a motorbike and seeing my life flash before my eyes caused a sudden change that slowly made me reflect on whether American style auto-centric urban transportation of the Roosevelt era really is a capital G "Good Idea" for civilized modern cities in the 21st Century. This blog explores the good and the bad in urban planning and design, here and elsewhere. The goal is simple - not "death to all cars," just more walkable communities, quiet tree-lined streets, good public transport, traffic calming, Velib style bicycle sharing and a bit of common sense. The bolg is mostly theraputic, so I don't go wanting to throttle every dangerous driver I come across, but partly also out of a real desire to see positive change. This blog explores how it can be done, the people who do it, and how, in many small ways, this very old idea may at last have found its zeitgeist. Comments and suggestions welcome.

Monday, January 08, 2007

New German community models car-free living | csmonitor.com

New German community models car-free living | csmonitor.com

Promising looking idea. The concept is not new, but not many places exist where it has actually been implemented on a large scale.

Also read of a guy in the US who created a solar system for his house, and instead of stopping there, also introduced a hydrogen generator, whereby during summer months the excess solar power would be used to create hydrogen. In long winter nights, energy would be released from the hydrogen generator to make up the difference. A dual system totally self contained, and totally environmentally friendly, which powered his whole house including jacuzzi and all the mod-cons, and also powered the guys electric car to boot. This sort of system sounds incredible. Cost him a lot, but if you could develop this into a marketable product system, it would be awesome, and assume cost would come down.
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