Cars kill cities
I think in the Netherlands, we've had this discussion a while ago already. Outcome: cities like Amsterdam have intentionally few parking spaces in the center, and they cost ludicrous amounts of money per hour.<p>People <i>living</i> in the center either complain their asses off, or ditch the car.<p>I'm not sure that this really helped people much. Ditching the car means you can't go visit your grandma in that village without a train station on the other side of the country easily. Keeping the car means everything sucks (super-expensive, no place to put it, takes ages to get from your house to the highway). Real solution: keep the car and move away from the city center, the exact opposite from what the OP is suggesting.<p>Long story short, I doubt there is a simple solution. Back in those wonderful old days, everybody lived 2 miles from their grandmas anyway.<p>(there probably are plenty non-simple solutions though)