Filed under: Green Culture, On Two Wheels
Video: Car-free city coming 2009
The Masdar initiative. Carbon neutral, zero waste city. And car-free. That's the part that's important to us. The video says cycling and walking will be the most popular form of transport. Everything you need will be 200 meters (656 feet) away. This is illustrated by creepy red rings in the video. If you just have to go faster than a bike, there is an "electrical personal rapid transit system" and light rail.
Maybe it's the CBS Lost like use of the word initiative or the fact it's walled, but this is hella weird. Just look at that video. It's like a sci-fi movie or something. Only thing missing is James Bond and a hand petting a cat. Anyway, clean energy, green values, 47,500 people, 3.7-square-mile, coming 2009 to Abu Dhabi... one of the largest oil producers in the world. Nope, nothing strange about that at all.
[Source: Businessweek via Grist]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jg3 4:36PM (8/11/2007)
The FIRST car free city? Umm, most cities in history at this point were at some point car free. And, there are towns and Villages all over the non-American planet that are car free. There are even Floridian & Californian areas that are car free.
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Lascelles 5:48PM (8/11/2007)
Changed. Thank you. It was a typo. I think they are claiming to be the first carbon neutral or waste free city. I actually ordered the book Car Free city and plan to review it. I don't know a city is defined but this seemed a little small to me.
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TX CHL Instructor 11:21AM (8/12/2007)
From the video: "One day, all cities will be built like this."
Don't hold your breath.
Abu Dhabi has some advantages for solar energy not present in most of the world -- flat and near the equator(more than 10 hours of usable sunlight every day), and cloudless nearly all the time (rainfall average is about 4 inches per year, all in the 'winter').
Not to mention an insane concentration of money in that area due to the sale of fossil fuels over the past 5 or 6 decades. The real 'fuel' here is likely to come from the casinos and luxury hotels in nearby Abu Dhabi. The 47,500 residents are likely to be all millionaires; nobody else will be able to afford to live there.
Since I'm not a millionaire, that pretty much leaves me out. And since I'm also an infidel, I wouldn't want to reside there even if I could afford it.
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Smith 12:23PM (8/12/2007)
Why two seperate squares?
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MikeW 2:34PM (8/12/2007)
Is it a city or a prison?
You can check in, but you can't check out...
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Lascelles 2:38PM (8/12/2007)
I was probably too critical of the wall thing. I think it's tradition. Maybe due to sand storms.
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oversteernSOB 2:53PM (10/31/2007)
I don't think the ominous and evil music helped build any confidence or trust for the project!
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