{"id":291088,"date":"2025-11-14T12:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/291088\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T12:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T12:21:13","slug":"this-car-free-neighborhood-was-designed-to-revolutionize-american-cities-yale-climate-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/291088\/","title":{"rendered":"This car-free neighborhood was designed to revolutionize American cities \u00bb Yale Climate Connections"},"content":{"rendered":"

What would it take to make car-free living possible across the United States? The question has critical implications for the climate: Transportation is the nation\u2019s top source of emissions<\/a>, and everyday vehicles are the largest contributor within this category.<\/p>\n

Today, cars are an inescapable fact of life in most of the country. Almost 70% of U.S. workers drove<\/a> alone to work in 2022, compared to 2.9% who biked or walked and 3.1% who took public transportation.<\/p>\n

This reality doesn\u2019t necessarily reflect Americans\u2019 preferences, however. Many people in the U.S. want to live in walkable areas<\/a>, but only a small fraction of the nation\u2019s developed land fits this description. Around 90% of all housing in the nation\u2019s largest metro areas is located in car-centric suburbs<\/a>. The low supply of real estate in walkable neighborhoods drives prices upward, making it unaffordable for most people.<\/p>\n

Ryan Johnson has spent years thinking about solutions for these problems. Inspired by travels to European cities, he cofounded Culdesac, a real estate developer dedicated to building walkable places, in 2018. In 2023, the company opened the first phase of Culdesac Tempe<\/a>, a 15.5-acre development that offers a variety of transportation options \u2013 but no resident parking.<\/p>\n

Yale Climate Connections spoke with Johnson about Culdesac Tempe and the future of American cities.<\/p>\n

Interview edited and condensed.<\/p>\n

Yale Climate Connections: Developing walkable neighborhoods in the U.S. is very difficult<\/a>. What made you feel confident in taking on this challenge?<\/p>\n

Ryan Johnson: I\u2019ve been in real estate for 23 years now. I got started in college. I turned down MIT to go to University of Arizona on a scholarship that\u2019s a full ride, plus cash on top. I used the scholarship money to get into real estate and built a portfolio of rentals, learned how to buy, renovate, etc. I saw so much opportunity to do housing better and bring innovation into real estate.<\/p>\n

In my 20s, I went to 60 countries and lived in a handful, and that gave me so much inspiration. But I also worked in transportation, with trains and helicopters and buses, including for the New York City subway, and that showed me so much about the direction that transportation is going.<\/p>\n

And then I was part of the founding team at Opendoor<\/a> [an online brokerage company], which I think has some of the best data and customer interactions in real estate. That\u2019s where I saw that areas built before cars do well and heard from so many customers that they want to live in walkable neighborhoods \u2013 and we\u2019re just not building enough of those. That was what gave me the conviction to do Culdesac.<\/p>\n

\"People(Image credit: Culdesac)<\/p>\n

Yale Climate Connections: What are the primary obstacles that you\u2019ve encountered in building a walkable neighborhood with Culdesac?<\/p>\n

Johnson: The biggest reason there aren\u2019t more walkable neighborhoods in the U.S. is that they\u2019ve basically been banned. They\u2019re more or less illegal because of zoning and other reasons, and we\u2019ve mandated building lots of parking, which means things are spread out. So people feel they need a car, and then we mistake that as people wanting a car, when really they just didn\u2019t have an alternative.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s a bit of a chicken and egg. If you\u2019re in a sprawling area, it\u2019s hard to just build a walkable neighborhood. When you\u2019re doing something different, there are so many questions: from cities, from investors, from partners. And the real estate industry doesn\u2019t change very quickly; it\u2019s very slow-moving.<\/p>\n

We started the company in San Francisco in 2018. We looked all over the country for places that had the right conditions for development. We found that in Tempe, with this wonderful parcel that\u2019s 17 acres, right on the light rail. We worked to understand the different questions that stakeholders had and put together a plan that everyone could get behind. And Tempe passed a landmark piece of legislation that was the city\u2019s first agreement with a developer to build without parking in a multifamily context.<\/p>\n

Today, the development is thriving. It\u2019s doing well. Neighbors love it; the city loves it. And it\u2019s become a reference project for understanding how to build walkable neighborhoods in the U.S. in the 2020s.<\/p>\n

\"A(Image credit: Culdesac)<\/p>\n

Yale Climate Connections: Can you say more about why you chose Tempe and how that decision came about? What did that search process look like?<\/p>\n

Johnson: One of the challenges in this business is there\u2019s not just one person that can say yes, but there\u2019s lots of folks that can effectively say no. You don\u2019t just talk to the mayor; there are lots of different stakeholders. You need to talk to different community groups. You need to talk to the fire department, the sanitation department, etc., to understand what people care about and how their system works.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it was really important to go to a place and understand the different stakeholders, and to go to a place that welcomes growth. Some places are looking for reasons to say no to a project.<\/p>\n

Now that we\u2019ve shown the way, it\u2019s easier. So many cities and developers have visited Culdesac Tempe to see what they can learn. And the No. 1 thing that we get is, \u201cWhen can we build one of these in my area?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A(Image credit: Culdesac)<\/p>\n

Yale Climate Connections: What about project financing? How did you structure things so that you were able to get the funds to build a novel concept?<\/p>\n

Johnson: It\u2019s true that when you\u2019re doing something new, you get a bit of a new-concept penalty. There are more questions; it\u2019s harder to get it funded. But that\u2019s shifting.<\/p>\n

This company is about how innovations in transportation are changing real estate. And we\u2019re in, like, the second inning of the biggest change to transportation of our lifetime, and therefore the biggest change to cities.<\/p>\n

We used to build great walkable neighborhoods, going back to Native Americans who have been in Arizona for thousands of years. And over time, transportation has evolved through innovations like Roman roads, streetcars in New York City, and then the highway system for cars. But now we\u2019re entering a new era, which is that instead of having a private car that\u2019s parked 95% of the time, people are starting to use a portfolio of transportation options.<\/p>\n

I think this is where our perspective is a bit unique within the wider urbanist world. A lot of the urbanist world was initially very skeptical of rideshare such as Lyft, AV [autonomous vehicle] ride-hail such as Waymo<\/a>, maybe because ride-hail competes with trains. But what it does is let us move to this portfolio approach to transportation. And the portfolio has a very healthy place for trains, because that\u2019s what\u2019s best for high capacity, but it\u2019s also about walking. It\u2019s about using Lyft and Waymo. [Editor\u2019s note: Culdesac has partnerships<\/a> with several of the brands mentioned in this interview, including Lyft and Lectric Bikes, and has worked with Waymo on joint marketing efforts.] It\u2019s about electric bikes, electric scooters. Collectively, that portfolio lets people choose the right mode for a given trip, and that\u2019s when people will shift away from private cars. That\u2019s what we\u2019re betting on.<\/p>\n

Early on, we got laughed out of the room. People said, \u201cYou\u2019re not going to get permission [to build this way].\u201d \u201cThe demand is not going to be there.\u201d And, \u201cWhat are you talking about, that there are going to be Waymos everywhere and most people won\u2019t have cars?\u201d<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019ve got permission, the demand\u2019s there, and it\u2019s fairly widely appreciated that AV ride-hail really is going to change things. Part of the reason we chose Tempe is it\u2019s right in the middle of Waymo\u2019s first market. Today, you have investors that were skeptics saying things like, \u201cMy daughter sends my grandkids to school in a Waymo and thinks Waymo is the best thing that ever happened because she doesn\u2019t have to be a chauffeur anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AWaymo station at Culdesac Tempe. (Image credit: Culdesac)<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just one of the trends that are changing. So we\u2019re moving from a new-concept penalty and getting closer to neutral now. And eventually it\u2019s going to be a new-concept premium. Investors and banks are going to wake up to the fact that funding projects with structured parking (i.e., multistory parking garages) is a mistake. A huge portion of development costs is going towards building parking, and I think we\u2019re close to a reckoning where people will realize how much of a mistake that was.<\/p>\n

And the flip side to real estate being a slow-moving world is when things change, it\u2019s a very powerful change.<\/p>\n

\"AnAerial view of phases 1 and 2 of Culdesac Tempe. (Image credit: Culdesac)<\/p>\n

Yale Climate Connections: And you\u2019re starting to see signs of this change, or at least less of a negative reaction from banks?<\/p>\n

Johnson: I think we\u2019re getting closer to neutral. If you\u2019re on an investment committee at a bank, just because you think things are going in a certain direction doesn\u2019t mean you also go there now. But a lot of folks we\u2019ve spoken with say they\u2019re thinking more about structured parking and that we\u2019re going to see that show up more in actual investment decisions.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also going to show up in the returns of projects where developers do a project with structured parking, and when they go to sell it, buyers are less excited about their project because something that a lot of money was spent on is not as much of an asset \u2013 and it\u2019s ugly. People are going to start to appreciate design and beauty more.<\/p>\n

Yale Climate Connections: On the AV issue, I\u2019m one of those traditional urbanists you mentioned who\u2019s skeptical of them. I live in New York, where it\u2019s easy to get around by walking and taking the subway. From that perspective, to the extent I think about AVs at all, they seem like a distraction. But you obviously see things very differently. Why do you see AV ride-hail as critical to reducing car dependency in the U.S.?<\/p>\n

Johnson: Yeah, this also gets into my inspiration for Culdesac. So I\u2019ve been 15 years without a car. The first time was when I moved to New York to work for the MTA [the Metropolitan Transportation Authority]. I had worked on urban issues in other places before this and just cared so much about improving cities, but it\u2019s really challenging. There\u2019s a lot of inertia, and it\u2019s really hard for cities to modernize. For example, there are cities that have been running their subway systems with no drivers for decades, but New York still has two crew members in almost every subway train. Just that one thing costs the city millions of dollars per year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the big benefits of AV ride-hail is cost. Private vehicles are parked 95% of the time, and they have a lot of costs, a lot of which are fixed: the price of the car, the price of maintenance. Then Lyft came along, and people use it, like, when they go out drinking or go somewhere with expensive parking. But that didn\u2019t get rid of their fixed costs from having a car, so oftentimes they don\u2019t save money by using Lyft. You only save money when you go cold turkey and no longer have a car.<\/p>\n

The Tempe development was designed to make the most of all those different modes of transportation. We have a Waymo station here. We work with electric bike companies, electric scooter companies. We\u2019re right on the light rail. We built a crosswalk to the development, and we also have lots of retail on-site.<\/p>\n

\"ALight rail stop outside Culdesac Tempe. (Image credit: Culdesac)<\/p>\n

Yale Climate Connections: Going back to the things traditional urbanists like me love, is the light rail popular with residents? Do they use it?<\/p>\n

Johnson: Yeah, we have lots of data from resident surveys, and the No. 1 used method of transportation by far is the light rail. But they use the full portfolio.<\/p>\n

We work closely with all these different transportation modes. We worked closely with Valley Metro [Phoenix\u2019s public transportation agency] to get a free unlimited light rail pass for all our residents, and now any multifamily development can offer that; before it was only employers.<\/p>\n

And we have a street, Lectric Avenue, named after one of our partners, Lectric, which is the No. 1 e-bike company in the country. They\u2019re also based here in Phoenix. People would not have expected the first car-free neighborhood to be in Phoenix; they also wouldn\u2019t expect the No. 1 e-bike company to be here. But sometimes it\u2019s these places with more extreme designs that lead to innovations.<\/p>\n

Yale Climate Connections: You mentioned that people ask how they can get similar projects in their communities. There does seem to be a real trend of car-free or car-lite developments popping up across the country, although it\u2019s obviously still very far from the norm. What do you see as the main challenges and opportunities in making this kind of thing available to more people who want it?<\/p>\n

Johnson: Well, the biggest lesson from Culdesac Tempe is that it\u2019s possible to build walkable neighborhoods in the U.S. in the 2020s, and they\u2019ll do well. The demand is there, and the tail winds of the transportation trends are moving in a very good way.<\/p>\n

All the normal challenges and development are still there when you\u2019re building walkable neighborhoods. It doesn\u2019t give you some magical cost reduction: Wood is still wood, labor costs are still labor costs, interest rates and tariffs still affect us. So it\u2019s hard to be a developer of any type, but this development pattern is the future.<\/p>\n

Republish This Story<\/p>\n

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