In Tempe, Arizona, Culdesac is reimagining US cities for people, not cars – and inviting travelers to explore its plazas, paseos and Mediterranean-inspired design.
When Sheryl Murdock walks to her apartment in Culdesac – the US’ first modern car-free neighbourhood built from scratch – she feels transported to a Mediterranean island. As she enters the central plaza, which serves as an al fresco communal living room, the blare of traffic fades, replaced by the clink of glasses, the hum of conversation and the thump of a cornhole game. She meanders down narrow pathways between low-slung white buildings crisscrossed with fairy lights, passing pops of colour from cheerful murals and magenta bougainvillea. Although she’s in Arizona, Murdock says, “It’s like being in Greece.”
Architect Daniel Parolek did have the Mediterranean in mind when he designed Culdesac, though he was influenced more by his travels to the hill towns and coastal villages of Italy and France. Travelers and locals love these settings, Parolek says, because “these are places that were built prior to the automobile, so they were designed around accommodating people”. Why then, he asks, do people have to vacation to places like these rather than living in them?
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