Streets are for Living First! - Mike Lydon

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Livable City

Society & Culture


One of the most powerful and unpredicted outcomes so far from the Coronavirus pandemic has been the immediate change in how the world’s city streets are used. Pre-pandemic, many cities’ streets were mostly dedicated to moving motor vehicles back and forth in a monotonous rhythm of the daily commute. No longer the case, streets lay mostly empty from traffic replaced mostly by humans walking or cycling or sometimes even sunbathing. For the first time we’re using our streets for living first instead of moving first. This is not the same thing as the concept of tactical urbanism, because it wasn’t tactically planned for, but it has had the same effects as what my guest wrote about in his 2015 book titled Tactical Urbanism. Mike Lydon joins me on this episode of Livable City getting highly practical on how we can move forward, reclaiming our cities’ streets for humans to live on, not to just carelessly move through. Of particular focus, I ask Mike the details of how he brought the Open Streets Miami celebration into existence, a very popular local event where Miami closes down prominent streets to cars and reserves them to be experienced exclusively on foot or by bike.   Mike is a founding principal of StreetPlans, an urban design and planning firm. Mike is also author of the fantastically helpful and practical book to change where you live: Tactical Urbanism. Definitely pick up a copy of this book. Amazing tactical guides and workshops created by Mike to learn more on making specific livability changes: Tactical Urbanist’s Guide StreetPlans   You can follow the work of Mike on Twitter - definitely check his Twitter feed out as it has a ton of practical information and examples from cities around the world. Brought to you by SquadCast and post-production by Creekmore Music.