Welcome to Culdesac, America’s groundbreaking ‘car-free neighborhood’

Will people be happier and healthier in a city without cars? A company building a community in the desert of Tempe, Arizona, is betting on it

If you were to imagine the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the modern US, it would be difficult to conceive such a thing sprouting from the environs of Phoenix, Arizona – a sprawling, concrete incursion into a brutal desert environment that is sometimes derided as the least sustainable city in the country.

But it is here that such a neighborhood, called Culdesac, has taken root. On a 17-acre site that once contained a car body shop and some largely derelict buildings, an unusual experiment has emerged that invites Americans to live in a way that is rare outside of fleeting experiences of college, Disneyland or trips to Europe: a walkable, human-scale community devoid of cars.