On September 21, 2025, Oxford Street in London—one of the busiest shopping streets in the world—was fully pedestrianized for a one-day showcase, giving Londoners the opportunity to enjoy a variety of live entertainment, food, and retail options without the presence of cars.
Supported by London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, this day was meant to be a demonstration in advance of plans to permanently transform parts of Oxford Street into a car-free space—one that will limit access by most vehicles from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, except on Sundays.
London is one of many cities rethinking its car-first orientation and embracing a more holistic vision of urban life rooted in social connection. Car-free and car-light streets are most successful when they function as social infrastructure that supports belonging, well-being, and public life. In other words, infrastructure matters, but intentional placemaking determines results.
According to Philipp Rode, PhD, executive director of LSE Cities at the London School of Economics and Political Science, “Much of the current focus in pedestrianization is about public space activation. There is a recognition that pedestrian-friendly streets can be celebrated as spaces that bring people together for a variety of commercial and cultural reasons.”
The success of car-free or car-light spaces hinges on how well they foster connection. Recent years have brought a growing awareness about social isolation as a public health concern. Research supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation highlights links that connect strong community ties to better health outcomes, longer lives, and greater resilience during crises. Additionally, a 2023 report from the Office of the Surgeon General of the United States declared loneliness as a public health epidemic, tied to elevated risks for heart disease, depression, and premature death.
In this context, pedestrian-focused car-free and car-light street strategies can serve as social infrastructure. When cities curate and care for shared public spaces, they can foster everyday opportunities for interaction, belonging, and community well-being. According to Rode, “If you strike the right balance, pedestrianization can help invigorate spaces and ensure success. The goal is to create places where people don’t just come to shop but [also] where they want to stay and belong.”
Creating socially vibrant streets requires more than physical redesign; it calls for placekeeping, placeknowing, and placemaking—honoring what exists, understanding community identity, and creating new ways for people to connect.
Cities throughout the United States and Europe show that car-free and car-light placemaking succeeds when paired with creative events, cultural partnerships, and community-driven programming. The following examples illustrate how cities are putting these principles into practice.
Reimagining 16th Street
Opened in 1982, Denver’s 16th Street Mall was an early experiment in pedestrian-first design. For decades, this mile-long downtown corridor prioritized walking and gathering, and, via a free shuttle, connected retail, restaurants, and offices into a hub for locals and tourists.
Over time, heavy use, deferred maintenance, shifting retail patterns, and reduced office occupancy created new challenges. After years of planning, Dig Studio alongside the city and county of Denver led a major revitalization effort, and the street fully reopened on October 4, 2025, with modernized infrastructure, enhanced green space, and renewed focus on being a place people want to spend time. This revitalization reflects placeknowing, work that honors the street’s history and civic identity while updating it for contemporary public life.
“Sixteenth Street always has been and will always be Denver’s main street,” said Bill Vitek, principal and cofounder of Dig Studio. “There are many historic components associated with 16th Street, including paving elements, lights, and trees that we needed to work with during reconstruction. At the same time, we were focused on bringing 16th Street into a modern context. The 21st-century street is a place—not just a corridor that connects people or traffic.”
Denver’s redesign also reflects intentional placemaking to transform 16th Street into a social corridor. Improved lighting, landscaping, seating, and cultural activity spaces create more opportunities for people to connect.
Research on public realm design shows that when people have comfortable places to sit, perform, and observe, they are more likely to stay, talk, and return—behaviors that drive social connection. Plans for arts programming, seasonal events, and community festivals aim to make the street welcoming to a broad audience, with artistic interventions offering low-barrier invitations for spontaneous interaction.
City leadership and designers are optimistic that these renovations can help revitalize downtown. Partners expect increased foot traffic and sales tax revenue. “It’s a testament to how good investment in the public realm can be critical in urban revitalization,” Vitek said. Ongoing adaptive reuse and housing investment along the corridor is expected to strengthen year-round street life.
Making space for people on State Street
Downtown Madison, Wisconsin’s State Street is a long-standing car-light corridor connecting the state capitol to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with private cars generally prohibited from using the corridor. Established in the 1970s to revitalize the downtown area, those car restrictions remain in place today.
“Outside of buses and service vehicles, there hasn’t been daily car traffic on State Street for a very long time,” said Matt Tramel, executive director of Madison’s Central Business Improvement District (BID).
State Street’s enduring success reflects decades of car-light placemaking that has protected the corridor’s identity as the cultural spine of Madison. “State Street is the main artery between the capitol and [the] university. It’s long been the heart of the city of Madison, and [it] will continue to be,” Tramel said.
With a variety of restaurants, retail stores, and cultural events on the street, people have many ways to connect with one another when there. According to the Madison Central BID, about 6.7 million people visit State Street each year, with visits peaking in May and September.
“People understand what the street is and what it means,” Tramel said. “The development community is aware of that, too. The question is, how do we protect the integrity of the street by making it as pedestrian friendly as possible? Also, how do we create an environment where the surrounding community can take advantage of the real estate that’s there on the street?”
Events such as the Madison Night Market bring local vendors, artists, and community groups together to fully activate State Street. With evolving programming and investment, the street has retained its identity as Madison’s central cultural corridor across generations, with policies and programming that sustain, rather than replace, its original social purpose.
Opening the streets in Center City Philadelphia
Philadelphia’s Open Streets program, organized by the Center City District (CCD), turns portions of Center City into temporary car-free pedestrian plazas on Sundays from late morning until late afternoon. By turning major streets into shared public spaces, the program highlights how short-term activation can build long-term community well-being.
Each Open Streets event becomes a communal experience, with families walking, musicians performing, artists showcasing their work, and businesses lining the street—all to build a stronger sense of social connection and belonging. Programming is shaped by community interests and neighborhood identity.
According to Prema Katari Gupta, CEO of the CCD, the program takes advantage of Philadelphia’s unique design. “Philadelphia is the ultimate walkable city. It’s really important to not take that for granted and to lean into ways to reinforce the walkability,” Gupta said.
Open Streets events also support local businesses that underpin neighborhood character. Michelle Miller, cofounder of The Ground, a local coffee shop and plant store, said, “I think it’s undeniable, when you walk the streets of Open Streets Philadelphia, [that] there’s a huge influx of extra people . . . that equates to better business.”
CCD data shows that 90 percent of businesses reported increased foot traffic during Open Streets events, with an average increase of 86 percent. Philadelphia Open Streets has been so successful that the program expanded to other areas of Center City during summer 2025.
Developers outside the Center City area are also excited about the Open Streets concept. Anne Cummins, cofounder and former COO of Gattuso Development Partners, spoke about Gattuso’s plans to pedestrianize the street in front of their commercial research laboratory space in West Philadelphia. “It creates a delightful surprise for walkers as they explore the city and a true third space where people can gather, relax, and connect outside of home and work—building a sense of belonging,” Cummins said. “It makes the street, the neighborhood, and the city feel alive and welcoming.”
As more developers collaborate to incorporate pedestrianized or flexible-use streets into new projects, the influence of Open Streets is expanding. It serves as a model for cultivating belonging and social connection in visible, community-driven ways that can also support development project success.
Prioritizing bikes, transit in Paris
Whereas many U.S. cities are advancing efforts to pedestrianize streets, European cities have a longer history of doing so and, in some cases, are exploring more comprehensive efforts.
Paris has long been known for beautiful public spaces including cafés and neighborhood squares that encourage pedestrian activity. Given this history, there has been a recent push to expand the scale of pedestrian and active mobility infrastructure in the city. The city of Paris is pairing this transformation with a deeper, more intentional focus on public realm activation. Rather than simply restricting cars, Paris is redesigning and programming streets, so they function as everyday social spaces.
Under Mayor Anne Hidalgo, the city has accelerated pedestrianization and bike infrastructure, with a plan to add 80 miles (130 km) of bike paths by 2026. In 2025, 66 percent of Parisians voted to convert 500 streets into pedestrian zones with no car access. Doing so will raise the number of public space “green lungs” to nearly 700—covering just over a tenth of the capital’s streets.
This approach honors Paris’ historic street culture with placemaking that creates new shared social spaces. By widening sidewalks, adding pedestrian plazas, expanding café terraces, and supporting pop-up cultural programming, Paris is transforming streets into places for interaction and gathering. In doing so, the city is treating its bike and pedestrian network as social infrastructure that connects neighborhoods through shared public space.
“It is always complicated to change citizens’ habits, particularly in terms of mobility,” said Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo in her 2023 interview with Urban Land. Hidalgo also stated that “the first solutions are with [offering] public transport. In the coming years . . . there will be an even larger transport network that will serve the whole of Greater Paris and the Île-de-France region much better.”
By building on the city’s strong culture of street life and transforming mobility corridors into social spaces, Paris is actively shaping a future where its streets feel more alive, inclusive, and connected.
Setting the stage for longevity and success
The movement toward car-light and car-free spaces offers an opportunity to improve urban livability by designing for what people value. Although hybrid work patterns and new investments in sustainable transportation are increasing openness to these approaches, long-term success depends on how well they cultivate social connection and belonging.
Cities thrived long before personal cars, not because vehicles were absent but because people, culture, and shared experiences animated public life. Today’s car-light strategies aim to re-create that reality, and they succeed when design changes are paired with intentional placemaking.
Placemaking works best when co-created alongside community groups and artists, activating streets with cultural events and markets that build bonding, identity, and year-round local vitality. These impacts also advance community health through connection and inclusion, positioning car-free and car-light placemaking as a public health strategy that builds trust, activity, and resilience.
Planners, developers, cities, and community partners can advance long-term success by building car-light or car-free spaces that:
- Center social equity. Engage local residents and businesses to use placeknowing to understand community history and placekeeping to protect cultural identity when planning the location and design of car-light/car-free spaces.
- Maximize connectivity. Ensure access to and around the car-light/car-free place by investing in biking, walking, and transit infrastructure both within and beyond it.
- Prioritize accessibility. Include features such as curb cuts, ramps, and tactile paving to accommodate all people, including the 16 percent of the population that has a disability.
- Plan for all seasons. Use weather-resilient amenities—heated walkways, shade, sheltered seating—to ensure comfort year-round, incorporating green infrastructure wherever possible to support resilience and beautify the space.
- Invest in creative placemaking. Use arts and culture, recurring programming, and community events to animate streets and reinforce their identity as welcoming public spaces.
- Secure community buy-in. Nurture community involvement with clear impact metrics and feedback loops, and help bolster buy-in with partnerships among public, nonprofit, and private sector entities including local businesses, delivery services, and mobility providers.
Integrating these elements can strengthen health and belonging while boosting value and investment. As demand grows for places where people can live, play, and work without a car, planners and developers can shape more vibrant, inclusive, and connected communities.
