A Walking Revolution
Mother Davis settles down after a stroll and mentions,
A friend just told me about a place called Mackinac Island, a getaway destination located in the waters between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. The island is just 8 miles in circumference, but it seems bigger to those who travel it because there are no motor vehicles allowed on the island.
Apparently, people on Mackinac Island get around by walking, riding bicycles, or riding horses. The taxis there are horse-drawn carriages.
I think it sounds just lovely, but my mind is stuck on just one little detail. In order to get to this place where no cars are allowed, people will get in their cars and drive many hours. It takes about 5 hours to get there from Detroit, something like 7 hours from Chicago, and even more than that from Minneapolis.
Why drive so far for the pleasure of a walk? I’m thinking about Detroit in particular. Anyone who’s been to Detroit recently knows that there is an awful lot of space in the city that is practically empty. The Detroit metropolitan population is in decline, and given the abyssmal performance of GM and Ford, probably will continue to decline for quite some time.
It doesn’t take an awful lot of imagination to see that there’s an opportunity in the emptying of a once-great city like Detroit. What if a big chunk of the city were reconstructed as a no-drive area like Mackinac Island?
Let people living in the area keep their houses. Let current businesses stay there. Just declare that area car-free, and rebuild the roads so that they are narrow lanes suited for horses, bicycles, and pedestrians. Allow development of the area with homes and businesses - but on the condition that no automotive traffic is allowed in - not even trucks. Heck, if they can run businesses without internal combustion engines on a big island in northern Michigan, they can do it in downtown detroit. Just bring your supplies in on horse-drawn carts, like they did in the old days.
To really be effective, this rezoning of Detroit has to be big. Closing down the streets on just one or two blocks won’t do. Let’s think big and imagine a section of the big, sprawling, half-empty city as large as Mackinac Island: 8 miles in circumference.
Detroit is the city that brought America the automotive revolution, and so it’s just the city to re-imagine an America with a significantly reduced dependence upon cars. We can be modern, and successful, and happy, without the need to belch pollution into the air everywhere that we go. To do so will require ingenuity and investment in our communities, of course, but that’s just the sort of thing that improves us as a nation. So long as we have the courage to make America a better place, there is no need to allow our cities to become museums to smog-filled fantasies of the future that have come and gone.
Ready to get a new pair of boots,
Mother Davis
Have you seen what happens when horse-drawn vehicles and cars collide?
Plus, the rise in animal abuse against horses is not something I’d like to hear about.
I agree that a reform of transportation would be good, just not using horses. I’d support some sort of tram system, or improving the current public transport system.
Hare,
Is there a necessary correlation between an increase of use of horses for transportation and an increase in their abuse?
Forget horses. Why don’t we also imagine/allow the use of hybrid electric vehicles (especially for public transportation)and start up a hydrogen fuel cell car industry while we’re at it? Also, we should take a tip from the Chinese and start using bicycles more often (weather and conditions permitting, of course) as well as our feet to get us around town. Mother, you’ve got a gem of an idea that can be adapted to any city or town in the country and which will lessen the need for gas. Good suggestion!
Hm. You know, there’s more than just the lessening of pollution to the idea that Mother Davis suggests. There’s a whole different kind of speed too. Using hybrid cars would make the air cleaner, but would it really help to change the community for the better?
OddClaude,
I wouldn’t call it necessary, but if something gets a lot of media attention then there’ll usually be some attempt by people to get into the spotlight.
Plus; horses are rather delicate creatures despite their size. Some people have difficulty keeping a pet hamster alive, I wouldn’t want them getting a horse and hoping its upkeep will be much like that of a car.
I think I prefer Tom’s suggestion(s).
Though Gertrude; I miss your point. Are you suggesting that this move would isolate the area from the rest of the world?
I shouldn’t speak for her, but I think Gertrude is plainly talking about the benefits of living in a world where life moves at a “slower” pace. There definitely is something pleasant about a more leisurely lifestyle, and on that wish, I agree with her.
Some points to consider:
1. Horses bring with them the problems of feces, flies and disease, in addition to the smell.
2. Mackinac Island is not a “real” place, but a pleasant tourist trap. One of the draws is the beautiful “Grand Hotel” (used as the setting for that old Christoper Reeves movie set in the past-can’t remember the name). They charge you $5 to walk along the front porch of this hotel. They also have a 3500 foot private runway on the island to accomodate your LearJet to arrive there. To arrive there, you need to take a high-speed ferry. A daily weekend single room there can cost you from over $300 to over $600, so this is hardly a place for the common human. The main “businesses” there seem to be fudge shoppes.
3. Shouldn’t we be moving against the slavery of animals to our wishes? I don’t think many horses love having blinders put on them and harnesses in their mouth that force them to move one way or the other by pulling on their jaws.
4. Bicycles and feet are the best (and most healthy) idea to get around in. Unfortunately, it’s hard to carry a lot, so trading is more difficult. That’s why we started enslaving horses and oxen.
It’s also hard to bicyle around a lot of snow-drifted places (I’ve never seen a horse-driven snowplow) like Detroit in the winter. But I guess humans were not really evolved to live naturally in places so in hospitable as Detroit in the winter. (or anytime either, if you’ve ever lived there)
I like personally the idea of slowing life down. However, I don’t suscribe to the idea that technology is our enemy, as some apparently do by suggesting we revert to ancient modes of transportation. The advancing pace of technology has certainly brought about bad aspects, such as the pollution from cars,etc. But without those technology drivers, we wouldn’t have solar panels, wind-driven electricity, and the internet that you’re using right now.
There is much to be gained from technology progression. Like words and ideas, some of it is good, some of it is bad. But to be universally against it is to be a technophobe.
The only statements I have real trouble with in this article are the “..let people keep their houses…let business stay there..”
I don’t like the idea much of the government “letting” me do only what they want to do. If 100% of those residents vote to ban cars from their communities, I guess that’s a freedom they are free to exercise. It makes me think too closely of the “gated” communities where people don’t let blacks drive in either.
Wow, Icey. I think I actually agreed with all of that. And here I was thinking you came here just to annoy people.
Ah, well. What about a solar-/etc powered public transport service? That’d be very trendy.
Uh, sorta thanks for the sorta compliment.
As a year-round resident of Mackinac Island, I feel very insulted that it was referred to as not a “real” place. The horses on Mackinac Island are treated very well (better than the summer employees). The place if fueled by tourism; however, it is a very REAL place. The island has over 600 year-round residents with over 100 children enrolled in the school. The island has a lot of history, and we are all REAL families. It is a very different lifestyle, and one that I am very happy to embrace. I think it would be very ironic that Motor City would have a car-free zone, but it is very possible.
Hi,
I too was insuluted by IceyMaster, Mackinac Island is indeed real. Why does it bother the writer that Grand Hotel charges $5 to let non guests hang out at their property? Its private property that costs the kind family that runs it thousands of dollars in upkeep each season. They have no obligation to let anyone enter, there are guests that pay very good money to have the experience of a Grand Hotel vacation and should they be subjected to random people making it impossible for them to get to the amenities they paid for? I don’t believe Icey would want to stay at a hotel where thousands of tourists each day are hanging around in the hallways and lobby making one’s stay a logistical nightmare.
Tourists are out lifeblood gratefully because the wars of America’s early days ended hence the history of this Island’s place changed from gathering place to strategic military location during two wars, to the fur trade, then fishing, then ice harvesting and eventually tourism. If not for the railroads and Great Lakes cruise ships which both created the industry of tourism we wouldn’t be able to eek out the living we do have in order to remain living here. Many families here have a heritage on this Island prior to the coming of the Europeans, so we indeed are very real.
The horses are treated very well and while they wear blinders, its to ensure they do not spook and risk injuring themselves or the people they transport. Please do not justify your need to live and commute for hours a day for hours via motor vehicles by denegrating our Island. I hope the rest of the readers will consider visiting Mackinac Island anytime, spring, summmer, fall or winter to see how a community can survive the changes of time and still remain somewhat off the fast track. Everything costs money and certainly anytime one ventures out of their hometown, they will have to spend money on necessities such as food and lodging. Mackinac Island can be as cheap or expensive as you make it, its a personal decision how one spend’s their money. The people that visit the Island are the very people who have created the tourism on the Island and we welcome those that want to experience our way of life, its not easy and most towns wouldn’t be able to handle the crowds.
The Motor City will morph as it has over the centuries, Detroit was not built on cars, it was built by the same people with the same dreams and agendas that built Mackinac Island, we just opted to not have an industrial society at the turn of the last century, hence why we are tourism based.
Thank you.
I totally agree with what you’re saying. I wish more people felt this way and took the time to express themselves. Keep up the great work.
Brian Fitzpatrick
http://www.hotelsmackinaw
citynitelife.com
cpe payroll taxes…
We are totally happy that you\’ve stumbled upon this page about colorado state tax forms….