To Mislead is to Lead

ABC’s Good Morning America gushes patronizingly, claiming a town in the German state of Baden-Württemberg has no cars, and Americas should too, so there, (because EVERYONE lives in Manhattan like they do, right?, and who needs the productive part of the economy anyway?)

What they didn’t bother doing was to check Google maps or live.com which reveal what’s true of a lot of towns in Germany as well as the United States for that matter, even in the areas that aren’t a tourist trap – a few pedestrian blocks in a town of 500 people.

Vauban is a new neighborhood of 5000 inhabitants and 600 jobs 4 km to the south of the town center in Freiburg, Germany. It was built as "a sustainable model district" on the site of a former French military base.

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However, the appeal of this to the likes of a intellectually servile hacks at GMA is really the regime of it all:

Most of Vauban's residential streets are described as stellplatzfrei - literally "free from parking spaces". Vehicles are allowed down these streets at walking place to pick up and deliver but not to park, although there are some infractions as the system depends essentially on social consensus - there are few official controls. Each year, households are required to sign a declaration stating either that they do not own a car, or that they do, in which case they must buy a space in one of the multi-storey car parks on the periphery, at a cost of 17,500€ (in 2006). The city-wide car club has the greatest concentration of its 2,500 members in Vauban – at least ten of its cars are stationed around the district.

taxation, requirements to make a personal declaration of ideological buy-in, and “Ausweis bitte” commandeering of personal choice at the alter of a disinterested observer’s drummed in, yet very elementary rationale.

Nonetheless, a highway runs through it: the 331 and 3 to be specific. Meanwhile, back at One Astor Plaza, the 1972 vintage home of GMA’s studio and brain-trust, the view is of a glass curtainwall building that is a virtual Superfund site of superfluous energy loss. Luxuriate, if you will, at the building in a pederast pedestrian proletarian paradise, and avail yourself of the...

Indoor valet parking. Credit cards accepted. Space available days, evenings, overnights & weekends. Vans & motorcycles not allowed, minivans allowed.

...which presumably has parking spaces especially reserved for the lecturesome and hypocritical.

Crypto fascist, heal thyself.