In the two decades between 1950 and 1970, Anaheim grew from 14,500 residents to 166,000. More than at any other time in American history, urban planning over those same twenty years was dominated by the automobile. Anaheim’s rapid growth during this car dominated era has lead to a city whose infrastructure has been built around getting people from place to place by car. This monomaniacal focus on the automobile is felt throughout the city even today.
The primary challenge presented to the city because of this rapid growth at the height of the car culture is that Anaheim’s infrastructure is designed around the car. Anaheim is very spread out, without any centers for people to congregate or transit connections between different parts of the city. Many communities have been bisected by freeway construction and continue to be harassed by freeway expansion. There is not a single street or block throughout the city that has not been negatively affected by parking whether it’s a lack of parking caused by over crowding or the creation of sufficient parking that leads to great expanses of asphalt that negatively impacts our community in other ways. Anaheim needs to transition its infrastructure from being car dominated into one that is more walkable, transit oriented and sustainable. While it is easy for some cities to build new infrastructure that’s not completely designed around the car, since they’re not having to change their legacy systems, it will take decades for Anaheim to change and evolve
While these changes will be hard to imagine in a city like Anaheim, we must start our journey down this path if we are to see the city thrive in the decades to come.
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