It’s a famous line from Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi. They paved paradise, put up a parking lot. Behind the title, you’ll find pictures of city streets full of cars and empty of people, stories of murder over parking spaces, and the headaches parking codes create for building lower income housing or repurposing abandoned buildings for inner city housing. I finished Henry Grabar’s book over a year ago and it still haunts me every time I see acres of asphalt surrounding empty malls. I doubt I’d have thought much about it if I hadn’t been captivated by the title.

For most of my adult life, and now, I’ve owned a car – and I’ve lived within walking distance of almost everything I need to live. I’m planning on retiring in such a place as well, making it easier to give up driving when I’m no longer capable of doing it safely. I’ll lose a bit of freedom to remain independent post-driver’s license. I’ll have to plan around train and bus schedules rather than drive whenever it suits me. I’ll need sturdy shoes and outerwear for walking around in inclement weather.

I won’t have as many choices. I’ll have to limit my groceries to what fits in my wheeled cart. I’ll end up waiting at train stations and bus stops, and I’ll have to accept things running behind schedule with as much grace as I can muster. Such a life may not be paradise, but it just might be a dream come true.

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