Can Car-free Living Make You Happier?

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2024-09-25 00:00:06

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As he slathered SPF 30 onto his left calf, Ryan Johnson looked back at me and issued a warning: expect honking. I hadn’t been astride a bike in six years, but here I was on a brutally hot late-October afternoon in Arizona, an e-bike beside me, preparing for a ride. Our destination was a cycling path along the Salt River, which bisects Tempe, a city of 189,000 people about ten miles (or 60 minutes by bike) east of Phoenix. Tempe is home to Arizona State University, and it’s also the place where Johnson is currently running a grand residential experiment.

Johnson is the cofounder of Culdesac, a real estate development firm that wants to flip the script on urban living. In May 2023, he became one of the first tenants of Culdesac Tempe, a new complex taking shape on an otherwise inconspicuous tract of dirt. More than 225 people have since moved into apartments located inside a tight grouping of white stucco buildings that might be described as Santorini lite, with trendy balconies, spacious courtyards, and inviting patios shaded by trees.