[robchalmers]

where is the emoticon for a round of appaulause when you need it! A very well placed and founded counter point there. I too see you're point about attitudes either side of the pond, I've witnessed them first hand too - I just couldn't imagine a main street in the US even the size of Emden in Germany going pedestrian in a similar way, let alone ones equal to Amsterdam, Bath, Nantes. I mean if I went to one of my favourite small towns in the states East Greenwich, RI. and I said everything from the corner of Rocky hollow and main through past grille on main (love that place) to say the corner of Post and Arnold, then take it as wide a Marlborough street one way and liberty the other and say it was a carfree zone (I know thats arbourtory but I'm using the few places I know) I think they'd be up roar!!

As you say maybe its more a question of the way the town/city was build and has matured? like a 4-lane main of a US city verse the one-way streets and 'close' nature of say Paris, Rome or Oxford.(Granted Greenwich in my example is a sleepy little two-laner!)