“The majority of Americans want to live in car-free neighborhoods,” said Ryan Johnson, co-founder and chief executive officer of Culdesac. “We just haven’t been building them since the advent of the car. The areas that are walkable have just gotten more expensive, which has made the demand higher.”

A 17-acre, $170 million project that’s been an urbanist obsession since it was announced in late 2019, Culdesac is being watched closely as a test case for a new kind of car-free development.