Smaller regions count also. Back in the 1950s and 60s, many American cities experimented with carfree streets in their central business districts. I remember several in Michigan, such as Jackson and Kalamazoo. Lansing had about 4 blocks of Washington Ave. nicely landscaped and carfree. They nibbled away at it over a couple decades, and the last little bit was recently opened to cars.

They put in these carfree areas because they thought it would help the downtown businessed compete with shopping centers and malls then being built in the suburbs. Why did they remove the carfree "squares" and "plazas"? I think because the store owners were still losing business to the outlying malls, and they thought free parking close to the stores would help. what a waste....