Amateur urban planners use DALL-E to re-imagine cities without cars

Images of busy traffic intersections, often taken from GPS apps like Google Earth’s street view, are fed through the DALL-E 2 and accompanied by a bunch of text prompts.

The results, show teaming urban areas and roadways purged of traffic and replaced by serene walkways and grassy plains. Best of all, they’re realistic prospects from an urban planning perspective too.

Below are two alternate versions of Canal Street in New York that closely mimic the original, but with stretching bicycle lanes, plants, and paths for people to enjoy at a leisurely pace… without the revving and pungent smell of petrol engines.

Canal St (Manhattan, NYC) pic.twitter.com/JvQjblGffY

— Will Davis – 🏗️/acc (@wlldvs) July 25, 2022

‘I’m still figuring it out,’ said Katz, who now lives in New York after six months in Amsterdam.

‘It definitely does take a good amount of work to get a good picture. Part of it is just getting DALL-E to make something that isn’t totally fucked up. Sometimes it will just make a deep canyon in the middle of the street thinking it’s a water fountain.’

Nevertheless, when DALL-E gets it right, the results are pretty special. Even Brooklyn’s Queen’s Expressway has received the green treatment and shows a spot people would genuinely enjoy to visit. Katz is fielding requests on Twitter now, if you’ve got any burning ideas.

One recent content submitter, Nicole Aptekar, has attended Department of Transportation community meetings, and states that these re-imaginings are ‘powerful’ tools to bring to the table.

‘If you’re following the account, shove this in your mayor’s face. They need to see this,’ said Katz. ‘I’d like to let the images speak for themselves.’