For many families, life without a car would be unthinkable. Not so Iris and Björn Kropp who live in Oldenburg, a city in north-western Germany, and who got rid of their car three and a half years ago. At the time their children Martje and Jasper were three and nine years old and many of the family’s friends thought they were crazy to give up their car. “We were told that with two children it was absolutely out of the question,” Iris recalls. Because her husband spends half the year at sea as a captain, Iris is alone with the children a lot. The teacher also commutes about 20 kilometres to work…