Walkable Neighborhoods

Welcome back. During the last several sessions, we've explored how to create
a public realm in cities that supports people of all ages and diverse
lifestyles.

Unfortunately there's much less choice in the newer areas of cities in the
US than the older areas built. Before the first half of the twentieth century.
In newer suburbs, you're forced to use your automobile to do almost anything,
to go to the shopping mall, children routinely are bussed to school, and the
elderly must rely on taxis or para transit to get almost anywhere. Owning
an automobile is essential to holding a job. And vehicles of all kind are
critical to delivering things, even the most routine things, in suburban
areas.

Even if you wanted to walk, there often are no sidewalks and there are
dangerous intersections to cross.

This is quite a contrast to the older areas of cities, the older neighborhoods,
where people can walk almost anywhere, they can do their shopping nearby,
where they can send their children to school on a bicycle. And where they
can take public transit to their work. While walkable communities are common
in Europe, and they were once in Asia, it's interesting to me to note that
if you look at the sprawling suburbs of the largest Chinese cities today,
they're equally difficult to walk anywhere. There are almost no sidewalks.

The idea of creating walkable communities is making a comeback. Surveys

suggest that more than half of Americans would like to live in a place where
they could walk to the important places, but they can't find a place that
meets those needs.
The subject has taken on new urgency for other reasons, public health among
them. Studies have shown that people who routinely use their automobile
rather than walking have higher obesity rates and diabetes rates than those
who are more physically active. And with obesity rates of 50% or more among
many population groups, providing people with alternatives to driving is
really an important city-design objective. And we might add, the same
problems are mounting in many rapidly developing countries. So what can a
city do, and what can a city designer do to promote walking and to provide
alternatives to driving everywhere. I begin with the neighborhood where I
live. The upper west side of Manhattan. It's easy to live there without having
a car. Along Broadway, which is the main street of the area, you can find
most everything you need in a typical week. And with transit running below
Broadway in stations never more than a few blocks away, you are 15 minutes
away from the densest commercial districts of New York. The largest shops
are clustered around the main subway stops.

With 45,000 people per square mile, there are plenty of people to support
the shops.

Paralleling Broadway, a block away, is West End Avenue and it's almost solid
row of 15-story apartment buildings. Most of them 75 years old or older.

Every block has at least two main entrances along it with doormen watching
over the street and many of the buildings. Making them safe to walk along
the street throughout the day and evening. Density is clearly a factor. Shops
are also higher density. In this block two large format stores and a bank
occupy just over 100 feet of frontage along Broadway.

And five levels above, at, and below the sidewalk.

In suburban situations, these same number of shops would be spread out over
the length of a, a strip shopping center. This is a neighborhood where most
children walk to school, including my grandchildren who live just a few blocks
from us. Riverside Park is a block from West End Avenue and, Central Park
is just a short three blocks from Broadway.

The upper-west side is a complete and walkable neighborhood where people of

all ages enjoy the streets and go about their daily rounds on foot. The
neighborhood receives a score of a hundred on the walk score index. The walk
score index computes how close the everyday necessities for living are to
any location in the city. It accounts for the location of grocery stores,
schools, parks, restaurants, and retail shops for everyday living.
Neighborhoods are also rated with walk scores, which range from one to 100.
You can look up the score for your home or neighborhood by going to
www.walkscore.com. Some foreign countries have comparable ratings systems.
If yours does not, you can estimate the walk score by using the algorithim
on the walkscore website.

Now not all neighborhoods have the walkability of the upper west side. But
there are many neighborhoods in US cities that have high walk scores. Let's
look at how the scores vary from place to place.

Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood, which overlooks the downtown, has a walk
score of 85. Over 35,000 people live within walking distance of shops, schools
and cultural facilities. Its shopping includes a farmers' market,
supermarkets, convenience stores, services and all the needs of a typical
week. There are dozens of other neighborhoods in American cities with these
characteristics, Elmwood for example in Buffalo is in a, another high walk
score neighborhood with a score of 72. However, the iconic American suburb
is Levittown on Long Island in New York, built in 1950s and 1960s. Because
of the low densities and distance to shopping centers, it's nearly impossible
to walk to any of a person's weekly destinations. The large public schools
make it necessary to bus many of the children to school. Levittown's walk
score is 49. More recent suburbs fare even worse.

An example is Flower Mound, Texas, outside Dallas. The sprawling low-density

pattern with large schools and shopping centers makes it impossible to get
anywhere except by car. Its walk score is 20.

Its houses have been designed as islands reached only by car.

Street patterns matter almost as much as density in promoting walkability.

Most people will walk ten minutes to a desired destination. A typical grid
pattern of older American cities makes it easier to walk in all directions
to reach shops or institutions. But the same ten-minute walk will get you
to far fewer places if the streets are winding and circuitous.

And in many neighborhoods sidewalks are narrow, poorly maintained, exposed

to the hot sun and face uninteresting properties. But it is possible to
imagine that same street as a different experience. Houses that are set back
shorter distances reach out to the streets. Street trees that provide shading.
Roadways that are narrower to reduce speeds of cars, and are safe for young
people to cross. Streets where bicycling is encouraged.

In other countries, there are other impediments to those on foot. Here in

Bogota, property owners have grabbed control of the sidewalks.

In Bangkok, as in many other cities, the sidewalks are broken and have become
parking lots.
In Beijing, pedestrians will usually lose out to bicycle parking in the
competition for the use of sidewalks.

But where the city government takes a stand in organizing sidewalks and
adjoining property owners cooperate, walking can, can again become an option.

So density, modest setbacks, shade, and sidewalks in good repair, all

contribute to walkability. But the most important determinant is having a
walkable commercial center within easy range of the home. Chestnut Hill in
Philadelphia is one of the most walkable suburban neighborhoods in the
country.

Its shopping area, along Germantown Avenue, succeeds because it has a rich
variety of shops, mostly locally-oriented. There's a modest amount of parking
on the street, and more behind the shops. And it has two transit stations
for trains to Philadelphia along the street. The Wicker Park/Bucktown area
is one of Chicago's hottest neighborhoods, and its walk score is 88, thanks
to the wonderfully varied commercial area along Milwaukee Avenue. Its home
grown shops offer restaurants, shops, services, even dancing classes.

However, the old commercial frontages are difficult to adapt to modern, large
format stores. And a single neighborhood may not have enough people to support
a large modern supermarket or drugstore.

The solution is to redevelop a large vacant area at the end of the street
for a modern shopping center. It provides the best of all worlds: a large
walk-through grocery store and a drive-to center for people beyond the
immediate area. Joining walkable and drivable centers has been the theme of
developing the new downtown in Kentlands, in suburban Washington, DC. Three
centers have been joined to become the downtown of the Kentlands community.
Closest to the residential area, a traditional downtown street, with
apartments over shops. Provides the everyday service needs of the community.

Next to it. A business, restaurant, boutique, an entertainment area, market

square, serves both the community and those who commute there for work. It
also has a farmers' market. And next to it, on the edge of the Kentlands
community, there's a large format shopping center that serves both those who
walk to it and those who drive. It is organized so that over time the parking
lots could be replaced by parking garages and more intense development.
Collectively, these street centers makes Kentlands a self-contained
community. Its walk score is 82. Unfortunately, so many suburban areas do
not look like Kentlands and are not walkable. As traditional shopping centers
become obsolete, it may be possible to retrofit these ares to become walkable
centers. Let's see how. First, by organizing this, arterial streets as more
pedestrian friendly boulevards.

Then, by adding new infield development at fronts on them.

Then higher density development people living above the shops. And as the
streets become more bicycle and pedestrian friendly, the number of people
that find their way there will grow. And the center will prosper. Developers
and merchants have been discovering that walkable commercial areas also make
good economic sense.

Studies in the Washington, D.C. area by Chris Leinberger have show that
comparable properties and walkable areas sell or rent for considerably more
than those that are, in areas that rely only on auto, automobile access.
There's a huge job to retrofit today's suburbs to become more walkable. But
with changing generations. May be essential for their survival. At the very
least, we can ensure that all new development offers people a choice of
walking, cycling, sharing vehicles, using transit, as well as using their
private automobile. We'll return to these questions in week nine, when we
take a look at visionary cities, or radical proposals about how to restructure
the city.

But before then, next week, we will consider what city design can do to improve
the living conditions of the most disadvantaged people in our cities. Both
in the developed world and in the less developed world. We hope you'll join
us.