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Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

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Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#121

Post by taeric »

epistasis wrote: post #111
taeric wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... talking about the rural areas is enough to destroy the "if you build walkable areas, folks will live there." Right?

Well this is also combined with a shift away from rural areas in terms of job opportunities, as farming has either become hugely automated, or staffed by skilled labor that is severely underpaid. Where there is economic opportunity, density and walk ability are forbidden by law, not by market preferences or by natural choices.

I want to believe this, to a large extent. But it doesn't square with my experiences in small towns.

I fully grant that I'm rather removed from my experiences in said small towns. And I should fully lay the cards on the table that I haven't driven a car for my own commute or basic transportation in almost a decade. I far far prefer biking/walking to work. Even still, we drive the kids to school where we are now. (We walked them back in Seattle.)

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#122

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

taeric wrote: post #107
mulmen wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in the Junction in West Seattle for 7 years. Highly walkable, lots of highrises in the core, but still lots of (very expensive!) single family homes. Now I live on Alki and it is much less walkable. I can get around but have to climb Admiral to get to a grocery store. Several of our bus routes were permanently closed. Queen Anne benefits from being in Seattle and the economic benefits that has to businesses t…

Right. But whenever I hear that "walkable places are expensive", I hear folks talking about places like Seattle. Or downtown Atlanta. What places are we talking about that are a) highly walkable, b) expensive, and c) not at capacity? (This is a genuine question. I fully cede that I could just be completely miscalibrated for this.)

I have sensed an emerging "story" in various media over the last 6-12 months that within the US at least, there are vanishingly few cities or large towns that are (a) highly desirable places to live (b) affordable to median income folks. Or maybe the story is that if this is not true to today, it seems that it will be in 5-10 years.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#123

Post by nomel »

notJim wrote: post #117
nomel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, it does mean that parking will become harder In the city I'm near, using public parking lots means a 20 minute walk to your destination, with a $10 fee from all the time walking (or uber), with private parking costing around $15, and no meters in sight. This creates an isolated area that people never go to for a bite to eat, coffee, window shopping, or anything really, since it's a > $10 fee just to step o…

That sounds strange, it sounds like an area that should’ve been served by foot and public transit traffic.

Yes, there is public transportation, but this is $6 and 20 minutes to the closest light rail stop. I never tried a bus.

My point is that this area is almost only served by foot traffic, but getting your feet on the sidewalk has a pretty significant cost.

I don't think this is odd though, since it's been the experience I've had getting to any downtown area. Visiting downtown San Fransisco costs around $10 to actually get too, after all is said and done, even from within the city, unless you walk/bike/spend 20 minutes.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#124

Post by ummonk »

cbdumas wrote: post #28
version_five wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's hardest to find, and what I prefer, is somewhere it's easy to walk and drive. I've lived in walkable places where if you do have to drive, traffic is a nightmare. And then of course there are places where you can drive without traffic but there is nowhere to walk to. I think I prefer the latter with my lifestyle, though it becomes more frustrating for meeting friends, going our for dinner + drinks, etc. For sp…

I think it's hard to find because those two preferences are in direct, irresolvable conflict.

Except in really small towns.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#125

Post by ericmay »

iammisc wrote: post #6
foxpurple wrote: post #2

I recently moved from a house in the suburbs in Australia to an apartment in the city. Got rid of my car and now I just walk to everything I need. I couldn’t be happier. Driving was such a huge stress on my life that is now gone. I can get anything I need within a 10 minute walk. The thing is it just doesn’t seem like the average person is willing to give up single family houses to gain walkability. For me, I would n…

Or... hear me out. You could just build walkable suburbs. Why there is a distinction between 'suburb' and 'smaller city' is beyond me, but there really is. A small city still has a walkable downtown core with apartments around which there is a small area of single family homes within walking distance to the downtown area. A suburb is just tracts of single family homes and nothing else for miles on end. No real 'busin…

These are called walkable neighborhoods. And when you start building them and connecting them to one another you get…………. Walkable cities!

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#126

Post by micromacrofoot »

standardUser wrote: post #4

Add up the roads, parking spaces, parking garages, gas stations (not to mention auto shops, drive thrus and car washes) and the total urban footprint is a gargantuan 50-60% by many calculations. That's not automatically a bad thing, especially if you are a car, but all of that space creates massive buffers separating all of the other stuff that humans want to walk to. To make it worse, those buffers are far and away…

There's a great illustration by Karl Jilg that has stuck with me along the same lines... calling them buffers is very generous!

https://www.businessinsider.com/car-illustration-karl-jilg-2...

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#127

Post by maxerickson »

version_five wrote: post #13
jackson1442 wrote: post #5

I like my car and I like driving. That said, I don't like driving _everywhere_. When I moved to university, it was incredibly freeing to just be able to walk somewhere I wanted to go rather than getting in my car and driving miles to get anywhere. I grew up in a suburb in Texas so walking anywhere except _maybe_ a friend's house was entirely out of the question. I visited Portland recently and it was lovely to be abl…

What's hardest to find, and what I prefer, is somewhere it's easy to walk and drive. I've lived in walkable places where if you do have to drive, traffic is a nightmare. And then of course there are places where you can drive without traffic but there is nowhere to walk to. I think I prefer the latter with my lifestyle, though it becomes more frustrating for meeting friends, going our for dinner + drinks, etc. For sp…

In the US, most suburban areas have plenty of low traffic streets, and many have additional recreational paths for pedestrians.

When I lived in a quite rural area, it was no problem jogging on the low traffic roads, and if I wanted long runs, I could have gone ~3 miles on those roads to a converted railroad that ran for miles in either direction.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#128

Post by taeric »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #122
taeric wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. But whenever I hear that "walkable places are expensive", I hear folks talking about places like Seattle. Or downtown Atlanta. What places are we talking about that are a) highly walkable, b) expensive, and c) not at capacity? (This is a genuine question. I fully cede that I could just be completely miscalibrated for this.)

I have sensed an emerging "story" in various media over the last 6-12 months that within the US at least, there are vanishingly few cities or large towns that are (a) highly desirable places to live (b) affordable to median income folks. Or maybe the story is that if this is not true to today, it seems that it will be in 5-10 years.

I don't think this is necessarily a new story, all told. I think I remember it back in the 90s.

That said, does seem to be getting more pronounced. Really, just seems that there aren't any new cities. All of the places folks wanted to live, are the same places folks want to live today. :(

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#129

Post by kasey_junk »

throw0101a wrote: post #52
iammisc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or... hear me out. You could just build walkable suburbs. Why there is a distinction between 'suburb' and 'smaller city' is beyond me, but there really is. A small city still has a walkable downtown core with apartments around which there is a small area of single family homes within walking distance to the downtown area. A suburb is just tracts of single family homes and nothing else for miles on end. No real 'busin…

> You could just build walkable suburbs. Why there is a distinction between 'suburb' and 'smaller city' is beyond me, but there really is. The Not Just Bikes channel semi-recently did a video on "streetcar suburbs": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb It's how things used to be built pre-WW2.

I grew up on the south side of Indianapolis perhaps one of the worst walkable places there is. There are major streets there still named for street car service “Stop 11/Stop 12/etc”.

The wild thing is that it was direct public policy that lead to the death of extensive public transit there.

Re: Surveys show Americans want more walkable cities

#130

Post by haolez »

I've been to a few cities in the US (I'm a foreigner), like Denver and Atlanta, and they are very pedestrian hostile. Almost no sidewalks, every street looks like a roadway (large) and every shop seems to belong to these islands where you can park your car and do your stuff. Not saying this is good or bad, but it's very different from every other country that I've came across. An exception in the US would be Las Vegas.
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