The American City: has it finally turned the corner? (apartment, townhouses)

[mead]

Yeah Tempe is nice, they have one of the very few walkable neighborhoods in the Phoenix area there. If I remember correctly it is on Mill street, right next to ASU's campus. Nice area, a little bit hippy-ish for my tastes, but it is a college area I suppose.

Originally Posted by irwin

I have lived in both Boston and Washington DC and I walk to the grocer almost everyday. I walk pretty much everywhere else as well as I no longer own a car.

I also lived in Phoenix for about two years and know that people simply don't walk there. I lived in Tempe (which is considered the "urban" area in the metro) and walked to some places but I was definitely not the norm. People simply didn't even fathom that one would walk somewhere, even if it was only a couple of blocks away. The other problem there is that the streets are massive and people drive like 50 miles an hour on surface streets. Not walkable!

[irwin]

Originally Posted by mead

Yeah Tempe is nice, they have one of the very few walkable neighborhoods in the Phoenix area there. If I remember correctly it is on Mill street, right next to ASU's campus. Nice area, a little bit hippy-ish for my tastes, but it is a college area I suppose.

It's not really walkable except for that one block or two on Mill. I lived in a little neighborhood right across from there and walked to Mill often but I had friends from Arizona that thought I was crazy ("That's a LONG way!"). I walked other places as well but most stuff was in strip malls and I found myself constantly dodging people parking in lots. The one positive was that the city was really good about trying to encourage people to cycle (I cycled a lot as well) but the drivers there are not very "bike friendly." Frankly, I really didn't like living in Tempe/Phoenix which is why I left. Suburban hell as far as I am concerned; you can't really get around without a car.

[mead]

That's exactly the point I am trying to make though. The vast majority of areas in the Sunbelt are unwalkable, contrary to what everyone keeps on saying on here.

Phoenix is probably one of the most extreme examples, but it is the same dynamic all over the Sunbelt (low density, sprawling suburban neighborhoods, little public transportation coverage, 8 lane roads all over the place). That type of design faciliates moving around by car, not by walking. When people do walk in those neighborhoods they are usually doing so for exercise, and not to accomplish anything practical (walk to the corner store, post office, local restaurant, bakery, coffee shop, diner, grocery store, barber, take-out place, etc).

Originally Posted by irwin

It's not really walkable except for that one block or two on Mill. I lived in a little neighborhood right across from there and walked to Mill often but I had friends from Arizona that thought I was crazy ("That's a LONG way!"). I walked other places as well but most stuff was in strip malls and I found myself constantly dodging people parking in lots. The one positive was that the city was really good about trying to encourage people to cycle (I cycled a lot as well) but the drivers there are not very "bike friendly." Frankly, I really didn't like living in Tempe/Phoenix which is why I left. Suburban hell as far as I am concerned; you can't really get around without a car.

[Katiana]

mead: If you read through my posts on this issue, you will see I said repeatedly that MOST PEOPLE live within 2-3 miles of a grocery store, and that I live 1 1/4 miles from one. You are the one who brought up mass transit for grocery stores, not me. Not all of us have time, with all our other responsibilities, to go to the grocery store every day, whether by car or auto.

Please tell me what your experience in the sunbelt is. How many places have you actually been to, or better yet, lived in?

[Greatday]

Originally Posted by mead

Phoenix is probably one of the most extreme examples, but it is the same dynamic all over the Sunbelt (low density, sprawling suburban neighborhoods, little public transportation coverage, 8 lane roads all over the place). That type of design faciliates moving around by car, not by walking. When people do walk in those neighborhoods they are usually doing so for exercise, and not to accomplish anything practical (walk to the corner store, post office, local restaurant, bakery, coffee shop, diner, grocery store, barber, take-out place, etc).

AND, we like it this way

[metro223]

I guess walkable is an opinion really.....

[south-to-west]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

mead: If you read through my posts on this issue, you will see I said repeatedly that MOST PEOPLE live within 2-3 miles of a grocery store, and that I live 1 1/4 miles from one. You are the one who brought up mass transit for grocery stores, not me. Not all of us have time, with all our other responsibilities, to go to the grocery store every day, whether by car or auto.

Please tell me what your experience in the sunbelt is. How many places have you actually been to, or better yet, lived in?

Pittnurse is right, a lot of people in the burbs live within 2 miles of a grocery store--which is what makes the conventional suburban style of development so trifling. The fact that you have to drive short distances nearly all of the time is absolutely wasteful and inefficient. I know that there are suburbs that are walkable, but I think most people here are talking about outer-ring suburbs and conventional cul-du-sac/big box development. Even in some communities with sidewalks, they're rendered useless if you have to cross an 8-lane arterial where cars routinely drive in excess of 55+ mph.

I think that there will always be a market for exurban development, but it won't be nearly as prominent as it has been in the past 60 years due to the fact that people are more and more preferring to live in communities that are more pedestrian-friendly, less segregated in terms of land uses, and have more of a sense of place and identity as well.

[censusdata]

Many cities are now building traditional style neighborhoods in the suburbs. Here are some examples from Louisville


What is old is new again:
Norton Commons - a new suburban development in NE Louisville based on traditional neighborhood styles




http://k.b5z.net/i/u/6037756/i/NCview.jpg (broken link)

[metro223]

Here's the way I see it .... just because a neighborhood is new OR in a suburb doesn't mean anything about suburban sprawl, any city or metro with a growing population MUST have this.. it's not a negative thing, yes a lot of them look the same, but if you go into a historic grid neighborhood with bungalows or whatever, you find just as many houses that look the same. How is building a new neighborhood and adding onto a city any different than the way that the city originated in the first place... and if a neighborhood not being walkable is such a big deal, then might as well start casing on people who live on farms, or build a new home on an acerage in the country, because there aren't sidewalks out there either, and they have to run errands SOMETIME, so not much difference....

[censusdata]

Here is a great link from the Dallas area: Eduardo Penalver: This could mean the end of exurbs | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Opinion: Viewpoints (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-penalver_07edi.ART.State.Edition1.377e254.html - broken link)