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I've lived in a couple very walkable towns in two different countries - both places experience some extreme weather (earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards). In both places, *all* the towns people live in high story apartments (5-12 stories in one town, 17 stories in the other). The cars are parked in underground garages. The stores conveniently located in the center, sometimes the stores are multi-storied too. I've also seen underground stores that are basically under the roads, doubling as convenient ways to cross the road. The towns were surrounded by wild nature, within immediate walking distance - a wild forrest with brooks and hills in one case, hills and rivers in the other case. Obviously these people could've went the sprawl way and mowed everything down to give everyone a single family home, but they chose condos and density while preserving nature and walkability. People still own cars, if you work out of town, or want to go on a weekend trip. This sort of thing requires city planning. From what I've seen in CA and PA, there is no city planning. Developers come in and randomly build some random building... it's chaos.
My house has a 45 walk score. Not too bad for suburbia. When I was a kid, it would have been far higher but the harbor village real estate prices and the big box stores and malls killed off all the small businesses. Realtor offices and galleries replaced the little market, the butcher, the fish market, the liquor store, the hardware store, the barber shop, the dry cleaner, the pharmacy, ....
Public transportation dropped off, too. The nearest bus stop is 1/2 mile instead of a 1 block walk.
I think that the harsh reality of income stratification in the United States has to change housing density. We're going to have a much bigger slice of the population that can't afford suburban homes. As you increase the density, walkable retail becomes more viable.
I'm not so sure about public transportation. I think self-driving cars using a ZipCar/Uber kind of model will be much more economical for many lower income people than owning an automobile outright. Nobody is going to use public transportation if you can launch a smartphone application and have a car waiting for you in seconds to bring you to your destination. There will be demand-based pricing. It will be cheap to get a ride somewhere off-hours when there is low demand for the cars so people with infinite time but limited money like retirees can pick the cheapest times to run errands.
I've lived in a couple very walkable towns in two different countries - both places experience some extreme weather (earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards). In both places, *all* the towns people live in high story apartments (5-12 stories in one town, 17 stories in the other). The cars are parked in underground garages. The stores conveniently located in the center, sometimes the stores are multi-storied too. I've also seen underground stores that are basically under the roads, doubling as convenient ways to cross the road. The towns were surrounded by wild nature, within immediate walking distance - a wild forrest with brooks and hills in one case, hills and rivers in the other case. Obviously these people could've went the sprawl way and mowed everything down to give everyone a single family home, but they chose condos and density while preserving nature and walkability. People still own cars, if you work out of town, or want to go on a weekend trip. This sort of thing requires city planning. From what I've seen in CA and PA, there is no city planning. Developers come in and randomly build some random building... it's chaos.
Your post made me think of my younger days in Arlington, VA. My family lived in a very dense area called Crystal City near Nat'l Airport in a high rise. Below was an underground mall connecting the various buildings and also to the metro. I remember my g-mother going to the drug store with her pull cart and also going to the Hot Shoppe (unassuming precursor to Starbucks) via a network of hallways with areas of natural light. You could also not partake of any of the stores, but use the underground as a street-free temperature-controlled pedestrian shortcut from one part of the dense city to another. Like many of the planning ideas from 1960s/70s DC area it was ahead of its time. Wish there were more places like that.
Yes to Buffalo, I used to live in a somewhat walkable college town without a car in a place with similar weather, was happy walking around.
Montreal is similar temperature-wise to Minneapolis but it's one of the more pedestrian-oriented cities in North America
Minneapolis has those enclosed walkways. My daughter works at the U of MN; she says sometimes they are told not to go outside, but to use the walkways instead, when it gets extremely cold. But, they don't go everywhere. At some point, you have to go outside if you are walking home for example.
I just put in my childhood homes into walkscore:
Home 1: 28 (49 transit score, 55 bike score)
Home 2: 16. No transit. And biking? Well that would mean biking on a 2 lane highway, speed limit 45 on the 1 ft shoulder or in the ditch.
Current neighborhood: 84 walkscore, 54 transit score, 82 bike score.
Realistic? I don't know. Most folks just don't consider walk ability as something that is particularly important to them in the big picture. Different strokes for different folks but it is absolutely paramount to me.
Walking is probably the most important thing that I do that keeps me sane, centered and happy. I can't walk to work, (I used to, or take the bus- joy...!) but I can keep my car parked at home otherwise and walk to just about anywhere in the city- whether just up the street to shop, dine or hang out in one of many great pubs or head all the way to downtown and the bay in about 1/2 hour or so- catch the bus 3 mins away if I feel like it (or Uber in the same) and have all the ammenities of a big city therein. I could never, while I'm able, live in an area that did not have a a similar level of walk ability now that I have experienced it. Even though I drive the six miles to work I manage to crank out 1.25 miles during each of my two fifteen minute breaks and then another 2.5 miles climbing a steep hill above a park for 1/2 hour during my lunch break.
You do have to make choices though, this area, precisely because of its central yet somewhat hidden and streetcar suburb vibe is highly desirable and expensive, so, you have to give up that big house, lot and garage, and still pay through the nose to live here. But for us it's all worth it. It would drive me absolutely insane to live in the suburbs and be tethered to my car for every single experience or need outside my house.
There are not that many cities or neighborhoods within them in this country that have that level of walk ability and I can understand that sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it or viable for many, but if you stumble into a city or area big or small that has a certain level of walk ability, for those that place a high level of importance to that, it makes all the difference.
New developments are springing up with ground floor space for retail, restaurants, and entertainment and upper floors devoted to residential and office space.
Not to mention every other developed and near-developed country on the planet is already more walkable than the U.S. on average (even Canada, Australia, and New Zealand)...
Part of the reason I love Europe so much and would move there in a heartbeat.. Most cities seem infinitely walkable..would love a nice flat in a mid to larger city where I could walk out and find essentials and things to do withing a few blocks.. My Dream!
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