Most overrated factor of deciding where to live? (real estate, townhouses)
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Right, but I could live in downtown OKC or Wichita and get some walkability right? They're not NYC or even Houston but there are probably some fancy condos or warehouse apartments in almost every downtown.
Yes and no. It would be really difficult to live in either of those cities and try to walk or cycle or take transit to things compared to a city like Philadelphia.
Nobody actually cares about Gucci or whatever it’s a proxy for the kind of neighborhood it is.
Back Bay isn’t nice because it has a Chanel store, it has a Chanel store because it’s a nice neighborhood.
Same thing Whule foods signifies it’s a neighborhood where people are willing to pay $1.57 for a banana.
We all want to live in nice, safe and comfortable neighborhoods with great school districts. Adding Wholefoods, artisanal cafes or luxury shopping sounds more affected than necessary.
“I only eat small batch, non-GMO, gluten-free, fair-trade, all-natural, artisanal, hand-crafted, limited-edition, aristocratically-sourced, Iranian Beluga-imported caviar”.
I know people who brag they drink “gluten-free” “small batch” water.
The worst enemy of walkability is the chain link fence. Every place I've ever lived, a nice ahortcuy is defeated by a fence shutting off a vacant or unused lot. Thankfully, an ad-hoc civic organization with a wire cutter hs restored walkability. It's often a year or so before they need to be vandalized again.
If the fence is so important, why do the owners let years pass before restoring vandalized ones?
A metro NOT having a really bad/scary area/violent crime area.
I like safety as much as the next person, perhaps even moreso. But if you tell people you are moving to the Chicago metro, they are going to bring up getting shot.
Which has little to no effect on those living in Barrington, IL or even Winnetka for that matter.
Don't move to St. Louis/Detroit/New Orleans/Baltimore because of the crime!!!!
in most metros, the crime is isolated to a very fixed area that lacks amenities and is otherwise an area the average person doesn't want to go to anyway. It has little to no bearing on the overall decision to move to that metro
Fair enough. I guess my point is walkable doesn't mean it has to be Boston or SF. I can find walkability in almost any town.
Sure, but there are definitely degrees of walkability and at some point it sort of becomes irrelevant. I think the difference comes down to "possible" vs. "conducive." Pretty much anything is walkable to an extent if you're willing to try hard enough. But relatively few places (though far more than just the major cities) have both a built environment and a culture that's conducive to walking for most trips out of the house.
That's kind of what I was saying in my previous post - living in a place that's truly conducive to walking is transformative in terms of how someone lives their life. So it's hard to overstate how big of a deal that is. But, because the number of places where that's possible (without great effort, anyway) are so few, the bickering about walkability on CD reaches almost comic levels. Like you said, you can find some degree of "walkability" in almost any town. But unless it's at a level where the average person (not a real non-conformist or someone who can't drive for one reason or another) is going to be inclined walk instead of drive for the bulk of their trips out of the home, it doesn't really matter at much. That's the "walkability" chatter I think is overrated.
A metro NOT having a really bad/scary area/violent crime area.
I like safety as much as the next person, perhaps even moreso. But if you tell people you are moving to the Chicago metro, they are going to bring up getting shot.
Which has little to no effect on those living in Barrington, IL or even Winnetka for that matter.
Don't move to St. Louis/Detroit/New Orleans/Baltimore because of the crime!!!!
in most metros, the crime is isolated to a very fixed area that lacks amenities and is otherwise an area the average person doesn't want to go to anyway. It has little to no bearing on the overall decision to move to that metro
When I decided to move to Seattle and SoCal later, I heard "hope you like walking around in feces and hyperdermic needles." Hasn't happened in 5 years.
Skyline
Give me 50 ten story buildings over a few large skyscrapers any day.
. I swear I've seen cities lose out on polls because of skyline. I don't understand the obsession, it's not the 1930s anymore.
I agree. I would much rather have high-quality, historic architecture than a bunch of generic, tall, glass and steel boxes.
For example, Milwaukee is not known for its tall buildings or impressive skyline (even though it has improved greatly in recent years), but the preponderance of preserved historic buildings in the central business district is always a pleasant surprise to visitors.
The worst enemy of walkability is the chain link fence. Every place I've ever lived, a nice ahortcuy is defeated by a fence shutting off a vacant or unused lot. Thankfully, an ad-hoc civic organization with a wire cutter hs restored walkability. It's often a year or so before they need to be vandalized again.
If the fence is so important, why do the owners let years pass before restoring vandalized ones?
When I was a kid I used to think fences were to keep people (mostly teenagers) from coming onto the property and stealing, vandalizing or breaking things.
But I think the main reason is to show an attempt to keep people out (safe) in case someone comes onto the property and gets hurt. In other words, for protection from lawsuits.
I like some walkability, but we exaggerate it on these forums sometimes.
BOUTIQUES
There used to be a guy from Scranton here on CD who used to say that such and such a community has alot of up and coming boutiques (usually he was talking about Scranton of course). But calling stores "boutiques" does not make them any better!
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