"Walkable" means...

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by JacksonPanther

I used to live in Oak Park, IL which was a quintessential walkable suburb. The main drag ran directly across the center of town, and included two grocery stores, bookstore, coffee shops, clothing stores, stationery store, movie theater, banks, restaurants, farmers market. Everything you could want. Of course, you had to live within a half mile or less of that street to truly be walkable.

Guess where the bulk of the largest, most desirable, and most expensive homes were?

If you lived anywhere else in that town, you had to drive to get to the "walkable core." Problem is, if you're 2 miles from the walkable core, often you decide to just drive to the mall instead of fighting for parking in the core. And eventually you look at your mortgage and say "even though I'm 2 miles away, I'm still paying a premium to live in this walkable city but I cannot walk to anything."

I can't point to any other suburb that has that level of walkability. Other well known suburbs in illinois feel into one of three classes, and I imagine it's the same for most "walkable" Philly burbs:
1. Almost no housing in walking distance to the walkable core (Naperville)
2. A walkable core that is now dead, with few or no shops (Riverside)
3. A town so large that there was no single walkable core (Evanston)

And that’s true in Philadelphia’s most walkable suburbs to a point, but you can still find plenty of homes that are spacious, desirable, and pricey close to the core areas. It’s all a matter of personal preference, but I’ll gladly take the 2,000 square foot Victorian by Haverford Avenue in Narberth over the sprawling estate off Spring Mill Road in Villanova. And the former will still set you back a pretty penny.

[NewtownBucks]

Originally Posted by JacksonPanther

I used to live in Oak Park, IL which was a quintessential walkable suburb. The main drag ran directly across the center of town, and included two grocery stores, bookstore, coffee shops, clothing stores, stationery store, movie theater, banks, restaurants, farmers market. Everything you could want. Of course, you had to live within a half mile or less of that street to truly be walkable.

Guess where the bulk of the largest, most desirable, and most expensive homes were?

If you lived anywhere else in that town, you had to drive to get to the "walkable core." Problem is, if you're 2 miles from the walkable core, often you decide to just drive to the mall instead of fighting for parking in the core. And eventually you look at your mortgage and say "even though I'm 2 miles away, I'm still paying a premium to live in this walkable city but I cannot walk to anything."

I can't point to any other suburb that has that level of walkability. Other well known suburbs in illinois feel into one of three classes, and I imagine it's the same for most "walkable" Philly burbs:
1. Almost no housing in walking distance to the walkable core (Naperville)
2. A walkable core that is now dead, with few or no shops (Riverside)
3. A town so large that there was no single walkable core (Evanston)

Au contraire. I used to live 2 blocks from the Harlem & Lake L stop where Lake St, Oak Park was well within walking distance and Whole Foods and Jewel were both within 2 blocks. BUT, I lived on the Forest Park side of Harlem (one block west of Harlem), so I had a house that was both affordable AND walkable to downtown Oak Park. Of course, that was because of Proviso school district vs OPRF, but I didn't have kids at the time, so who cares?

[JacksonPanther]

Originally Posted by NewtownBucks

Au contraire. I used to live 2 blocks from the Harlem & Lake L stop where Lake St, Oak Park was well within walking distance and Whole Foods and Jewel were both within 2 blocks. BUT, I lived on the Forest Park side of Harlem (one block west of Harlem), so I had a house that was both affordable AND walkable to downtown Oak Park. Of course, that was because of Proviso school district vs OPRF, but I didn't have kids at the time, so who cares?

Congrats?

[NewtownBucks]

Originally Posted by JacksonPanther

Congrats?

Thanks?

[smt1111]

I agree about the OP's concept of walkable. I'm within a short walking distance of a small town that has a post office, office products store, drugstore (not one like CVS or Walgreens though), produce market, paint store, hardware store, a ton of salons (too many), a McDonald's, several pizza restaurants, a couple of diners, 2 bakeries, dry cleaners, and a library. I use the post office but rarely (mostly never) go to the other places. What I really would like to have within walking distance is a grocery store (not a Wawa) and some kind of a dollar store or general store that has things like thread, pens, socks, small toys and gifts, flip flops, etc. These used to be the old 5&10 stores.

I can understand why people drive to a shopping center and hit the big stores. Everything is convenient. Walking into a town to search for a small gift for someone is time consuming when it's easier to run to the local Hallmark store and then run into the grocery store next door for milk.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by smt1111

I agree about the OP's concept of walkable. I'm within a short walking distance of a small town that has a post office, office products store, drugstore (not one like CVS or Walgreens though), produce market, paint store, hardware store, a ton of salons (too many), a McDonald's, several pizza restaurants, a couple of diners, 2 bakeries, dry cleaners, and a library. I use the post office but rarely (mostly never) go to the other places. What I really would like to have within walking distance is a grocery store (not a Wawa) and some kind of a dollar store or general store that has things like thread, pens, socks, small toys and gifts, flip flops, etc. These used to be the old 5&10 stores.

I can understand why people drive to a shopping center and hit the big stores. Everything is convenient. Walking into a town to search for a small gift for someone is time consuming when it's easier to run to the local Hallmark store and then run into the grocery store next door for milk.

I think some of it also comes down to how you’re used to running errands. When I lived in University City, I certainly could have done all my day-to-day shopping using public transit or even on-foot, but most of the time I would drive to Cherry Hill, where it was easy to hit up Wegmans, and Target, and the Mall, in one trip. Of course, living in the suburbs, we would drive to run errands growing up. But even though my grandparents were very much City people, and lived in Center City for over 40 years, they also did most of their shopping by driving to the outskirts of the City or the nearer suburbs.

[jarodgrainger83]

Would I say I live in a walkable area? Absolutely. This ain't LA. It will benefit your mental health as well as keep you trim.





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