Walkability

A walkable neighborhood has most of what people need within walking distance from home.

Walkability is a continuum. It's unlikely for a neighborhood to have everything for everyone, but the more it has, the less people have to drive or use public transit.

Things worth having within walking distance

• Groceries and other stores
• Schools
• Parks
• Recreation centers
• Places where people work, in general
• Outdoor public spaces for events & festivals

Got something to be add to this list? Join the discussion.

The goal is to have a neighborhood that people can actually enjoy spending time in, and not just at home.

Motivations for walkability

• Transportation is a major contributor to climate change.
• Electric vehicles may not be a viable solution soon enough.
• In many parts of the world, neighborhoods are designed in a way that forces us to drive a lot.

Tradeoffs of new construction

Although walkability could save energy by decreasing reliance on transportation, this has to be weighed against the energy footprint of constructing brand new buildings to make walkable areas.

A much better solution is to repurpose existing space as much as possible.

Repurposing existing space

Suburbs

The majority of people in USA & Canada live in suburbs that are very not walkable. This was originally by design, due to automobile companies lobbying for specific policy decisions made back in the 1950s. Many of the policies are unfortunately still in place, as zoning laws.

Although it's hard to have true walkability if a suburb's density is low, there are still improvements to be made:

• Commercial space
  • Repeal some zoning laws: Allow homeowners to run small businesses from their homes. Most homeowners wouldn't, but there'd be a few enterprising folks who might turn part of their house into a small grocery store, or coffee shop, or yoga studio, or whatever else you'd typically see in less-suburban areas.
    • In some cases, someone might buy a house specifically to repurpose it into a small business. This could be good in moderation but would be a problem if too many investors did it (a big concern for the first neighborhoods to try such a policy). So there would need to be policies limiting this. Also, any decrease in housing should be offset in other ways.
  • Office space
    • People are increasingly working from home.
• Public events
  • Use part of a park (suburbs usually have a lot of them) as a "public square"
• Housing density
  • Subdividing some houses into duplexes. Good for walkability - and even more importantly, helps alleviate the housing shortage. Note: This doesn't mean subdividing all houses, just some percentage of vacant ones.