Deep Walkability

World Changing
Alex Steffen // January 10, 2010

Several pieces of Net flotsam today (local columnist Danny Westneat's clueless call for more parking lots around Seattle's new light rail stations; a NYT articleon findings that walkable density appears to increase property values and buffer against real estate crashes), got me pondering again the nature of "walkability."

Walkability is clearly critical to bright green cities. You can't advocate for car-free or car-sharing lives if people need cars to get around, and the enticement to walk is key to making density wonderful, to providing realistic transit options, to making smaller greener homes compelling and to growing the kind of digitally-suffused walksheds that post-ownership ideas seem to demand. So knowing how to define "walkable" is important.

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