Cities: February 2019 Archives
Why Walkable Streets are More Economically Productive -- Strong Towns
"Visit the most thriving commercial district in any city -- the one full of shops and restaurants and people -- and I would bet that it's an area where walking is prioritized.
"A walkable street ensures that people can safely cross from a clothing store to a coffee shop and spend money at both. It means that people who live in the neighborhood can grab groceries and other necessities easily, so they'll probably visit nearby establishments more often. Perhaps most importantly, a walkable street is one in which many businesses occupy the bulk of the land, meaning that dozens of destinations can be accessed in a matter of minutes on foot, and that every inch of land is put to economically productive use -- not squandered in empty parking lots or unnecessary landscaping."
Kevin T. Baker writes:
"In 1984, the developer Will Wright had just finished work on his first video game, a shoot-em-up called Raid on Bungeling Bay. In it, the player controls a helicopter dropping bombs on enemy targets on a series of islands. Wright was happy with the game, which was a commercial and critical success, but even after it was released, he continued tinkering with the terrain editor he had used to design Raid's levels. 'I found out,' Wright later told the Onion AV Club, 'that I was having a lot more fun doing that part than just playing the game and going around bombing stuff.' Enthralled by the islands he was making, Wright kept adding features to his level editor, adding complex elements like cars, people, and houses. He became fascinated with the idea of making these islands behave more like cities, and kept tinkering with ways to make the world 'come alive and be more dynamic.'
"Looking to understand how real cities worked, Wright came across a 1969 book by Jay Forrester called Urban Dynamics. Forrester was an electrical engineer who had launched a second career as an expert on computer simulation; Urban Dynamics deployed his simulation methodology to offer a controversial theory of how cities grew and declined. Wright used Forrester's theories to transform the cities he was designing in his level editor from static maps of buildings and roads into vibrant models of a growing metropolis. Eventually, Wright became convinced that his 'guinea-pig city' was an entertaining, open-ended video game. Released in 1989, the game became wildly popular, selling millions of copies, winning dozens of awards, and spawning an entire franchise of successors and dozens of imitators. It was called SimCity."
The latter half of the article is criticism of Forrester's model of urban development, which, writer Kevin Baker complains, encourages a more hands-off, non-interventionist approach to nurturing cities. The writer is offended by the idea that well-intentioned interventions can have the opposite of the desired effect, but anyone who compares the neighborhood-killing results of Great Society-era urban planning to the dynamism generated by neighborhoods created in a more laissez faire time will see that Forrester was closer to the truth. Mr. Baker prefers intuition leading to massive government subsidies and interventions.
"Studies show profound latent demand in America for walkable urban neighborhoods (again, allowing some local businesses is an essential part of walkability). One of the most compelling examples is a 2005 study by Jonathan Levine which found that in cities such as Atlanta with a stark shortage of mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods, up to half of the people who expressed a strong preference for such a neighborhood were nonetheless not living in one. Most likely they were unable to find a home in such a place within their price range--the 'shortage of cities' drives up the price of housing in walkable areas (Redfin found that one point of Walk Score was worth about $3,000 in home value)...."
"Legalizing live-work arrangements is a good low-risk experiment. Certain types of home-based businesses--a photographer's studio, a hair salon, a coffee shop--can blend in very easily in a residential area and begin to set a precedent that mixed use can be unobtrusive and pleasant....
"Furthermore, from the city's perspective, live-work can mollify critics of the proposal who worry about disruptive impacts on neighbors, for three key reasons: The business owners, in this case, are also residents and therefore have skin in the game when it comes to not creating negative impacts (noise, congestion, litter, crime) on the surrounding neighborhood. Businesses will inherently be confined to those that can operate on a residential property. No big stores. The city can choose a trial neighborhood or two: maybe there's a historic one that already has some mixed use 'grandfathered in' where it's technically illegal now."
