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A large college campus is 50-75k people. This is evidence that our towns can be human scale. A city is 10x to 100x that. I don’t think you can scale up the time

A large college campus is 50-75k people. This is evidence that our towns can be human scale. A city is 10x to 100x that. I don’t think you can scale up the time that students spend walking by 10-100x and still be okay. You’re going to need some kind of wheeled transportation, and the layout might have to accommodate it in a way that a college campus with purely walkable trips doesn’t.

SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
The difference I think is that students frequently have to move between buildings while people outside of education typically visit 2 - 3 buildings (including home) in a day. With remote work you could just make sure you are with in close walking distance of the supermarket / retail as well as a public transport stop that gets you to all the places you visit occasionally (the beach, etc)
ryukafalz 6y ago
Let me give you an example from my own experience. I live in Philadelphia, a fairly large city that's still extremely walkable in certain parts. Before I moved recently, I was paying around $900/month for a studio apartment in the city center. From there, it was a short walk to any number of nearby restaurants (including a corner store on my block), a <5 minute walk to the nearby commuter rail station, a <10 minute walk to the nearby city subway station, a <15 minute walk to a major regional hospital, and about a 30 minute walk to my office (this was generally the longest trip I'd have to make with any frequency, and honestly a walking commute was pretty nice). I did keep my car around largely because I have friends and family outside the city, but if it weren't for that it would largely not be necessary. Within the city, the subway system gets you pretty far outside of the immediate walkable area near my old apartment; my only complaint is that there are parts of the city that aren't as well-connected by public transit. Philadelphia is an extremely human-centric city, which makes sense as it was established well before cars were invented.

SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago

The difference I think is that students frequently have to move between buildings while people outside of education typically visit 2 - 3 buildings (including home) in a day. With remote work you could just make sure you are with in close walking distance of the supermarket / retail as well as a public transport stop that gets you to all the places you visit occasionally (the beach, etc)

ryukafalz 6y ago

Let me give you an example from my own experience. I live in Philadelphia, a fairly large city that's still extremely walkable in certain parts. Before I moved recently, I was paying around $900/month for a studio apartment in the city center. From there, it was a short walk to any number of nearby restaurants (including a corner store on my block), a <5 minute walk to the nearby commuter rail station, a <10 minute walk to the nearby city subway station, a <15 minute walk to a major regional hospital, and about a 30 minute walk to my office (this was generally the longest trip I'd have to make with any frequency, and honestly a walking commute was pretty nice). I did keep my car around largely because I have friends and family outside the city, but if it weren't for that it would largely not be necessary. Within the city, the subway system gets you pretty far outside of the immediate walkable area near my old apartment; my only complaint is that there are parts of the city that aren't as well-connected by public transit. Philadelphia is an extremely human-centric city, which makes sense as it was established well before cars were invented.