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Or... hear me out. You could just build walkable suburbs. Why there is a distinction between 'suburb' and 'smaller city' is beyond me, but there really is. A s

Or... hear me out. You could just build walkable suburbs. Why there is a distinction between 'suburb' and 'smaller city' is beyond me, but there really is. A small city still has a walkable downtown core with apartments around which there is a small area of single family homes within walking distance to the downtown area. A suburb is just tracts of single family homes and nothing else for miles on end. No real 'business area', certainly no walkable one. We could just talk a normal suburb, rezone some homes to business districts and take cars off that street. Voila. Now you have a mini downtown near a bunch of single family homes. Oh yeah, and you have a nice business district that's cheaper than the real downtown that is a good launching place for local businesses. win win win. Now do that everywhere, and then connect the little townie areas via rapid transit and you have something lovely.

foxpurple 5y ago
You can kind of have it if you mean walkable to just the general store, a cafe and a few other things but you can never have everything because many kinds of stores can only exist with a certain population close enough. What I love about living in the city is literally _everything_ I need is within walking distance. I have not used a car or any form of public transport in months and have felt no need to, I can buy anything within walking distance and all offices for any job I would take in this state are within walking distance. You just can’t have that with houses because each house takes up a significant space which you have to walk past to get anywhere.
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  Even with single-family housing, the density is high enough to support a supermarket and other stores that are visited at a rate of once per month within walking distance, easily. Source: the town I grew up in: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.2413047,6.9602975/51.248182,6.9768629/@51.2462608,6.9656488,2688m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!4m1!3e2 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.2413047,6.9602975/51.2481... Population is 36,000 or so. I've added the walking distance from the outskirts to the very center, which is 2.3km. You'll note that there are supermarkets distributed throughout, usually within a few hundred meters. If you need anything special, it takes 30 minutes by public transport (https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.2413047,6.9602975/K%C3%B6nigsallee,+D%C3%BCsseldorf/@51.2345467,6.8034804,21513m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x47b8ca3d06b68227:0x81883aefd77f96ec!2m2!1d6.779266!2d51.2220574!2m3!6e0!7e2!8j1628322060!3e3!5i2 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.2413047,6.9602975/K%C3%B6... ) to a shopping district in the next larger town, which has any type or brand of retail that exists in this country (Streetview: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2254878,6.7800095,3a,75y,64.26h,101.02t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgCUtbmOSmEj7fzVV20t-yA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2254878,6.7800095,3a,75y,64....)
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  I guess it depends on which suburb. Some suburbs in Sydney are fairly liveable. Especially where there is a mix of housing, or, as much as I hate them, large apartment complexes. You can get all the things you need and have a few restaurants, all within walking distance. Other suburbs, especially those huge “communities” with lots of cookie cutter homes seem really isolated. You have to drive.
- iammisc 5y ago
  I just disagree. I live in the very environment you claim doesn't exist
  - mrgordon 5y ago
    Where is that? You may have a different idea of walkable than the other poster. As soon as you have tons of parking spaces, mandatory setbacks, etc. you’ve taken much of the room away from pedestrians forcing them to walk much longer distances (often in bad weather) to get to where they want to go. That’s why the two are at such odds.
    - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
      Then don't do that. You only need tons of parking and mandatory setbacks if you've designed the area for lots of cars going too fast. If you just don't, then suddenly a lot more ends up being in walking distance, and you don't need as much parking because more people are walking or biking.
      - mrgordon 5y ago
        Well of course this is what I prefer. But the other poster was saying they didn’t see why cities can’t be designed for cars AND for pedestrians. My point is that the policies put in place in almost all American cities for cars (mandatory parking requirements in new buildings, lots of street parking or parking lots, mandatory setbacks from the street for buildings, highway entrances, etc.) work directly against making a city dense enough to be able to easily walk to enough things that you don’t end up resorting to cars.
    - iammisc 5y ago
      I live in Portland city limits but not downtown. Where I live was built as a suburb but the city grew into it. Actually Portland has a lot of these downtowney areas and they're surrounded by blocks and blocks of single family homes and small apartments But if you go farther out into newer developments, they just abandoned this lovely system and made awful cookie cutter burbs. Before this I lived in San Rafael and larkspur in Marin county which also have nice downtowney areas surrounded by single family homes. Old Marin county had just this pattern of walkable enough neighborhoods with tiny downtowns. I don't see why this sort of thing isn't possible. When I lived there I walked everywhere
linguae 5y ago
Exactly. I lived in Kawasaki, Japan, which is a large suburb of both Tokyo and Yokohama. Much of Kawasaki is walkable and has amenities such as restaurants, grocery stores, and shopping centers within no more than a 15-minute walk from most residences. Kawasaki is also served by many commuter train lines; once again, the majority of residents live within 15-minute walking distance from a train station, and there are local buses that serve those who live too far to easily walk to a train station (and even in these places a train station is generally 30 minutes away walking distance). Suburbs don't have to be car-dependent; most of Tokyo's suburbs are transit-oriented (some of them were actually planned by railroad companies) and are generally walkable.
- ulfw 5y ago
  Kawasaki has a population of 1.5 Million people. Hardly just a "suburb"
throw0101a 5y ago
> You could just build walkable suburbs. Why there is a distinction between 'suburb' and 'smaller city' is beyond me, but there really is. The Not Just Bikes channel semi-recently did a video on "streetcar suburbs": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb It's how things used to be built pre-WW2.
- kasey_junk 5y ago
  I grew up on the south side of Indianapolis perhaps one of the worst walkable places there is. There are major streets there still named for street car service “Stop 11/Stop 12/etc”. The wild thing is that it was direct public policy that lead to the death of extensive public transit there.
  - alanbernstein 5y ago
    Not just public policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp....
xputer 5y ago
Amen to that. Actually getting it done is a big hairy problem I'm afraid though :(
bcrosby95 5y ago
Our suburb has some medical and dental offices in the center of it. Yay, something I do a couple times a year is within walking distance. Talk about useless. Groceries are about 2 miles away. Which would be bikable if the infrastructure was there. In my experience it would be easier to reach bikability than walkability. Most suburbs are already somewhat bikable aside from the infrastructure.
ericmay 5y ago
These are called walkable neighborhoods. And when you start building them and connecting them to one another you get…………. Walkable cities!
granshaw 5y ago
This exists in some areas for example the closer Chicago “suburbs” like Lakeview There the lot sizes aren’t big so there’s density, but at the same time no high rises so it still feels pleasant. And every few blocks is zoned commercial
bnralt 5y ago
That seems to be the direction things are moving in. There was a move a few decades back away from malls and towards "town centers," which were basically a mix between a mall and a downtown area - a few blocks of pedestrian friendly streets filled with shops, surrounded by a ton of parking buildings. The current trend (from what I've seen) seems to be to try to integrate nearby single-family homes into the development, as well as increasing the density a bit. Now they're starting to feel like small downtown areas in the middle of the suburbs.

foxpurple 5y ago

You can kind of have it if you mean walkable to just the general store, a cafe and a few other things but you can never have everything because many kinds of stores can only exist with a certain population close enough. What I love about living in the city is literally _everything_ I need is within walking distance. I have not used a car or any form of public transport in months and have felt no need to, I can buy anything within walking distance and all offices for any job I would take in this state are within walking distance. You just can’t have that with houses because each house takes up a significant space which you have to walk past to get anywhere.

KarlKemp 5y ago
Even with single-family housing, the density is high enough to support a supermarket and other stores that are visited at a rate of once per month within walking distance, easily. Source: the town I grew up in: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.2413047,6.9602975/51.248182,6.9768629/@51.2462608,6.9656488,2688m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!4m1!3e2 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.2413047,6.9602975/51.2481... Population is 36,000 or so. I've added the walking distance from the outskirts to the very center, which is 2.3km. You'll note that there are supermarkets distributed throughout, usually within a few hundred meters. If you need anything special, it takes 30 minutes by public transport (https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.2413047,6.9602975/K%C3%B6nigsallee,+D%C3%BCsseldorf/@51.2345467,6.8034804,21513m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x47b8ca3d06b68227:0x81883aefd77f96ec!2m2!1d6.779266!2d51.2220574!2m3!6e0!7e2!8j1628322060!3e3!5i2 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.2413047,6.9602975/K%C3%B6... ) to a shopping district in the next larger town, which has any type or brand of retail that exists in this country (Streetview: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2254878,6.7800095,3a,75y,64.26h,101.02t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgCUtbmOSmEj7fzVV20t-yA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2254878,6.7800095,3a,75y,64....)
2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
I guess it depends on which suburb. Some suburbs in Sydney are fairly liveable. Especially where there is a mix of housing, or, as much as I hate them, large apartment complexes. You can get all the things you need and have a few restaurants, all within walking distance. Other suburbs, especially those huge “communities” with lots of cookie cutter homes seem really isolated. You have to drive.
iammisc 5y ago
I just disagree. I live in the very environment you claim doesn't exist
- mrgordon 5y ago
  Where is that? You may have a different idea of walkable than the other poster. As soon as you have tons of parking spaces, mandatory setbacks, etc. you’ve taken much of the room away from pedestrians forcing them to walk much longer distances (often in bad weather) to get to where they want to go. That’s why the two are at such odds.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    Then don't do that. You only need tons of parking and mandatory setbacks if you've designed the area for lots of cars going too fast. If you just don't, then suddenly a lot more ends up being in walking distance, and you don't need as much parking because more people are walking or biking.
    - mrgordon 5y ago
      Well of course this is what I prefer. But the other poster was saying they didn’t see why cities can’t be designed for cars AND for pedestrians. My point is that the policies put in place in almost all American cities for cars (mandatory parking requirements in new buildings, lots of street parking or parking lots, mandatory setbacks from the street for buildings, highway entrances, etc.) work directly against making a city dense enough to be able to easily walk to enough things that you don’t end up resorting to cars.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    I live in Portland city limits but not downtown. Where I live was built as a suburb but the city grew into it. Actually Portland has a lot of these downtowney areas and they're surrounded by blocks and blocks of single family homes and small apartments But if you go farther out into newer developments, they just abandoned this lovely system and made awful cookie cutter burbs. Before this I lived in San Rafael and larkspur in Marin county which also have nice downtowney areas surrounded by single family homes. Old Marin county had just this pattern of walkable enough neighborhoods with tiny downtowns. I don't see why this sort of thing isn't possible. When I lived there I walked everywhere

linguae 5y ago

Exactly. I lived in Kawasaki, Japan, which is a large suburb of both Tokyo and Yokohama. Much of Kawasaki is walkable and has amenities such as restaurants, grocery stores, and shopping centers within no more than a 15-minute walk from most residences. Kawasaki is also served by many commuter train lines; once again, the majority of residents live within 15-minute walking distance from a train station, and there are local buses that serve those who live too far to easily walk to a train station (and even in these places a train station is generally 30 minutes away walking distance). Suburbs don't have to be car-dependent; most of Tokyo's suburbs are transit-oriented (some of them were actually planned by railroad companies) and are generally walkable.

ulfw 5y ago
Kawasaki has a population of 1.5 Million people. Hardly just a "suburb"

throw0101a 5y ago

> You could just build walkable suburbs. Why there is a distinction between 'suburb' and 'smaller city' is beyond me, but there really is. The Not Just Bikes channel semi-recently did a video on "streetcar suburbs": * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb It's how things used to be built pre-WW2.

kasey_junk 5y ago
I grew up on the south side of Indianapolis perhaps one of the worst walkable places there is. There are major streets there still named for street car service “Stop 11/Stop 12/etc”. The wild thing is that it was direct public policy that lead to the death of extensive public transit there.
- alanbernstein 5y ago
  Not just public policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp....

xputer 5y ago

Amen to that. Actually getting it done is a big hairy problem I'm afraid though :(

bcrosby95 5y ago

Our suburb has some medical and dental offices in the center of it. Yay, something I do a couple times a year is within walking distance. Talk about useless. Groceries are about 2 miles away. Which would be bikable if the infrastructure was there. In my experience it would be easier to reach bikability than walkability. Most suburbs are already somewhat bikable aside from the infrastructure.

ericmay 5y ago

These are called walkable neighborhoods. And when you start building them and connecting them to one another you get…………. Walkable cities!

granshaw 5y ago

This exists in some areas for example the closer Chicago “suburbs” like Lakeview There the lot sizes aren’t big so there’s density, but at the same time no high rises so it still feels pleasant. And every few blocks is zoned commercial

bnralt 5y ago

That seems to be the direction things are moving in. There was a move a few decades back away from malls and towards "town centers," which were basically a mix between a mall and a downtown area - a few blocks of pedestrian friendly streets filled with shops, surrounded by a ton of parking buildings. The current trend (from what I've seen) seems to be to try to integrate nearby single-family homes into the development, as well as increasing the density a bit. Now they're starting to feel like small downtown areas in the middle of the suburbs.