4 ms·

People do vote with their dollars. The walkable neighborhoods in my city tend to cost 2-3X more than houses in less walkable areas. There are actually huge swa

People do vote with their dollars. The walkable neighborhoods in my city tend to cost 2-3X more than houses in less walkable areas. There are actually huge swaths of affordable houses built on the outskirts of many towns, but people don’t want them because they’re not close to the walkable parts of the city.

taeric 5y ago
This can be misleading. The supply in walkable areas will, by near definition, be lower than places you have to drive to. Such that the evidence isn't that houses are more expensive in walkable areas. The evidence is that it is not economically viable to build more walkable neighborhoods. Edit: I meant to say it could be an alternative, not that it is.
- mulmen 5y ago
  I have lived in highly walkable neighborhoods. They utilize highrises to increase density (supply) of housing and commercial space. Walkable areas are by necessity higher density, meaning they pack more supply into the same footprint.
  - taeric 5y ago
    Some do. I lived in upper Queen Anne in Seattle. Very few highrise houses and all very expensive now. I would be a liar if I said I didn't miss how walkable it was. I also lived in Buckhead area of Atlanta. Also very walkable for me, though there were a few high rises.
    - mulmen 5y ago
      I lived in the Junction in West Seattle for 7 years. Highly walkable, lots of highrises in the core, but still lots of (very expensive!) single family homes. Now I live on Alki and it is much less walkable. I can get around but have to climb Admiral to get to a grocery store. Several of our bus routes were permanently closed. Queen Anne benefits from being in Seattle and the economic benefits that has to businesses that make a neighborhood walkable. It’s also just very old and was built when walkability was a necessity. Unfortunately it is prohibitively expensive because higher density development is difficult or impossible.
      - taeric 5y ago
        Right. But whenever I hear that "walkable places are expensive", I hear folks talking about places like Seattle. Or downtown Atlanta. What places are we talking about that are a) highly walkable, b) expensive, and c) not at capacity? (This is a genuine question. I fully cede that I could just be completely miscalibrated for this.)
        PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        I have sensed an emerging "story" in various media over the last 6-12 months that within the US at least, there are vanishingly few cities or large towns that are (a) highly desirable places to live (b) affordable to median income folks. Or maybe the story is that if this is not true to today, it seems that it will be in 5-10 years.
        taeric 5y ago
        I don't think this is necessarily a new story, all told. I think I remember it back in the 90s. That said, does seem to be getting more pronounced. Really, just seems that there aren't any new cities. All of the places folks wanted to live, are the same places folks want to live today. :(
        mulmen 5y ago
        I think we are talking past each other. When you said “The supply in walkable areas will, by near definition, be lower than places you have to drive to.“ I interpreted that to mean there is less total supply. You seem to be speaking to available supply. > What places are we talking about that are a) highly walkable, b) expensive, and c) not at capacity? I don’t think there is such a place. If a place is walkable it is going to be at or near capacity which makes it expensive. The lack of these areas seems to be a result of an unwillingness to increase density.
        taeric 5y ago
        I was meaning it in terms of purchasable supply. Nothing is stopping anyone from building a new city center in the middle of Montana, such that it has plenty of buildable supply. That is, you can say that dense cities are more effecient, but that only matters if you can build another one. Otherwise, there are more affordable homes further from existing city center then there are in them. And that is going to be hard to change. You seem to be pointing that existing cities should double down on their density. I'm claiming if that was such a clear path to success, it would be done in new places. I do suspect there is a mix of both.
  - wpm 5y ago
    My census tract in Chicago is denser than 96% of America. There are like two high-rises, one for seniors and some shorter new construction near the transit stops in the 5-6 story range. The bulk of my neighborhoods density is created by missing middle housing, two and three flats, four-six square apartments, and a healthy smattering of SFHs on narrow lots. I have a backyard. My neighbor grows a garden in between her house and her two car garage. She pollinates her garden with the honey bees she keeps. The dichotomy between “car centric suburbia” or “huge 100 story high rises” is false. You can get to walkable density without going over three stories on average.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - mulmen 5y ago
      I don’t think there is a building in Seattle even close to 100 floors. The Junction in West Seattle (where I lived) is exactly what you describe.
- epistasis 5y ago
  It is far far far more economical to build walkable neighborhoods. They require far less infrastructure costs, from water piping to sewer to roads. Quite often the only places that can sustainably fund themselves on property taxes are walkable multiuse neighborhoods. A ton of suburbia is sitting on huge infrastructure bills that will come due in the near future. Car-dependent neighborhoods only exist because law prevents more dense uses. I don't know of a single such car-dependent neighborhood that doesn't strictly prevent a change away from being car dependent. From zoning to codes, anything that could lead to a walkable neighborhood is banned by law from even starting. If we didn't outlaw walkable neighborhoods, and vigorously defend the banning of apartments and corner stores by swarming of planning meetings and recalls of city council members, vigorous actions perpetrated by the few and not the many, the balance would be entirely different. In every single family neighborhood that is far dependent, you'll find a small number of people that will go to war to prevent any change to that. And all our systems are set up to allow a small number of people to control the outcomes of planning decisions.
  - taeric 5y ago
    This sounds good on paper, but you just have to look at how Walmart destroyed brick and mortar shops. They would build a single giant shop for an entire region and folks would drive to it in droves. That is to say, I want to agree. I just can't square that with how I've seen small towns destroyed by shopping centers that require cars for the residents to drive to. (Ironically, this is different from the situation that requires companies to drive to the customers. Though, there, reverse pressure exists such that the more reliant on the company driving, the less pleasant the shopping experience.)
    - epistasis 5y ago
      I don't quite understand the contradiction. If you're talking about small rural areas, sure, but that's a tiny fraction of our population. And rural areas don't typically vigorously block apartment and walkable development. And I haven't seen every rural town, but all of the ones that I know of have plenty of housing near a walkable core too. I know lots of rural people that have no trouble getting in 20,000 steps daily because of that walkability of homes neat the downtown. But suburbia, the vast majority of our new housing over the past 50-60 years, is not rural, and is of a very different character. Strong Towns has been reporting on this for years, from the fiscally conservative side. Though I don't call myself any sort of fiscal conservative, the data and analysis is very good, IMHO: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/
drivers99 5y ago
That's called "drive until you qualify."

taeric 5y ago

This can be misleading. The supply in walkable areas will, by near definition, be lower than places you have to drive to. Such that the evidence isn't that houses are more expensive in walkable areas. The evidence is that it is not economically viable to build more walkable neighborhoods. Edit: I meant to say it could be an alternative, not that it is.

mulmen 5y ago
I have lived in highly walkable neighborhoods. They utilize highrises to increase density (supply) of housing and commercial space. Walkable areas are by necessity higher density, meaning they pack more supply into the same footprint.
- taeric 5y ago
  Some do. I lived in upper Queen Anne in Seattle. Very few highrise houses and all very expensive now. I would be a liar if I said I didn't miss how walkable it was. I also lived in Buckhead area of Atlanta. Also very walkable for me, though there were a few high rises.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    I lived in the Junction in West Seattle for 7 years. Highly walkable, lots of highrises in the core, but still lots of (very expensive!) single family homes. Now I live on Alki and it is much less walkable. I can get around but have to climb Admiral to get to a grocery store. Several of our bus routes were permanently closed. Queen Anne benefits from being in Seattle and the economic benefits that has to businesses that make a neighborhood walkable. It’s also just very old and was built when walkability was a necessity. Unfortunately it is prohibitively expensive because higher density development is difficult or impossible.
    - taeric 5y ago
      Right. But whenever I hear that "walkable places are expensive", I hear folks talking about places like Seattle. Or downtown Atlanta. What places are we talking about that are a) highly walkable, b) expensive, and c) not at capacity? (This is a genuine question. I fully cede that I could just be completely miscalibrated for this.)
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        I have sensed an emerging "story" in various media over the last 6-12 months that within the US at least, there are vanishingly few cities or large towns that are (a) highly desirable places to live (b) affordable to median income folks. Or maybe the story is that if this is not true to today, it seems that it will be in 5-10 years.
        taeric 5y ago
        I don't think this is necessarily a new story, all told. I think I remember it back in the 90s. That said, does seem to be getting more pronounced. Really, just seems that there aren't any new cities. All of the places folks wanted to live, are the same places folks want to live today. :(
      - mulmen 5y ago
        I think we are talking past each other. When you said “The supply in walkable areas will, by near definition, be lower than places you have to drive to.“ I interpreted that to mean there is less total supply. You seem to be speaking to available supply. > What places are we talking about that are a) highly walkable, b) expensive, and c) not at capacity? I don’t think there is such a place. If a place is walkable it is going to be at or near capacity which makes it expensive. The lack of these areas seems to be a result of an unwillingness to increase density.
        taeric 5y ago
        I was meaning it in terms of purchasable supply. Nothing is stopping anyone from building a new city center in the middle of Montana, such that it has plenty of buildable supply. That is, you can say that dense cities are more effecient, but that only matters if you can build another one. Otherwise, there are more affordable homes further from existing city center then there are in them. And that is going to be hard to change. You seem to be pointing that existing cities should double down on their density. I'm claiming if that was such a clear path to success, it would be done in new places. I do suspect there is a mix of both.
- wpm 5y ago
  My census tract in Chicago is denser than 96% of America. There are like two high-rises, one for seniors and some shorter new construction near the transit stops in the 5-6 story range. The bulk of my neighborhoods density is created by missing middle housing, two and three flats, four-six square apartments, and a healthy smattering of SFHs on narrow lots. I have a backyard. My neighbor grows a garden in between her house and her two car garage. She pollinates her garden with the honey bees she keeps. The dichotomy between “car centric suburbia” or “huge 100 story high rises” is false. You can get to walkable density without going over three stories on average.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mulmen 5y ago
    I don’t think there is a building in Seattle even close to 100 floors. The Junction in West Seattle (where I lived) is exactly what you describe.
epistasis 5y ago
It is far far far more economical to build walkable neighborhoods. They require far less infrastructure costs, from water piping to sewer to roads. Quite often the only places that can sustainably fund themselves on property taxes are walkable multiuse neighborhoods. A ton of suburbia is sitting on huge infrastructure bills that will come due in the near future. Car-dependent neighborhoods only exist because law prevents more dense uses. I don't know of a single such car-dependent neighborhood that doesn't strictly prevent a change away from being car dependent. From zoning to codes, anything that could lead to a walkable neighborhood is banned by law from even starting. If we didn't outlaw walkable neighborhoods, and vigorously defend the banning of apartments and corner stores by swarming of planning meetings and recalls of city council members, vigorous actions perpetrated by the few and not the many, the balance would be entirely different. In every single family neighborhood that is far dependent, you'll find a small number of people that will go to war to prevent any change to that. And all our systems are set up to allow a small number of people to control the outcomes of planning decisions.
- taeric 5y ago
  This sounds good on paper, but you just have to look at how Walmart destroyed brick and mortar shops. They would build a single giant shop for an entire region and folks would drive to it in droves. That is to say, I want to agree. I just can't square that with how I've seen small towns destroyed by shopping centers that require cars for the residents to drive to. (Ironically, this is different from the situation that requires companies to drive to the customers. Though, there, reverse pressure exists such that the more reliant on the company driving, the less pleasant the shopping experience.)
  - epistasis 5y ago
    I don't quite understand the contradiction. If you're talking about small rural areas, sure, but that's a tiny fraction of our population. And rural areas don't typically vigorously block apartment and walkable development. And I haven't seen every rural town, but all of the ones that I know of have plenty of housing near a walkable core too. I know lots of rural people that have no trouble getting in 20,000 steps daily because of that walkability of homes neat the downtown. But suburbia, the vast majority of our new housing over the past 50-60 years, is not rural, and is of a very different character. Strong Towns has been reporting on this for years, from the fiscally conservative side. Though I don't call myself any sort of fiscal conservative, the data and analysis is very good, IMHO: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/

drivers99 5y ago

That's called "drive until you qualify."