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Housing density, and radius of "walkable" to the average human. I live in a neighborhood full of small apartments, single level duplexes, and single family hom
by CableNinja 3y ago
Housing density, and radius of "walkable" to the average human.
I live in a neighborhood full of small apartments, single level duplexes, and single family homes. What stores are walkable? The liquor store, and gas station, and if i really feel like it, dominos and 7-11, both of which are at least 1/4 mile one way. Most others in this area, dont get those even. Past that its about a mile one way to the actual grocery store. And then after all the shopping, i have to walk back, now with 50+lbs of groceries.
Honestly, all this we need more walkable cities stuff, i get it, yes, you should be able to get places by walking, but really, its just not even feasible most times if youre going to be buying something. Im not gonna walk home from best buy 4+ miles away heaving a huge TV on my back, no one will. We invented transportation that didnt involve humans using their legs because we are slow, and easily over encumbered when carrying things. Theres a reason we saw an explosion of carriages way back. Its easier to haul more, and much faster, than if a person, or even many people at once, were to do it.
Housing density is a huge factor in a lot of this, but having swaths of tall purely apartment buildings is also not the answer. People want single family homes and other styles for many reasons. They wont be going away anytime soon. And even if they did, the only answer is very mixed use zoning.
One of my favorite examples, in downtown Denver, there is a tall apartment building, stacked on top of a large chain grocery store, it includes parking for the store, and spots for the building, under the building too. This is what i would consider peak use, and what people complain about walkable cities really need to focus on. Having a city you can walk anywhere is great, but you need to be able to get to the societal needs without having to walk far. Of course the grocery store also serves for a large part of that neighborhood, and distance to the store is a variable, but this mainly serves multiple buildings in a small area. The big problem is all the space we waste dedicating to parking. It might be more expensive, but you can gain a lot more use if you force parking lots to have shops above/below them, and that reclaimed flat land can then be used for the mixed use building. Parking is also not going away, like i said, we invented carriages for a reason. Howwwweeeeevvvveeerrr all of this comes with a number of caveats, like the ridiculous price to lease a storefront, build the building, etc, and of course its just a feedback loop that gets worse as we waste more space, space becomes premium.
All of this is to sum up my point, walkability is variable by person, and changes greatly depending on if youre going to have to be carrying things, and theres never going to be good "walkable" cities, short of nuking a city and starting over, you wont make it vastly better, especially with the politicians and government we have now.
- swores 3y agoSo people in your type of neighbourhood maybe can't start walking everywhere right away, but you don't need to also think "walking is out forever" - you can start lobbying your local politicians, and voting for the ones who want to improve things rather than sit in their 4x4 enjoying the status quo. (And personally if I lived somewhere unwalkable I'd move home to address that, though I appreciate there can be reasons to either not want to move or to not be able to move.)
- lazide 3y agoThough folks who prioritized that would probably not move to such a place in large numbers? Unless they changed their mind to that state due to some major economic shifts after the move anyway.
- badpun 3y agoA mile to a store is a very comfortable distance. I've lived in such situation for a couple of years and just walked to the store a couple times a week, hauling back a couple of kilograms of groceries in my backpack every time. I needed the walk and the exercise anyway, and this way I was killing two birds with one stone.
- lazide 3y agoSo no kids?
- badpun 3y agoNope. But it wouldn't be a problem to carry even 8-10 kg in a backpack instead of just 3-4 kg. In fact, it's a recommended form of cardiovascular excercise (it's called "rucking").
- lazide 3y agoDefinitely no kids. And since when is rucking only 10kg? That’s just going for a walk? Rucking has always been 40+ kg and involved some kind of serious terrain where I’m from?