Uh, guys? Define ‘walkable’ for us Atlanta folk
December 6, 2007 at 3:00 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsThe Brookings Institution, that lovable bunch of left-leaning think tankers up in Washington, D.C., released a report of the top 30 “walkable” cities in the United States, and our sprawling — or maybe not — hunk of paradise placed … wait for it … 14th.
While I can understand how we placed better than Detroit — did they take crime into account or something? — it’s pretty astonishing that we placed just behind New York City. The D.C. boys and gals decided to give top honors to the District. Tampa, home to one of our sister publications, placed last on this list.
How’d they come up with the list? From the article:
Christopher B. Leinberger, a real estate developer and visiting fellow at Brookings, set out to quantify the walkability trend by counting the number of “regional-serving walkable urban places” in each of the 30 biggest metropolitan areas in the country. “Regional-serving” means the place is not just a bedroom community, but has jobs, retail or cultural institutions that bring in people who don’t live there.
Leinberger, who also teaches urban planning at the University of Michigan, counted 157 such “walkable places” — including the Houston area’s Sugar Land Town Square, one of many built-from-scratch “lifestyle centers” to make the list.
And they also factored this in:
Leinberger counted only places where significant subsidies are no longer required to spur development. He predicted that many more — such as downtown Detroit and Crossroads in Kansas City, Mo. — would reach that point within the next decade.
December 6th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Does the fact that I find Brookings middle-of-the-road make me a leftist?
December 6th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Ah, yes, the wonderful built-from-scratch lifestyle centers plopped down in the middle of industrial slum nowhere that one must drive to in order to enjoy walking! In other words, this ranking means nothing!
December 6th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Christa: Exactly.
Andisheh: Why do you hate our freedoms?
December 7th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I love how whether the news is bad or good, this blog reacts cynically. It’s okay to be proud of Atlanta, and I think our modest #14 ranking is not so hard to believe. I walk everywhere in the city and it’s great. There are interesting neighborhoods, old trees, and newly constructed sidewalks and streetscapes all over. We have way more trails and bike lanes than we did 5 or 6 years ago, with more in the works. I walk or bike to the Marta train every day and it works great. Speaking of Marta, there’s a station a half mile walk from Atlantic Station, so I don’t think that qualifies as “the middle of nowhere.” However you feel about new developments like Atlantic Station and Glenwood Park, you can’t argue that they are better for pedestrians than the fenced off industrial sites they replaced. I appreciate the people in this city that fight for better walking, biking, and parks, and I think they have made great progress in the last decade.
December 9th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Matt: I too am proud of this wacky town, I was just a little perplexed at how the researchers came to find Atlanta so walkable. I agree, we’ve had a bunch of mixed-use developments that promote pedestrian-friendly lifestyles, but aside from Midtown, the city’s layout still isn’t conducive to walking around. What worries me is that these mixed-use developments won’t be connected by transit and they’ll be viewed as more style than substance — a hip place to live, but you still gotta drive to work. It’d be a problem if we just had these little blips of smart growth here and there and nothing to link them. Eventually, we’d put the key back in the ignition and continue puttering around. Without that transit component, all this dandy planning could be for naught.
And cynicism aside, I agree with you that this city’s done a lot over the past few years, and I applaud the folks who really push to make legislators and other citizens aware of cyclists’ and pedestrians’ rights. I’m with you on that one.