The case for walkable neighbourhoods

Fun outdoor activities and safe walkability - keys for liveability

by Mateja Mihinjac

As I was going about my midday nature walk this week I was listening to a podcast on the importance of everyday movement and physical activity. In that podcast, walking was presented as a basic form of activity that humans have evolved to do. This resonated with a number of recent consulting projects in our SafeGrowth Network related to unwalkable streets, pedestrian fatalities, and unhealthy outdoor environments.

I am lucky to live in an area where I can access a nearby forest or complete my errands within a 15-minute walk. Many people in other places do not have this opportunity and this drawback has serious physical and mental health implications.

Playful design encourages playful outdoors

PUBLIC HEALTH 

Many studies over the past decade have shown a connection between walkability and health. For example, a Belgian study showed how more walkable neighbourhoods promoted better health outcomes for older adults than those lacking walking infrastructure.

A Canadian study demonstrated the importance of built environment that supports walkability for promoting fitness activity and consequently health outcomes. In Japan, researchers found a link between cardiovascular mortality and neighbourhood walkability. One Malaysian study showed how living in a walkable neighbourhood contributes to higher levels of perceived quality of liveability compared to those living in less walkable neighbourhoods.

As we describe in our 3rd Generation CPTED theory, with easy access to green infrastructure, walkable neighbourhoods also create positive mental health effects. One such example is the Japanese practice of deep relaxation in the forest or forest bathing, especially welcome in hectic city environments. 

Physical health is related to positive mental health

In this era when we are so concerned about mental health and crime triggered by mental illness, we must build cities that encourage walkability and movement. Humans are meant to move and be active and motivation for movement needs to be clearly integrated into urban design.

Fortunately, some cities have attempted to encourage movement by gamifying physical activity – consider the famous example of the piano stairs in Sweden. Additionally, new city-wide initiatives have emerged for redesigning cities, that build on this movement concept, such as the Parisian “15-Minute City” concept.

Walkability takes place above and below ground

“15-MINUTE CITY” – A CASE FOR WALKABILITY?

Carlos Moreno, the main author behind the “15-Minute City” suggests that cities need restructuring so that they offer access to amenities within easily accessible distance. He suggests achieving this through increasing the density of people and services, close proximity to activities, diverse populations and land uses, and digitalization in line with Smart City developments.

The steps recognise the importance that the built infrastructure plays in promoting walkability and physical activity. These steps also closely relate to the principles of holistic and integrated neighbourhoods in Third Generation CPTED and SafeGrowth.

Yet, despite the difficult-to-refute importance of integrated, dense and walkable neighbourhoods, the 15-Minute City has met resistance. Some criticize the concept as a conspiracy to prevent people from moving freely beyond their neighbourhoods. Others claim it is a socialist concept with an intent to restrict personal freedoms and to control the population.

Positive outdoor activities at night - sometimes colourful lighting helps

Many of these conspiracy claims were conflated with COVID restrictions that coincided with the popularisation of the 15-minute city and it remains a sore point for many. 

Another criticism of neighbourhood walkability is voiced by those who claim that walkable and liveable neighbourhoods are elitist and promote displacement and gentrification.

It may equally be true that those who voice such concerns are more worried about increases in housing prices and land values. 

Street furniture, too, plays a role in walkable cities

MOVING FORWARD WITH WALKABILITY

While these concerns should not be disregarded, they should not dissuade us from moving forward towards walkable, integrated and liveable cities. It is irresponsible to ignore walkability options given all the evidence related to public health, mental health, and environmental sustainability.

If we are to enhance public health and reduce mental stress, city planning must be part of the answer. It should be well thought out and tailored to specific neighbourhoods to integrate walkability. 

In SafeGrowth we strongly believe the pathway to do this successfully resides in partnerships with residents during the planning process. After all, it is in their neighbourhoods where they are walking. 

Edgewater - I am not the Lizard King

Urban planner Jeff Speck equates dense, well-built and walkable cities with economic growth, environmental resilience and a safer, more livable life. In his book Walkable City he provides plenty of evidence to prove it.

This week I visited Edgewater, a small city (population 5,000) enveloped by the urban fabric that is Metro Denver. It is medium income, has diverse ethnic groups and comprises mixed residential with a commercial street of a few blocks. It is close to what Speck describes.

Edgewater street furniture, walkable streets, and human scale

From a city map it is undistinguished from surrounding Denver suburbs, until you look at its crime.

Orange and red areas showing higher crime areas, Edgewater shows lower crime rates in yellow - crime map from city-data.com

As the map above shows, except for a few crimes, its crime rate is far below surrounding neighborhoods particularly one crime hotspot to the north.

The question is why? Urban design is not the only reason, but as I’ve shown in blogs on permeability in Langley and High Line Park in Manhattan, it can matter a great deal.

PLANNING AND URBAN DESIGN

Planning students learn about early movements to plan cities. One history textbook that some read is Land Use Planning from 1959. A phrase in that book is instructive:

“The unit of design in New Towns is no longer each separate lot, street or building; it is the whole community; a co-ordinated entity…beauty as well as convenience is produced by the rational relations of the individual parts…”

Unfortunately that philosophy did not survive. Instead, land hungry developers gobbled up huge swaths of city edges to build suburban sprawl, regional shopping malls, supersized box stores and pedestrian-hostile commercial strips.

The idea of planned and walkable neighborhoods was lost. But not, apparently, in Edgewater.

Murals, bicycle racks, and even-grade sidewalk curbs for handicap accessibility 

EDGEWATER

Edgewater clearly works - even the quiet afternoon when I visited had walkers for whom I had to wait before taking photos. There are no more cops here than elsewhere, yet people feel safe and comfortable while walking. Why does it work?

Speck says there are four ingredients to walkability: a reason to walk, a safe walk, a comfortable walk and something interesting to see and do. Edgewater seems to capture most of them.

The residential streets are narrow and tree-lined. Most of them are within a 15 minute walk of the mini-downtown. That downtown is neatly streetscaped and has diverse uses such as restaurants, coffee-shops, a local pub, and other amenities that provide locals a reason to come here. The downtown has only 4 blocks and they are short, about 75 feet each.

Color, flowers and sculptures - Edgewater sidewalk 

Flowers sponsored by students from a local 4th Grade class

Shops are also easily walkable - the distance of one store to another, door-to-door, is no more than 15 feet. Street flower pots are planted by local school children, murals cover blank walls and street furniture, like angled benches, provides both interest and comfort.

THE ALTERNATIVE - THE LIZARD KING

Only a few blocks outside of Edgewater, in yet another pedestrian-hostile commercial strip, the automobile remerges as King. You can almost hear it holler: I am the Lizard King, I can do anything. (Apologies to Jim Morrison).

Just outside Edgewater, hostility awaits the walker - Cars are the Lizard King 

Here intersections are ugly and vast, speeds are high and walkers are treated like invaders. Such places force people to stay inside their car and avoid all social contact except during moments of road rage.

Speck says: "The worst idea we’ve ever had was suburban sprawl…the reorganization and creation of the landscape around the requirement for automobile use." We will probably need autos for a long time to come, but we need walkability even more. Let's get our priorities right.

The mysterious case of a walk in the mist

Today banks of fog rolled in one after the other formed by moist fall-time air blowing over cold ocean currents out in the Straight. Echoing through the quiet streets of our neighborhood, a maritime foghorn accompanied our walk through the mist, no doubt replacing the clop clop of horses hooves on cobblestones as Sherlock Holmes raced off to solve yet another murder mystery…

At least that's the image our misty walk conjured in my mind. In all, it was a magical evening for a seaport town.

Obviously none of this is possible unless walking is made easy, fun and safe. And walkability is not only important for activating streets and keeping crime in check, it's a very big deal for quality of life too.

In Walkable City author Jeff Speck describes how some cities kill walkability. In such places fog is just a roadway hazard. Those cities rob their citizens of the interesting or necessary places to walk - a grocery, park, coffee shop, playground, or a corner store.

We've seen plenty of micro examples on how to improve walkability: lifestyle malls,  bright paint, better designed laneways, or planting strips along sidewalks. Speck reminds us there are macro lessons too.

URBAN DENSITY

To Speck urban density holds the key to a better quality of life. Low density cities breed less healthy people because they walk less and accumulate more health related ailments. For example, he says 14 people die for every 100,000 residents in low density Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's 23 in Orlando. But in high density cities like New York and Portland it is only 3.

Crime doesn't correlate so neatly, yet the walkability links on the right of this blog show street activation makes a difference.

Check out Jeff Speck and the Walkable City on this Ted Talk.