The Ecopolitan
Walking Takes America by Storm
You can no longer think of walking as a pedestrian topic. It's now got legs, as we say in the journalism biz.
This year newspapers, newscasts, magazines and websites are bursting with stories about how important walking is to our health, our environment, our satisfaction with life and the vitality of our communities.
Alan Ehrenhalt, one of the savviest observers of American society today, heralds "The Walkability Revival" in his Governing magazine column. "It's not just New Urbanists who are talking the language of walkability now," he writes. "It's developers, Realtors, chambers of commerce, transportation agencies."
Christopher B. Leinberger, director of the graduate real estate program at the University of Michigan and author of The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream, earned wide attention for his ranking of America's most walkable urban places:
- Washington, D.C.
- Boston
- San Francisco
- Denver
- Portland, Oregon
- Seattle
- Chicago
- Miami
- Pittsburgh
- New York
Leinberger's extensive research, conducted over three decades as a real estate consultant and developer, identifies 157 prime walkable areas in both cities and suburbs of America's 30 metropolitan regions--a number that has increased significantly in recent years, he says.
Prevention magazine ranked the ten most populous cities in each state for walkability, and then compiled its own list of the best 100. Here are the top ten.
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
- New York City
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Chicago
- Washington, D.C.
- San Francisco
- Honolulu
- Trenton, New Jersey
- Boston
- Cincinnati
Like statistics on the sports page, it's fun to debate the fine points of these rankings. Leinberger focuses more on the overall metropolitan region with particular emphasis on great walking places such as downtowns, while Prevention looks at the walking experience throughout a city taking in account factors including green space, safety and the percentage of people who walk to work and walk for exercise.
But the good news in all this media coverage is that people everywhere are rediscovering one of life's most underrated pleasures--taking a stroll.
© The Green Guide, 2008
Discuss this blog
posted by ruthkf on 2008-07-13 14:59:29
As a physician who works exclusively with frail elderly folks, I was struck by a seen I witnessed Wednesday night in a beautifully walkable park where dozens of people had biked and walked to eat good food and hear a community orchestra play in a band pavilion. An impeccably dressed elderly couple arrived by taxi and began walking toward the band pavilion. She required the aid of a wheeled walker and he was tall and a bit unsteady on his feet himself. As they proceeded slowly toward their goal, there came a point where after much consulting with each other they decided to turn back. I saw them sadly return to the street and wait for a cab to leave the beautiful park.
My thought was: How could we have helped them get to their goal and join in on this Walkable/Bikable evening? It wouldn't actually have been so hard. All we needed was a rickshaw or some other well designed human powered carriage of sorts to meet them at the curb and transport them to their destination in the "Pedestrian Zone". I hope we can add the image of friendly, safe, people powered transport vehicles to our design of walkable urban living. After all, the over 80 year old group is now the fastest growing segment of our population and all over the world there are folks who are mobility impaired and who want to join us on our "walks".
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