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Walkability and New Urbanism

There's a concept in urban planning known as walkability. As the word itself suggests, walkability refers to how well-suited a neighbourhood is for foot traffic, and how easily a person can perform their daily activities in such a neighbourhood without needing a car.

Of course, the idea of living without a car seems crazy to most people. And with good reason. The typical North American city is very poorly designed for serious pedestrians. Most of us buy houses in sprawling suburbs, where they aren't really close to anything except more houses--and we think that it's quite normal to travel many kilometres each day just to get to work or buy groceries.

Things weren't always like this.

In fact, throughout most of human history, things were never like this. Just take a look at the tightly packed neighbourhoods in the older sections of any European city. It wasn't until everybody had cars and cheap fuel (sometime shortly after World War II) that the idea of the suburb really took off. Before that, cities were small and dense, and the only people who didn't live in them were either a) farmers or b) rich enough to spend weeks or months at a time relaxing at their country estates.

Suburbia was founded on the relatively new idea that, thanks to the automobile, even middle class families could now have a safe, clean country home with some trees, maybe a river, and lots of nature. These days, all that idyllic rural space has been reduced to a fenced-off yard and a driveway--but the trade-off for having it is still the same: when you live in the suburbs, most of the essential activities of life occur really far away.

This leaves people utterly dependent on their automobiles, which in turn means that they are utterly dependent on cheap gasoline. That's of course why everyone gets so upset when the price of gas rises. It's also why the American government is willing to spend a generation's worth of national debt to invade and control any major oil producing countries that get uncooperative.

But I digress.

Neighbourhoods with high walkability are one of the main goals of a growing international movement in city planning known as New Urbanism. This is something we're seeing a lot more of lately--for example, the billion dollar Century Park neighbourhood that's being built in Edmonton right now follows a type of New Urbanism known as transit-oriented development.

If you're wondering how walkable your neighbourhood is, you can try typing your street address into WalkScore.com.