Abstract
In the previous chapters, we looked at six walkable communities and at what makes them satisfying places to live. Those examples might help you see ways to improve your own community. From my own experience and from observing neighborhoods, towns, and cities around the country, I have become convinced that places organized at the pedestrian scale are, on balance, the healthiest and most rewarding places to live and work.
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Notes
- 1.
Carl Abbott, “The Oregon Planning Style,” in Planning the Oregon Way: A Twenty-Year Evaluation, edited by Carl Abbott, Deborah A. Howe, and Sy Adler (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1994), pp. 206–8, http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1049&context=usp_fac.
- 2.
Norman Runnion, “London, Paris, New York…Brattleboro,” Vermont Magazine, Sept.–Oct. 1990, p. 44.
- 3.
John McKnight and Peter Block, The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2012), pp. 18, 71–72.
- 4.
Research by Steven Reed Johnson, the League of Women Voters, and others on Portland’s neighborhood system and the Office of Neighborhood Involvement is found on the website https://www.portlandoregon.gov/oni/38596.
- 5.
Steven Reed Johnson, “The Myth and Reality of Portland,” in The Portland Edge, edited by Connie P. Ozawa (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004), p. 116.
- 6.
Brooke Jarvis, “Building the World We Want: Interview with Mark Lakeman,” YES! Magazine, May 12, 2010, http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/building-the-world-we-want-interview-with-mark-lakeman.
- 7.
Alyse Nelson and Tim Shuck, “City Repair Project Case Study,” University of Washington, 2005, http://courses.washington.edu/activism/cityrepair.htm.
- 8.
Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia, Tactical Urbanism: Short-Term Action for Long-Term Change by (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2015), p. xxi.
- 9.
Inga Saffron, “Phila.’s New Gem: A Stroll on the Schuylkill,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 29, 2014, http://articles.philly.com/2014-09-29/news/54404594_1_high-line-south-street-bridge-south-philadelphia.
- 10.
Donald Appleyard, Livable Streets (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).
- 11.
Barbara McCann, Completing Our Streets: The Transition to Safe and Inclusive Transportation Networks (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2013), p. 25.
- 12.
Studies have found that because of safety concerns, women are more averse than men to bicycling in or near motor vehicle traffic. Women tend to prefer a “cycle track” (a bike route that is physically separated from motor traffic and distinct from the sidewalk) or an off-street bike path. China’s extensive system of cycle tracks has proven especially popular with women. See J. Garrard, G. Rose, and S. K. Lo, “Promoting Transportation Cycling for Women: The Role of Bicycle Infrastructure,” Preventive Medicine 1, no. 46 (2008): 55–59, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17698185; and A. Lusk, X. Wen, and L. Zhou, “Gender and Used/Preferred Differences of Bicycle Routes, Parking, Intersection Signals, and Bicycle Type: Professional Middle Class Preferences in Hangzhou, China,” Journal of Transport and Health 1 (2014): 124–33, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140514000334.
- 13.
Executive Summary, “Portland’s Neighborhood Greenways Assessment Report,” 2015, https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/542725.
- 14.
“You Are Here: A Snapshot of How the Portland Region Gets Around,” Metro News, Apr. 18, 2016, http://www.oregonmetro.gov/news/you-are-here-snapshot-how-portland-region-gets-around.
- 15.
See Arthur C. Nelson, Gail Meakins, Deanne Weber, Shyam Kannan, and Reid Ewing, “The Tragedy of Unmet Demand for Walking and Biking,” Urban Lawyer 45, no. 3 (Summer 2013): 615–30.
- 16.
Development of location-efficient mortgages started in 1995 in a research program led by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Surface Transportation Policy Project. Between 2000 and about 2006, approximately two thousand such mortgages were written. They did not end up in foreclosure. Such mortgages ceased being offered after the 2008 global financial crisis. In November 2016, Scott Bernstein at CNT said that some form of location-efficient mortgage may soon be reintroduced. See http://www.cnt.org/projects/rethinking-mortgages.
- 17.
Lei Ding, Jackelyn Hwang, and Eileen Divringi, “Gentrification and Residential Mobility in Philadelphia,” Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Dec. 2015, p. 25, https://www.philadelphiafed.org/community-development/publications/discussion-papers. See also Tanvi Misra, “Gentrification Is Not Philly’s Biggest Problem,” CityLab, May 20, 2016, http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/05/gentrification-is-not-phillys-biggest-problem/483656/.
- 18.
Daniel Hertz, “What’s Really Going On in Gentrifying Neighborhoods?” City Observatory, Oct. 28, 2015, http://cityobservatory.org/whats-really-going-on-in-gentrifying-neighborhoods/.
- 19.
Hertz, “What’s Really Going On.”
- 20.
Arthur C. Nelson, Reshaping Metropolitan America: Development Trends and Opportunities to 2030 (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2013), pp. 3, 36.
- 21.
Jennifer Hurley, “A Smart Growth Approach to Affordable Housing,” Coruway Film Institute, presentation in Portsmouth, NH, Jan. 28, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hagol16v8Ao.
- 22.
Opticos Design, “Missing Middle: Responding to the Demand for Walkable Urban Living,” http://missingmiddlehousing.com.
- 23.
“City of Somerville, MA and LOCUS Release Results and Next Steps of Program to Balance Economic Growth and Social Equity in Union Square,” Smart Growth America, May 3, 2016, http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/2016/05/03/city-of-somerville-ma-and-locus-release-results-and-next-steps-of-program-to-balance-economic-growth-and-social-equity-in-union-square/.
- 24.
McKnight and Block, The Abundant Community, p. 108.
- 25.
McKnight and Block, The Abundant Community, p. 98.
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Langdon, P. (2017). Conclusion: Toward Human-Scale Communities. In: Within Walking Distance. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-773-5_8
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