Walkability is all about shopping

Two things are needed to build a successful walkable neighbourhood. People and places from them to go. As I’ve been travelling across North America over the years, I’ve noticed how communities have succeeded and failed at building walkable neighbourhoods.

One of the things that many communities thought and still think is that sprucing up the sidewalks, installing fancy lighting, placing elegant street furniture, and putting up flower baskets and banner will build walkable neighbourhoods. Some planner call this: bricks, baskets, banners, and benches. I’ve now seen dozens of examples of communities that have tried this and failed. The other thing I noticed is that residential-only buildings and office-only buildings (whether high-rises or suburban) do not create walkable communities. While sprucing up an area with the four B’s is something worth doing, it really should take a back seat to several thing which I've observed that seem to be key in creating a walkable neighbourhoods.

The first key thing is that people must feel safe. If a neighbourhood has a real or perceived crime problem, the first order of business is to make the neighbourhood feel safe. There are many examples of how to do this including having a visible police presence, making sure that perceived signs of crime like graffiti and tagging are removed, and removing or renovating run-down buildings.

The second key is creating a ground-level retail wall along some key corridors. When you look at any successful walkable neighbourhood, there is always a shopping street within an easy 10 minute walk. The important thing about these shopping streets are that they need to pretty much be a continuous line of retail shops, services, coffee shops, and restaurants. Too many surface parking lots, empty lots, office-only or residential-only buildings, and blank wall and walkability will be killed in the area. I've seen this first-hand.

The third key is that there needs to be a sufficient density of people who live within walking distance of the shopping corridors. I’ve seen a few ways of doing this, but they all seem to be a combination of having apartments (and offices) above the shops in the corridors (anything 4 storeys and up seems to work), and apartments on the side streets around the retails corridors. Between the retail corridors, there should also be a mix of all housing types (including single-family homes), parks, and schools as long as there is a critical mass of potential walkers.

The fourth key is to make sure that the retail corridors are filled with shops and services that people want to go to. It seems that getting the right mix of residential housing types is easy, but much harder to build and retain is ground-level retail. Municipalities must play a role in helping a walkable neighbourhood become established by incentivizing business to locate along the retail corridors. This could mean working with the development community to making it economically advantageous to build ground-level retail. It could also mean subsidizing lease rates or taxes rates to lower the cost of business for retailers in the corridors until the area becomes established. Communities throughout North America have done this successfully, including Vancouver where they basically gave away retail space in the Woodward's Building in the Downtown Eastside that has now attracted other businesses to locate in the area and uplift the whole community economically.

The key to building a walkable region, starts with building walkable neighbourhoods. And from my first-hand observations from going to regions throughout North America, having ground-level retail corridors that front the street seems to be the key.

Strong regional governance is key to developing a livable region

Yesterday, I posted my thoughts on local government and how it seems that having more municipalities may be better for building a walkable region than a smaller number of municipalities. Having multiply municipalities is only one part of the equation to building a walkable region, the other part is to have a governance body that has a mandate to protect green space and promote a walkable, sustainable region.

All municipalities are interested in new development, redevelopment and growth. If you look locally at the South of Fraser, it is a very rare thing to see a council turn down a development proposal. While most municipal governments talk about sustainability and preserving green space, when push comes to shove those ideals usually fall by the wayside. Left to their own devices, municipal governments will allow sprawl until they reach a physical limit like a mountain or a political limit like a border. I’ve seen this in regions like Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Chicago, Ottawa, Los Angles, Toronto, and Montreal (to name a few.) Having a pro-development municipalities isn’t a bad thing, but there needs to be checks and balances in place to make sure that a region develops sustainability to preserve green space and promote walkability. Beside the accessibility, health and environmental benefits that come from creating a sustainable region, there are also economic benefits. One of the key benefits is that it attracts knowledge workers and innovators who play key roles in creating a successful regional economy.

In our region, we have Metro Vancouver with its regional growth strategy that aims to focus development in town centres and transit nodes. The growth strategy has enforcement mechanisms to ensure that municipal governments stick to the plan. We also have the Agricultural Land Commission which protects farmland, but also acts as the de facto preserver of green space.

The Portland region has a regional government with similar objectives, and that region has been successful in building sustainably. In order to limit sprawl in Toronto, the Provincial government their installed a massive green built around that region. I was just looking at a regional planning document for the Chicago area as they started towards the path of regional government to promote the development of a sustainable region only a few years ago.

A healthy region should have tension between municipalities that want to develop and a regional governance body with the mandate to limit development.

Another plus with a regional governance body is that it can take care of the things that make sense to be controlled by a larger organization like regional water, sewer, garage, and transportation services and planning.

Compared to most other regions I’ve been to in North America, Metro Vancouver really is the example of how to build a livable region. Other regions still look to our region as a model to emulate. While in Metro Vancouver, it’s easy to see everything that’s wrong in the region, but whenever I come back after a trip, I’m always reminded of all the things that we’ve gotten right.

Multiple municipalities in Metro Vancouver is a good thing

For the last ten days, I’ve been on a bit of a whirlwind train trip across North America. My trip took me to Seattle, Chicago, New York, Montreal, and Ottawa. Besides taking a holiday, I was also interested in seeing the development patterns of regions that I stop at to compare them with Metro Vancouver.

One of the things that I noticed about many of the regions was that they all looked similar at the edge. Power centres, business parks, single-family homes, and even apartments, all surrounded by surface parking. The sad thing was that none of these areas were walkable. You could pick the edge of the Chicago, Seattle, Montreal, and even Ottawa region, and be hard pressed to tell the difference. My first impression when coming into the Montreal region via the South Shore was that I was coming into a French version of Calgary. The only exception seemed to be the New York region, likely due to the fact that the region was defined and is still defined rail transportation. Metro Vancouver also seems to be an exception.

One of the things that makes Metro Vancouver different is that it has walkable centres all over the region. Within our 22 municipalities, you could live in many walkable areas that are connected by transit.

I’ve been thinking about what makes Metro Vancouver one of the most livable places in the world. The skeleton of our region was built by interurbans and streetcars. This played an important role in building walkable nodes that are still with us today. Of course the ALR, US border, and mountains play a large role in keeping our region compact, but I have to wonder if having 22 municipalities plays a role too.

One of the things that I’ve noticed is that most cities have walkable cores that become less so, the further out you get from the centre. I’ve spend time in Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa which are all regional cities. Even some municipalities in the Montreal region were merged together to form a larger city.

While all cities invest in building livable, walkable cores today, it seems that they are also quite happy to allow auto-oriented sprawl along their edges. I even see this in Metro Vancouver within all its municipalities. The big difference is that most all of the Metro Vancouver municipalities are also trying to build walkable cores at the same time. These walkable cores give a unique identity and soul to each community which is why I think that most municipalities still try to protect their walkable cores. The Portland region is very similar to Metro Vancouver; with multiple cities and multiple walkable cores.

I have to wonder if Metro Vancouver had less municipalities, would we see more sprawl. Would someone in the Commercial Drive area really care about walkability in Langley City? Would they fight to building walkable nodes in the South of Fraser or focuse on petty "us vs. them" politics like in Toronto?

Besides having 22 municipalities building walkable cores, one of the results of a large amount of municipalities in a region is usually the formation of a regional governance body which is also key to building a livable region. I’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

Vacation Alert

This weekend, I’ll be heading on a Amtrak rail adventure through North America. This adventure will take me from Metro Vancouver to Seattle, than onward to Chicago, New York, and finally Montreal. Taking the train is one of the last ways to truly enjoy land travel (you'll want sleeper class), and is one of few ways to appreciate the beauty, scale, and diversity of North America.

During this period, I’ll be taking a break from blogging. I’ll be posting again on this site starting May 15th.