Summary of Jeff Speck's Walkable City

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The obvious answer to how cities can attract creative talent is to provide the sort of environment that these people want. Surveys show how creative-class citizens, especially millennials, favor communities with street life.
#2 The American landscape has changed since the seventies, when most teens could walk to school, to the store, and to the soccer field. Now, the majority of teenagers do not have driver’s licenses.
#3 The millennials are the biggest population bubble in fifty years. Sixty-four percent of college-educated millennials choose first where they want to live, and only then do they look for a job. They plan to live in America’s urban cores.
#4 The generation raised on Friends is not the only one looking for new places to live. Front-end boomers, who are citizens that cities want, are looking for walkability.

Sujets

• Urban
• Sociology
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Social Science

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822502369
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Jeff Speck's Walkable City
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The obvious answer to how cities can attract creative talent is to provide the sort of environment that these people want. Surveys show how creative-class citizens, especially millennials, favor communities with street life.

#2

The American landscape has changed since the seventies, when most teens could walk to school, to the store, and to the soccer field. Now, the majority of teenagers do not have driver’s licenses.

#3

The millennials are the biggest population bubble in fifty years. Sixty-four percent of college-educated millennials choose first where they want to live, and only then do they look for a job. They plan to live in America’s urban cores.

#4

The generation raised on Friends is not the only one looking for new places to live. Front-end boomers, who are citizens that cities want, are looking for walkability.

#5

The American built environment can be divided into two categories: walkable urbanism and drivable sub-urbanism. In the Detroit region, housing in walkable urbanism is valued at a 40 percent premium over similar housing in drivable sub-urbanism.

#6

A metropolitan area that does not offer walkable urbanism is probably destined to lose economic development opportunities. The growing demand for pedestrian-friendly places is reflected in the success of Walk Score, a website that calculates neighborhood walkability.

#7

The demand for walkable urbanism already surpasses the supply. This disparity is only going to get bigger as more people realize the health benefits of walking and the wealth benefits of investing in walkable neighborhoods.

#8

Portland, Oregon, is a great example of how a city can benefit from being walkable. While almost every other American city has seen its residents drive farther and farther every year and spend more and more of their time stuck in traffic, Portland’s vehicle miles traveled per person peaked in 1996.

#9

The American family now spends about $14,000 per year driving multiple cars. The typical family with an income of $20,000 to $50,000 pays more for transportation than for housing. This is because the typical American working family now lives in suburbia, where the practice of drive-’til-you-qualify reigns supreme.

#10

There are economic benefits of not driving, such as the creation of more jobs and the attraction of resources due to the city’s walkability.

#11

The more time people spend in traffic, the less productive they are. This is because the data show that when people come together, they become much more productive.

#12

Until 2004, the main arguments for building walkable cities were primarily aesthetic and social. But in 2004, physicians Howard Frumkin and Richard Jackson published a book titled Urban Sprawl and Public Health, which detailed how our built environment was killing us.

#13

The inactivity-inducing convenience, often violent speed, and toxic exhaust of our cars have contributed to the fact that the current generation of youth will live shorter lives than their parents.

#14

Obesity is a major problem in America, and it is directly related to the automotive lifestyle. The problem is not obesity itself, but all the other maladies that obesity causes or makes worse.

#15

The American Dream Coalition, a consortium of automotive and sprawl-building interests, has come up with the Compactorizer, a machine that moves people out of suburban homes and into small apartments in high-density transit-oriented developments.

#16

American pollution is getting worse because of the increase in auto dependence. Asthma is on the rise, and it is worst in our most auto-dependent cities.

#17

While we Americans may take the risks of driving for granted, they are actually something that is well within our control. The numbers from other developed nations tell a different story. While the United States in 2004 suffered 14. 5 traffic fatalities per 100,000 population, Germany, with its no-speed-limit autobahns, suffered only 7. 1.

#18

There have been several studies conducted on auto accidents and murder by strangers, and they all show that the safest places in America are eight of its most densely populated cities and the two counties abutting Washington, D. C.

#19

While many people love driving, they hate commuting. People with longer commutes report lower satisfaction with life than those who drive less.

#20