Atlanta Is Kind of Walkable
July 9, 2009 | 10:20 amMany walkabouts will see Atlanta’s #22 “walkscore” ranking among the nation’s largest cities as evidence that much more needs to be done for our two-footed friends. And as a BIG fan of walking, I obviously support these efforts. However, at the same time I’m kind of surprised that Atlanta ranks even 22 among 40 (and that doesn’t include Decatur in case you’re wondering).
Among the cities that Atlanta walks all over: Houston, Detroit, Austin, Kansas City, Memphis and Nashville. And for all the recent talk about Charlotte, they still have a way to go according to Walkscore.com, ranked down at #38.
Yes, San Fran, NYC, Chi-town and Boston top the list, but what really smarts for Atlanta is how much higher the cities that we so often find ourselves competing with for “worst traffic” are ranked above us in “walkability”, notably D.C. and L.A.
P.S. Downtown Decatur scores a “83″ on Walkscore, which ranks right up there with #2 NYC.
h/t: Atlanta Unsheltered
Seems almost unfair to compare cities established before the car, when people required walkable-scale settlements, with cities that were developed with cars as the primary method of transportation.
I assume you mean well-established?
Even then I’m not sure it’s unfair. Look at Detroit. Used to have a great, walkable downtown. Now it’s a sea of walkable parking lots.
I don’t think it’s silly, rather it is kind of the point. Walkscore pinpoints places that are more walkable. If they turn out to be places that were developed before the automobile became dominant, then that’s valuable to know, as kind of a “rule of thumb”.
Downtown Decatur scores a “83″ on Walkscore, which ranks right up there with #2 NYC.
Yes, our comparability with NYC is why I live here.
Hey, this may add to our walkability: the whole city is designated a bird sanctuary per the city code! And molesting birds is illegal!
Of course it’s fair. People always required “walkable_scale settlements”. Some cities abandoned these principals to embrace a singular mode of transportation that was known even back in 1955 to be unsustainable. They chose a profitable and easy temporary solution at the cost of a vibrant future.
Fairness aside, walkability is just one quality of life issue for an area. Just like average home prices, crime rates or school performance. Cities that work to offer sustainable and properly scaled transport infrastructure will attract citizens and businesses that value those things.
I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m not sure that your assertion stands up.
E.g. LA crushed their street-car system and public transportation in the early ’50’s and LA has been economically and socially vibrant and continues to grow faster than almost all US cities. Atlanta has offer F-all for “sustainable and properly scaled transport infrastructure” and yet Atlanta’s metro-GDP and in-migration are second to none for going on 3 decades.
Musical chairs is only fun until the music stops.
Now that we are in a worldwide post-peak oil decline. A chair has gone away. The foolishness of this fifty year experiment of a society built exclusively on single passenger gasoline automobiles is going to come crashing down around the ears of city planners who are not ready to offer options. This is why “walkability” has suddenly become an important factor. We specifically chose to live in Decatur to be near a Marta station, a short walk to the city center and within biking distance of our Atlanta jobs. We paid more for less house to do it.
Having lived in both Detroit metro and now Decatur area i would say there are many many more opportunites to live in a walkable communitiy close to an employment center with good schools and safe interconnected areas than there are in Atlanta…
just to defend Detroit a bit as an Atlanta native…
Downtwon Detroit may have a lot of parking lots…but so does Atlanta!!!
Detroit is in an interesting position.
It’s economic decline was so spectacular and complete that it is primed for a remake and redesign.
http://www.m-bike.org/blog/2009/07/05/city-of-detroit-americas-best-urban-biking
Interesting to juxapose Detroit with Berlin and what has happened post WWII. This blogger sums it up nicely. http://www.planetizen.com/node/24841
Reporting on a presentation by John Norquist, President of the Congress for the New Urbanism:
“Norquist used two sets of images to effectively convey a point about urban disinvestment in America. The first set of images was of Berlin and Detroit circa 1945. Unsurprisingly, the Berlin image displayed a war-torn and rubble-strewn city, while the Detroit image revealed why it was once called the Paris of the Midwest — it was simply elegant. However, the second set of images displayed the same two cities 60 years later. It was as if Detroit had been through an epic war and not Berlin. It was the perfect and perhaps most extreme example of America’s substandard and deleterious post-industrial urban condition. There it was on the big screen, Detroit as the poster child for all things wrong in urban America.”
Things need to get alot more walkable all over the south. Case in point:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1909406,00.html
Here’s another impressive site to look at how obese we’ve becom as a nation, everywhere but especially the South. This is truly shocking.
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html