Is it possible to retrofit ANY suburban area for urbanity, or are some impossible?

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

True. However, look at most Japanese cities. Their residential neighborhoods usually feature no sidewalk. Here in the USA we would automatically think that neighborhood is not walkable and in some sense not urban. Its quite the opposite though. This is also true for many third world countries. Seemingly hostile areas for pedestrians are full of them.

The other end of your observation is the many places we do see sidewalks on every single street and not one pedestrian using them.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

The thing is, why walk when it's easier to drive, and if you're that loaded, again, why walk when you can take your Escalade out?

The thing is, these things don't just happen.

Yes, a city like Phoenix is set up so that car ownership is easy, and not owning a car is onerous. So of course you're going to own a car, and going to drive that car unless it's a particularly mild, beautiful day.

In contrast, somewhere like New York (or even better, Barcelona) has its infrastructure set up for pedestrians, not cars. Thus it's easy to not use a car as part of day to day life, to the point that car ownership itself becomes somewhat of a hassle, and you might just consider dropping a car.

From a moral standpoint, if you want to argue they're both equally valid, that's fine. But Americans only get about half of the suggested minimum amount of steps needed in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, while those in Europe (and walkable cities) get in quite a good deal more. And there's the whole environmental impact thing as well. Therefore, in a utilitarian sense, it's better that we have access to things on foot than it is to make it easier to pile into a two-ton vehicle.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

The other end of your observation is the many places we do see sidewalks on every single street and not one pedestrian using them.

...or people walk in the streets instead.

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Those massively huge houses [some of the priciest real estate in Phoenix] are walking distance to 2 grocery stores, Wells Fargo, Chase, a Pharmacy, more than a dozen restaurants, hotels, other businesses and transit along Scottsdale Road.

The thing is, why walk when it's easier to drive, and if you're that loaded, again, why walk when you can take your Escalade out?

E] to dimondpark's post:

Paradise Valley doesn't want to urbanize. Local zoning requires 1 acre lots, I believe.

That's fair. And yeah, I'm just trying to play the game of the thread, not trying to say that the people in these areas ever would or should walk to the grocery store. I will say that that area could still never be "walkable" without sidewalks, and I don't know whether there is room for sidewalks without taking peoples' privacy hedges through eminent domain or something. And I wouldn't call walking a circuitous path out of a cul-de-sac and up to an arterial 1.5 miles to AJ's "walkable."

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by me

Eh, I don't think walkable is particularly nebulous. You can define it pretty easily by asking something like "For a given area, do the majority of people walk or drive to obtain basic daily necessities like toilet paper and bread?"

Originally Posted by jtown,man

look at most Japanese cities. Their residential neighborhoods usually feature no sidewalk. Here in the USA we would automatically think that neighborhood is not walkable

I don't understand how this is a counterexample. The definition I provided would call a Japanese neighborhood walkable and a US suburb not walkable, regardless of the presence or lack of a sidewalk.

I agree completely that the existence of a sidewalk is not what makes a place walkable.

[Leveled]

How about this place.


https://goo.gl/maps/96eJKZhEgHy

[eschaton]

I mean, let's consider the average residential subdivision. The modern ones do tend to have relatively good sidewalk coverage, but they are seldom used, because there's nothing to walk to. Sure, kids will use them, and some people walk for exercise, but the vast majority of human walking is goal-driven, because that's what we evolved to do - walk to places as needed to survive, but conserve energy when there is no reason to walk by staying put.

So, the first thing you could do is to provide some mixed-use within the suburbs. Let people open up their own small businesses within their homes available for retail use. Have some homes knocked down or added to for small sidewalk-hugging storefronts.

But this gets to the second issue - density is too low for pedestrian-focused businesses, meaning many people would still drive within the neighborhood. This is basically the issue that modern "streetcar suburbs" often have, since shopping habits have changed and family sizes have dropped over the past century. So you'd then need to upzone as well. You'd need to let density rise at least to the point of about 20,000 ppsm over a fairly wide area (a few census tracts) before there was enough local coot traffic.

Then there would be a third issue - where would all of these new residents work, and how would they get there? In order to support a residential node of such high density, surface bus routes likely aren't going to cut it. You'd need to integrate the upzoned area with a rail line or BRT service.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

[Re Sun City], why walk when it's easier to drive

It's easier to drive because parking is cheap and abundant. That will likely remain the case as long as the current densities & land uses are there. But theoretically if denser redevelopment happened, parking would become more scarce, which would introduce a reason to walk.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Those are mostly in generally gridded, vaguely-human scale & urban formatted inner-suburban areas though, aren't they?

It's totally possible for something like this to urbanize organically over time, given the necessary regulatory framework and demand: https://goo.gl/maps/s57MDwjpaLK2

But between the lack of a cohesive street grid, arterials with houses backing onto them instead of being fronted with retail, condo ownership/homeowners associations & gated communities, single-ownership power centres, and physical segregation of neighbourhoods, it's simply not possible to retrofit something like this however, short of bulldozing everything and starting over: https://goo.gl/maps/sxkz7yA8zq12

Eh, you could turn the latter into something like:
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Buc...4!4d26.1025384

but it's not going to happen ever...

[Cirrus]

^
The street pattern would support that, but not the land ownership pattern.

[Cirrus]

I've been scrolling around Houston. I've found some places where there's denser development amid curvy suburban streets, but most of it looks like stuff that was built that way from the beginning. I haven't found any incremental retrofits amid curvy suburban street networks. I'd love to find some.

[JManc]

Been like that way from the beginning. Those apartments were part of several Master planned communities in the 70's.

[jd3189]

If there’s a grid, the process will be easier. If it’s a cul-de-sac/ gated community type thing with winding streets and such, it will be harder to retro fit.


But I’m more interested in from the other thread is the idea that most people here on this forum seem to consider 19th- early 20th century pre war urban development in the US as the gold standard. However, there are many places outside America that have post-war or interwar era urban development that was still very dense compared to the typical suburban tract stuff we see make up most of our metro areas today.


I’m thinking of places like Tokyo, Mexico City, São Paulo, Tel Aviv, Beirut. The Sunset District in San Francisco or core neighborhoods like Koreatown and Hollywood in Los Angeles. Paris or London outside the historic core areas. Some of this stuff is still car-centric, but also walkable at the same time. I remembered I started a thread on it but most people weren’t as interested. What about emulating more of that type of development, which I believe is already happening in a lot of cities now? Pre-war development will never come back but the post-war/ inter-war development that was not wasteful sprawl seems to be the next best thing.

[Jonboy1983]

I'd say some areas are better than others to retrofit to make them more walkable. It depends on the municipality if they want to put forth the effort to reword or tweak their ordinances to encourage such uses. It also depends on the municipalities themselves - are they truly suburban or are they more rural where walkability wouldn't make much sense.

I'm currently serving on my township's planning commission, and we're trying to establish a walkable business corridor from the Chester County Airport to Coatesville. We recently updated our zoning ordinance to require developers looking to develop land along US 30 to erect a sidewalk along the highway.

[digitallagasse]

Car focused suburban built form simply doesn't scale well. That was done by design. The built form most post war suburbs were built in are anti urban. To turn that built form into something even somewhat functionally urban would require at least parts of the current form to be razed and rebuilt. Winding roads to no where would need to be at least interconnected. Depending on how anti urban the current form is that may be a non trivial amount of rebuilding.

Let me use the Las Vegas metro for some examples. The metro does have at least a mostly function grid with the major arterial streets. Depending on the area even some of the minor arterial streets also maintain a semi functional grid.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.1325...5,16.17z?hl=en

This is the Spring Valley suburbs of Vegas. Notice how the main streets are a grid and even some of the minor streets within the grid. This area could urbanize well without major changes.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.1069...6,15.43z?hl=en

This is also the Spring Valley surburb. The main streets are still a grid. The minor streets now get curvy within the grid but still have some basic interconnected. The side streets are isolated with limited access. If the side streets had additional interconnected to other side streets, minor streets and the major streets it could become some what functional to scale up to an urban form. Many structures would need to be razed for that interconnection to happen.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.0381...9,14.46z?hl=en

Now lets look at the Green Valley South area of the suburbs. The major grid is now disjointed. Windmill Parkway being a major point of frustration for me. The minor roads are now a mess and the side streets isolated with limited access. In addition the neighborhood is broken up by a golf coarse, a flood control wash, and non grade separated rail line. That is going to need a lot of things rebuilt and not just within a single super block. Most of the area would need a major redesign.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by jd3189

If there’s a grid, the process will be easier. If it’s a cul-de-sac/ gated community type thing with winding streets and such, it will be harder to retro fit.
.

The vast majority of cul-de-sacs are in areas where the residents and future residents want to remain sleepy bedroom communities with yards. The gridded streets tend to be much older and closer in town or already absorbed into the urban fabric and are ripe for development/ gentrification. Potential residents are keenly aware that their neighborhood could change. Here in Houston, those gridded neighborhoods are often far more expensive even if the houses are dumpier because of the potential for growth. Also most gridded areas do not have an HoA (older areas) where as cul-de-sacs do and these will be what prevents future (re)development.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by digitallagasse

Car focused suburban built form simply doesn't scale well. That was done by design. The built form most post war suburbs were built in are anti urban. To turn that built form into something even somewhat functionally urban would require at least parts of the current form to be razed and rebuilt. Winding roads to no where would need to be at least interconnected. Depending on how anti urban the current form is that may be a non trivial amount of rebuilding.

The most famous car-centric city in the US (LA) is also the second largest so I wouldn't say it's impossible for a car-centric city to grow very large. And of course Houston is also incredible car-centric and the 4th largest.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

I don't understand how this is a counterexample. The definition I provided would call a Japanese neighborhood walkable and a US suburb not walkable, regardless of the presence or lack of a sidewalk.

I agree completely that the existence of a sidewalk is not what makes a place walkable.

Oh no, I wasn't debating your point. I was only mentioning the built environment we might expect(or demand here in the states) might not be the same as an actual functioning walkable environment.

[digitallagasse]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

The most famous car-centric city in the US (LA) is also the second largest so I wouldn't say it's impossible for a car-centric city to grow very large. And of course Houston is also incredible car-centric and the 4th largest.

LA is a perfect example of a metro that can scale by spreading out. Spread out enough and the total really adds up. It is also a good example of not scaling well. The LA metro has a fairly consistent intensity of built form across the metro. In areas that are post war auto oriented they have a hard time intensifying past a certain point. The limitation is the car. If the area is car dependent only a certain amount of cars can be used before you reach grid lock. That same built form makes walking and transit not desirable. To reach intensity beyond that point means walking and transit use needs to be scaling when cars can't.

Now denser areas in the LA area in which are pre-war and have allowed walking and transit to scale have been able to scale to intensities the car built form is not able to. The tough part is the transition point in which intensity for cars maxes out and the critical mass in which walking and transit are the way to go. That doesn't mean higher intensity built areas are car free. It just means enough people are walking and taking transit for cars to not be stuck in grid lock.

Simply double the average intensity across the LA metro with its current built form and things would come to a stand still for cars. That is what I mean when I say cars don't scale well. Car based form is built with that limitation and constrains the intensity because of that.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by digitallagasse

Car based form is built with that limitation and constrains the intensity because of that.

Obviously areas based around cars have a maximum density limit that is much less than what transit allows. The fundamental question is so what? The US is a very sparsely populated country and there's plenty of room to grow. Sure, some cities like NYC and San Francisco have physical constraints which require increased density, but others like Houston and Atlanta do not. LA is a good example of a sort of middle ground where there was tons of land to expand, but now it's expanded so much it finally has reached physical barriers like the mountains and desert and needs to start building up. I simply see no reason why cities that have no such constraints should ever need to be more dense than what cars allow. That's not saying they need to be any LOWER than what cars allow (which is often the case in sparse suburbs). Plus, quite frankly here in the US our ability to built infrastructure is so poor that I really seriously question whether we can economically build past the upper density limit for cars because the new transit lines we build are so ridiculously expensive that it becomes pretty hard to justify them. It's not at all unusual to spend over $100,000 per rider these days in capital costs. That's a HUGE subsidy to encourage density.