![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Musing while in bed, I took the known size of the house I'm in, guessed at the lot size, and then -- taking it as average -- at Albany's population density. I was around 4000-ish people/km2, and Wikipedia says 4300. Not a bad guess!
Some years ago, I made a couple of posts about 3000 people/km2 perhaps being the minimum needed for walkability, based on having enough people in walking distance to support a supermarket. So 4300 should be better, yes? And it probably is, though of course going from a town-wide average to my local area is risky. (Then again, the town only has 20,000 people, it doesn't have that much room for variation.) While I still compare it unfavorably to Mexico City, the walkability is at least a cut above 'minimal'. Some of that is businesses 'subsidized' by driving customers -- San Pablo wants to be a stroad when it grows up -- but Solano is fairly "Main Street", with shops on the sidewalk and little parking. (These are the main commercial streets near me.)
I realized that by some fluke, there are actually seven grocery stores within a 15 minute walk, which is rather absurd even by my standards. Safeway and Andronico's (private store but pretty big) on Solano; Whole Foods, Tokyo Fish Market, and Sprouts (WF-like for people who don't want to shop at WF?) on or just off of San Pablo; then a natural food store and an Asian produce-heavy market in two different micro-clusters (10 shops or fewer in a residential area.) 3 of those are technically in Berkeley, but the urban fabric is pretty similar. Some of those have specializations but they all sell a variety of fresh produce and raw meat (probably mostly frozen for the natural food store).
Some years ago, I made a couple of posts about 3000 people/km2 perhaps being the minimum needed for walkability, based on having enough people in walking distance to support a supermarket. So 4300 should be better, yes? And it probably is, though of course going from a town-wide average to my local area is risky. (Then again, the town only has 20,000 people, it doesn't have that much room for variation.) While I still compare it unfavorably to Mexico City, the walkability is at least a cut above 'minimal'. Some of that is businesses 'subsidized' by driving customers -- San Pablo wants to be a stroad when it grows up -- but Solano is fairly "Main Street", with shops on the sidewalk and little parking. (These are the main commercial streets near me.)
I realized that by some fluke, there are actually seven grocery stores within a 15 minute walk, which is rather absurd even by my standards. Safeway and Andronico's (private store but pretty big) on Solano; Whole Foods, Tokyo Fish Market, and Sprouts (WF-like for people who don't want to shop at WF?) on or just off of San Pablo; then a natural food store and an Asian produce-heavy market in two different micro-clusters (10 shops or fewer in a residential area.) 3 of those are technically in Berkeley, but the urban fabric is pretty similar. Some of those have specializations but they all sell a variety of fresh produce and raw meat (probably mostly frozen for the natural food store).
no subject
Date: 2022-11-19 22:07 (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2022-11-20 19:11 (UTC)From:Thoughts
Date: 2022-11-22 04:47 (UTC)From:Well, you need density, but not necessarily that many people. Small towns are often walkable, especially if old, and many of them have nowhere near that many people.
>>I realized that by some fluke, there are actually seven grocery stores within a 15 minute walk, which is rather absurd even by my standards.<<
I agree that's a lot, but from the sound of it, there's diversity rather than all duplication. My bet is that people who need a specialty item will go to the store that has it and do the rest of their shopping there.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-11-22 05:06 (UTC)From:I was lazy and didn't link, but https://mindstalk.dreamwidth.org/541544.html is my original model, followed by https://mindstalk.dreamwidth.org/580331.html and https://mindstalk.dreamwidth.org/580398.html
And yeah, those 7 markets definitely have some monopolistic competition going on. Basic supermarket, Whole Foods, maybe Whole Foods for people who don't want Whole Foods (Sprout), Japanese, 'natural' (also that one is by far the closest to me, 4 minutes), produce... I dunno what niche Andronico's might have.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-11-22 05:40 (UTC)From:Yeah, it depends on the size of the store. A super-WalMart is a lot bigger than an ordinary grocery store, and some independent groceries are pretty small, before you even get down to the specialty ones. We were at Ashar today, which is an African specialty grocery, and is not much bigger than my living room (smaller than the living-dining greatroom actually).
I looked up Bismarck, the town closest to my parents' place. Population is 579. It's walkable. In fact I used to walk a couple miles home from the junior high. At that time it had a decent little grocery store, smaller than most convenience stores, plus a dairy that would sell you fresh flash-pasteurized milk. Both are now long gone, which means people have to drive half an hour to Danville for all shopping. I think that sucks.
But over in Mattoon, a considerably bigger town, the My Store (a small grocery) where my grandparents liked to shop is still open. Sometimes we get a few things from there which aren't easily found elsewhere. And it's probably still supported by foot traffic, as well as folks driving in from farther away.
I think it's interesting to look at the kinds and sizes of stores that a place supports. Champaign-Urbana (where we were today) has an African store, used to be a Mexican one there but I think there's one in a different place, at least one Asian, an international food store that has repeatedly outgrown its space over, hmm, 30 years or so, etc. Arcola's just a small town but it had a Mexican grocery store for a while, because there were lots of Mexican folks there; still has a couple good Mexican restaurants. And those local stores don't suck money out of the economy the way WalMart or other chainstores do.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-11-22 07:17 (UTC)From:In retrospect I was surprised that Mallaig Scotland, population 900, managed to support a Co-op supermarket. Though some people may come in from islands or further farms to also shop there. But people have to eat something.
In Osaka I think there at least 4, probably 5, supermarkets within a 12 minute walk of me. Probably not 'subsidized' much by car traffic; the closest one didn't even have parking, and the next two were at best adjacent to a garage, while being in the basement themselves; not exactly "roll shopping cart to car". They were also in a giant train station... oh god, there might have been another one across the street, in the other train station. 3 supermarkets in one intersection.
I remember counting supermarkets around Cambridge/Somerville but didn't record my work. Trying to replicate it, I get 14-15,000 per market; 11,000 if I'm forgetting a few more.
[Edit: my work was in an old comment, and yes I was forgetting several. So more like 12,500 per. https://mindstalk.dreamwidth.org/580398.html?thread=754222#cmt754222 ]
Anyway, for my models of walkable city neighborhoods, I think using the average numbers was fine. A store with lots of options and good economy of scale probably does need a good customer base, even if you can have a surprisingly nice 'corner store' in affluent neighborhoods like here or in Vancouver.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-11-22 08:24 (UTC)From:Been there, done that. :/
>>US and Japan both had 2100 people per convenience store. (Japan's are much better.) Two sources said Japan has either 6000 or 24000 people per super, I'm guessing different definitions of 'supermarket'.<<
Yeah, it's really hard to research things where there's no fixed definition. I see that a lot.
>>In retrospect I was surprised that Mallaig Scotland, population 900, managed to support a Co-op supermarket. Though some people may come in from islands or further farms to also shop there. But people have to eat something.<<
Yeah, part of it depends on how far it is to the next store. If there's only one, that's where people shop. Even tiny villages in Alaska usually have a store, although they're notorious for banning people who take pictures of the prices.
>>3 supermarkets in one intersection.<<
Wow.
>>Anyway, for my models of walkable city neighborhoods, I think using the average numbers was fine.<<
I agree. But it's a topic most people don't talk about, and you gave such interesting examples!
>> A store with lots of options and good economy of scale probably does need a good customer base, even if you can have a surprisingly nice 'corner store' in affluent neighborhoods like here or in Vancouver.<<
True. The more people, and the closer they are, the bigger a store they can support; or they could support several different stores like an average grocery, a cheap grocery, and an ethnic specialty.
I'm interested in walkability because there are so many different ideas and definitions of it. And then I bring it up on my blog and my disabled readers talk about how it means something different -- and sometimes hostile or dangerous -- to them personally. It also comes up when I'm comparing local-Earth cities to ones in various fictional settings. I've had some fun with lists of what businesses every town needs, and that really plays into walkability on a small or large scale. How many different things can you reach in an average walk, or bike ride? And then how is that different for someone pushing a stroller, or with a broken ankle, in a wheelchair, etc.?
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-11-22 19:36 (UTC)From:"so many different ideas and definitions of it"
Including what I think of as misconceptions. The idea that I'm used to among urbanists is simply that you should be able to live well without a car, including having most of your daily needs _other than a job_ within a 15 minute walk. It's nice if you can get your job too, but many jobs clump by specialty and can't be spread out like convenience stores. Likewise there should be school options in range, but possibly not everyone's best school option.
So, Manhattan and Tokyo are walkable.
But some people think it means "you can walk everywhere" and thus get drawn into the size of places. "Of course a big city can't be walkable, it's too big!" That's not what we mean.
Though then there's the tourist definition, of "is everything I'd be interested in, walkable; I don't care about those residential areas beyond range".
Disabilities is a complex subject, though often it seems like disabled people get pulled in as a human shield. "You want to reduce parking? WELL WHAT ABOUT THE DISABLED???" Except many disabled people _can't drive_ because of their disability (or because of their lack of income). While the Youtube channel Not Just Bikes has a nice video about how Dutch bicycle infrastructure serves many disabled who use bike-alternatives (tricycles, handcycles) or electric mobility scooters.
As for bikes and my density models, woo. Even a very slow bike speed (6 MPH, I'm not sure that's even stable) can quadruple the area reachable in time. 9x if 9 MPH. In principle you could have pretty low density that's still livable without a car, because of everyone using bikes (or equivalents) -- like if you need 12,000 people/km2 for a really good walkable area, you could cut that to 1333 -- like Phoenix or Atlanta -- with bikes. Kind of like car living but with much less space needed for roads and 'parking', so I guess lots more green space. Maybe less urban parts of the Netherlands or Japan are like this.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2022-11-22 20:38 (UTC)From:Oh well, if it's a transit hub, that changes the standards. Then its service footprint isn't the local area, but rather the transit hub's service area. People will buy stuff on their way home. And that's the kind of thing that makes urban planning so complicated -- the patterns don't apply the same way everywhere.
Transit hubs are great places for maximum density and walkability though. Some cities have special zoning for them to encourage high-density housing, retail, and business. Because then not only can people walk to work or services if they want to, the transit hub means they can easily get to other places at need, and when far-flung folks travel inward, they can do a ton of stuff in one place. It's a huge savings of traffic and pollution.
Omaha, Nebraska has a pretty good transit network for this world. It has a downtown, but also a bunch of transit hub, each with its own cluster of stuff around it like a mini-downtown. That's a good model for big sprawling cities, because it reduces the need for people to cross the whole damn city.
>>Including what I think of as misconceptions.<<
Yeah, the misconceptions are bothersome.
>> The idea that I'm used to among urbanists is simply that you should be able to live well without a car, including having most of your daily needs _other than a job_ within a 15 minute walk. <<
I've seen it said that you should be able to do 80-90% of things without a car, because at that level, borrowing instead of renting is feasible. You can get a taxi, Lyft, Zipcar, catch a ride with a friend, etc.
>>It's nice if you can get your job too, but many jobs clump by specialty and can't be spread out like convenience stores.<<
I believe people should put serious thought into the job aspect, because that really affects the built environment and vice versa. Among the important points:
* There's a trend toward jobs that can be done anywhere, because shifting technology increases the range of jobs that can be done at home, and decreases or even eliminates some jobs that used to require a central facility. So then that needs support.
* Housing should include job-friendly things like:
-- Homes with an office or nook or garage that could be used for a home business.
-- Live-work spaces with office/retail below and one or more apartments above. (This used to be the norm.)
-- Mixed-use buildings with retail below topped by offices and/or apartments.
-- Apartment complexes or trailer parks with workspace built in like a craft shed or row of offices that residents can rent.
-- At maximum density, vast cityscrapers that are like a microcosm unto themselves with layers of retail, services, business, housing, recreation, a bank, a clinic, etc.
* Zoning needs to account for mixed-use neighborhoods, because segregation was the dumbest idea America came up with. Only noxious things like power plants or meat-packing facilities should be placed far from people.
That's not going to allow everyone to work close to home, but will facilitate it for people who wish to do that. Without those supports, walkability doesn't work very well. The same supports that make the neighborhood possible to work in also increase the reasons people would want to walk around it to do stuff.
>> Likewise there should be school options in range, but possibly not everyone's best school option.<<
Agreed. I like the neighborhood plans that have a core (school, church, other neighborhood facilities) and then the outer corners have shopping and transit access. The grid system helps a lot too.
>>But some people think it means "you can walk everywhere" and thus get drawn into the size of places. "Of course a big city can't be walkable, it's too big!" That's not what we mean.<<
Good urban planning is fractal. I've seen really good examples in parks, ranging from small pocket parks that only offer 1-2 things through neighborhood parks that offer a dozen or so to big city parks that may have a hundred perks -- all based on a combination of size and user base.
Walkability has different aspects:
* Local, what a person can reach from their home.
* Transit hub, how easy it is to reach one and how many walkable places people can get to once they're in the mass-transit system.
* Destination, what a person can reach after traveling to a dense area like downtown or a car-free promenade.
The most walkable cities combine all of those aspects. But you can have a useful level of walkability with less, and usually people start with less then work up to more.
>>Though then there's the tourist definition, of "is everything I'd be interested in, walkable; I don't care about those residential areas beyond range".<<
That's an important aspect for places that focus a lot on tourism, whether they are small or large. I've seen a very interesting variation in massive tourist-focused places where they use golf carts instead of gas cars, including service vehicles like security and ambulances. It covers a big area easier than walking or biking (especially if it's hot out) but keeps the transit speed low enough for collisions to be rare and survivable.
>>Disabilities is a complex subject, though often it seems like disabled people get pulled in as a human shield. "You want to reduce parking? WELL WHAT ABOUT THE DISABLED???" Except many disabled people _can't drive_ because of their disability (or because of their lack of income). <<
This comes up pretty much whenever I discuss walkability/bikeability in my blog, because I have readers with diverse disabilities (mobility, dexterity, vision, etc.). So for instance ...
* Walkability/bikeability also supports wheeled travel (electric or manual wheelchairs, walkers, strollers, etc.).
* BUT distance is a huge factor. Some folks can only walk a few yards at a time. So walkability has to include plentiful benches, with real seats that folks can lie down on if they get dizzy or need to change a baby.
* Completely car-free places don't actually work well, not just because disable folks need door-drop access, but for deliveries. Nobody wants to move a weekly inventory refill 1/4 in handcarts. O_O And you need access for emergency service vehicles like police or ambulances, and municipal service ones like garbage trucks. So a good approach is to have the front/outside of a block walkable, with the back and/or alley drivable. I've seen neighborhood designs with promenandes for pedestrians along one or more streets, and the other parts are drivable.
* Parking is an issue that can be solved in various ways.
-- A large parking lot or garage at each end of a promenade or other walkable area, preferably with shuttle service between them so you can walk from your car to the far end then ride back.
-- Car-low neighborhoods with limited parking spaces for residents to rent.
-- Mass-transit hubs with space to store cars, and assorted last-mile options.
-- Bike racks everywhere, including garages or cages for bigger or more expensive things like trikes.
-- Free transit (e.g. bus pass, ride service) for everyone who can't drive including youth, seniors, and the disabled.
-- Back access with a few parking spaces can cover multiple needs including emergency access, delivery access, and door-drop disabled access.
-- Car-low rather than car-free walkable areas can put their few parking spaces in front, and it's not too noisy or risky if the street is relatively narrow and low-traffic.
America has massively overbuilt its parking in many areas, although some have a shortage. This desperately needs to be adjusted for real use. But reduced parking does not mean "everyone has to walk 1/4 mile."
>>While the Youtube channel Not Just Bikes has a nice video about how Dutch bicycle infrastructure serves many disabled who use bike-alternatives (tricycles, handcycles) or electric mobility scooters.<<
Definitely need to incorporate access for those.
>>As for bikes and my density models, woo. Even a very slow bike speed (6 MPH, I'm not sure that's even stable) can quadruple the area reachable in time. 9x if 9 MPH. <<
The better models I have seen use two or more circles in different colors to show the walkshed and bikeshed, or to show different times of trip and how far they go. My disabled readers would like to have a tool that is adjustable so you could key in your personal abilities and limits, then it would show your personal range.
>> In principle you could have pretty low density that's still livable without a car, because of everyone using bikes (or equivalents) -- like if you need 12,000 people/km2 for a really good walkable area, you could cut that to 1333 -- like Phoenix or Atlanta -- with bikes. Kind of like car living but with much less space needed for roads and 'parking', so I guess lots more green space. Maybe less urban parts of the Netherlands or Japan are like this.<<
Much of the world is like this! There are even pockets in America. I live about 15 minutes from an Amish community. It is full of bikes, trikes, and buggies and it's not even particularly dense. Parts of it are on small-town scale but we usually drive to the places we want to reach. The Amish are biking those distances.
So layering really matters in designing a human-scale town or city. Walk locally, bike rather farther out, and use mass-transit to cross longer distances. That greatly reduces the need for cars, which lowers traffic, which means you don't need to waste so much space on parking/roads, plus it lowers pollution and improves health.