Baltimore so-so for walkablity?
Just how walkable are Baltimore and its suburbs? A new report from the Brookings Institution in Washington rates the nation's top 30 metropolitan areas by the number of walkable places or neighborhoods they have. Good ol' Charm City comes in 15th, with just two places -- the Inner Harbor and Fells Point -- meeting the think tank's criteria for inclusion.
While we all might be able to think of places around Baltimore that are charming to walk - my own neighborhood of Catonsville springs to mind - the ranking only includes what it considers to be places of regional significance, as focuses of employment, shopping, entertainment or culture. It also was limited to places that were at or near what the report calls "critical mass," so thriving that they do not need public or private subsidies to attract new development.
"You're in the top 15," points out the report's author, Christopher B. Leinberger, a land-use thinker and teacher with a long history as a developer. A visiting scholar at Brookings, he lives in Washington and teaches real estate at the University of Michigan.
I did question Leinberger's failure to include downtown Annapolis as a regionally significant walkable place in the Baltimore area. He acknowledged it certainly would qualify, assuming it's officially counted in the Baltimore metro area, and may even move us up in the rankings.
So, what were the most walkable cities? Our neighbor, Washington, D.C. is tops. Though New York City has more walkable places, the DC area has the most walkable places per capita, according to Leinberger. Other highly walkable cities include Boston, San Francisco, Denver, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Miami and Pittsburgh. Least walkable were Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., Cleveland, Cincinnati, Sacramento
Rail transit is often a key to walkability, according to Leinberger. Two-thirds of the 157 walkable places identified in the top 30 metro areas were served by rail. And geographically speaking, the most walkable cities tended to be in the Northeast (we're lumped in there) and on the West Coast.
Lastly, Leinberger points out that walkability is something that can be created or improved upon. He points out that Denver is one city that had no walkable centers 20 years ago, but now has five.
Batimore has lots of potential to boost its walkability, Leinberger thinks. Towson, the Charles Street corridor and East Baltimore around Johns Hopkins all could develop in ways that make them great places to be afoot sans auto, he says. Columbia could be another one, depending on how plans for building up the town center shake out.
For another take on Baltimore's walkability, pick up a copy of Charm City: A Walk Through Baltimore, by noted local novelist Madison Smartt Bell. Here's a story about it from The Sun.
Walkablity has economic importance, Leinberger contends, beyond its value for promoting urban and suburban quality of life. Without walkability, he argues, metro areas are going to lose their young people to areas with walkability, particularly those with good transit systems. And it's those Gen-Xers and young adults, he says, who are starting businesses and supporting culture and commerce.
"I'm fearful of 'A Tale of Two Metro Areas,'" Leingberger says, "those that keep their children and young adults and those that don't."
The hopeful news for Baltimore, he concludes, is that we've already got two (or maybe three) major walkable areas, a few other areas that could be made walkable, and at least the rudiments of a rail transit system.
"You've got the backbone,"he says. "It's now a matter of political will."
Perhaps this will give ammo to transit advocates here in Baltimore, who are pushing for an east-west Red Line.
Comments
I haven't actually read the report yet, although I was at the presentation at the Nat. Press Club on Tuesday.
Even in the presentation, he didn't make one point clear, that they were focusing on walkable districts that are/ potentially regionally serving retail districts, with capacity for infill and other redevelopment.
In the presentation, neighborhoods like Cleveland Park and Capitol Hill DC were not listed, while places experiencing a great deal of redevelopment such as Columbia Heights and NoMa, were listed.
I wrote a blog entry about this.
Annapolis imo anyway, is only walkable at the core though. The rest isn't very walking-transit-bicycling friendly.
I really understood why nimbyism can be legitimate when going on a walking tour of annapolis at the Preservation MD conference in 2005. Because Annapolis doesn't have much of a transit _system_ people drive. And that big new development on West Street, well probably 95% of the trips made there are by car...
Posted by: Richard Layman | December 6, 2007 9:12 AM