Walkable city
by Jeff Speck · first published 2012
78% recommend22% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Argues for walkable, street-level city design with lots of facts, examples, and concrete ways forward; suits readers interested in urban planning, parking policy, and how cities can be fixed.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability. The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that's easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at. Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick. In this essential new book, Speck reveals the invisible workings of the city,
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Jeff Speck has written a great book called "Walkable City." I have nothing to do with city planning, but I found it super-interesting. https://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/d...
on “Desirable streets: where do people prefer to walk?” ↗…foundations of the building are secure - get into the bedrock, especially in earthquake zones. Whether the car parks are below or above ground is moot. That said - The High Cost of Free Parking (1) and The Walkable City (2) are both excellent reads on the matter of parking and car parks. The second is the more readable. (1) http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/1... (2) http://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/dp...
on “Apartment Blockers: Parking Rules Raise Your Rent” ↗Check out The Walkable City by Jeff Speck or Suburban Nation. I believe both of those books touch on the lack of use of parking spaces. Especially with city codes requiring a certain number of spaces for businesses or residential…
on “Parking Lots Are a Waste of Space” ↗A great book that was recently released that talks about how to "fix" cities is Walkable City by Jeff Speck. Very compelling read. http://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/dp...
on “The sorry state of neighbourhood design in America: a mother writes” ↗I recommend this book as relevant to your interests: http://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/dp... Speck is kinda acerbic, but if you can get past this, his points are very good.
on “I Wasn’t Prepared to Work” ↗…stuff which makes cars the only option. Why does this matter? Because the government is choosing how we build our cities and they are choosing cars. It is not the free market. Check out Jeff Speck "Walkable City" for lots of facts, examples, and ways forward.
on “Negative effects of driving and living near traffic” ↗…have tests of taste, we have tests of science or even tourism to help inform what people actually enjoy. [1] No affiliation at all but I find Ann's work to be incredibly interesting. It's sort of the Walkable City by Jeff Speck, but for architecture: https://www.routledge.com/Cognitive-Architecture-Designing-f...
on “Do people prefer traditional architecture?” ↗According to Jeff Speck (https://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/d...) 1 way streets have a negative economic impact for the business that line those streets. Which I think makes intuitive sense. Anyway, that doesn't matter in C:S, but it probably…
on “New Cities” ↗…the cross-pollination you speak of. I would expect this results in zones of high quality surrounded by the mortar of low quality areas. Incidentally, I picked up this book today: http://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/dp... I haven't read it yet and thus cannot recommend it.
on “Why aren't younger Americans driving anymore?” ↗I mentioned these books below, but they serve as a reasonably comprehensive answer to this question: * http://www.amazon.com/Walkable-City-Downtown-Save-America/dp... (Warning: Speck's tone is pretty bad.) * http://www.amazon.com/Happy-City-Transforming-Through-Design...
on “What Snow Tells Us About Creating Better Public Spaces” ↗New York City is one of the safest place to be a pedestrian. See the "AMERICAN CAR-NAGE" section of Jeff Speck's Walkable City https://books.google.com/books?id=kbfeAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA37&ots=...
on “How Children Lost the Right to Roam in Just 4 Generations” ↗It's more likely due to Massachusetts' high degree of urbanization. Urban areas have slower traffic. Slower traffic is less deadly. See Jeff Speck's "AMERICAN CAR-NAGE" passage in Walkable City: https://books.google.com/books?id=kbfeAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA37&ots=...
on “The day I accidentally killed a little boy” ↗…driving public sharing a mindset with a few journalists at big papers: much of the congestion, which acted as the only reasonable limit to speed on our very dangerous roads, has gone missing. Jeff Speck (Walkable City) also recently talked about how he got suckered into the same just-so story until he heard Marohn's explanation. In podcast form: https://podcast.strongtowns.org/e/driving-went-down-fataliti... In article…
on “Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges” ↗