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Category sprawl

Neighborhood Walkability Scores

A recent Wall Street Journal blog post refers to a website called Walk Score. Walk Score will let you know the walkability of a neighborhood based on the address you type in. The site also features ranking of cities and neighborhoods. Here are the city rankings: 1. San Francisco, CA 2. New York, NY 3. Boston, MA 4. Chicago, IL 5. Philadelphia, PA 6. Seattle, WA 7. Washington D.C. 8. Long Beach, CA 9. Los Angeles, CA 10.Portland, OR I assume San Francisco beat New York, because New York City includes the less walkable areas such as Staten Island. I can brag that I have lived in 3 of the top 4 most walkable cities: New York, Chicago, and Boston. (although I actually lived right accross the river in Cambridge, which I think still counts) I was also pleasantly surprised at how many of Milwaukee’s neighborhoods ranked above 90. How It Works Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle—not how pretty the area is for walking. What does my score mean? Your Walk Score is a number between 0 and 100. Here are general guidelines for interpreting your score: 90–100 = Walkers’ Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car. 70–89 = Very Walkable: It’s possible to get by without owning a car. 50–69 = Somewhat Walkable: Some stores and amenities are within walking distance, but many everyday trips still require a bike, public transportation, or car. 25–49 = Car-Dependent: Only a few destinations are within easy walking range. For most errands, driving or public transportation is a must. 0–24 = […]

$5 Gas and Commuting Costs

Environmental and Urban Economics – Commuting Cost Arithmetic When people work in the suburbs, will they save many gallons of gasoline if they move to the center city? Yes, they will be closer to their center city friends and stores but they will still need to reverse commute by car to their jobs (unless they can ride the Google Bus from Center City San Fran to Mountainview). So this raises the question of whether high gas prices will push employers to move back to the center city? Employers who need land (think of Google) will be unlikely to want to rent out 35 stories of a skyscrapper. Total One Way commute cost = price of a gallon of gas + hourly wage Case #1: you make minimum wage = 5 + 7 = 12 and the share of expenditure on gas = 5/12 Case #2: Ivy League graduate = 5 + 100 = 105 and the share of expenditure on gas = 5/105 So this simple example highlights how the wage can swamp the price of gas for the high skilled but for the less educated, gas is a huge part of the commute cost. Interesting point. CBDs tend to attract highly talented workers, who tend to earn higher salaries. So, will those people have the incentive to move closer? Probably not much. However, there are plenty of middle wage workers who commute to CBDs, and may be tempted to locate closer. But, a firm that desires to attract the most talented workers will most likely locate in the CBD anyway. Thus, I wouldn’t expect as much difference in firm location preference, compared with the shifts in housing location preference. Those who work in suburban locations may end up moving closer to their jobs, making living patterns more compact near […]

Krugman: Stranded in Suburbia

Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed this morning how the US living and transportation patterns will not cope with high oil prices as well as European cities: Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than cars. Long after today’s S.U.V.’s have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in subdivisions built when gas was $1.50 or less a gallon. Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access. Over the long-run the US can adapt it’s living patterns to expensive oil by curbing it’s habit of subsidizing roadways. However, only if density restrictions soften accordingly. If drivers were responsible for the full costs of their location and transportation decisions, they would gradually locate to more European-like locations. This will naturally increase the demand for transit. Private investment and entrepreneurship under such conditions should be able to provide innovative solutions to the chicken-and egg problem Krugman is concerned about.

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