Designing a Walkable City

Michael Southworth, Designing The Walkable City, 131 J. Urban Planning & Devel. 246 (2005).

Michael Southworth defines “walkability” as “the extent to which the built environment supports and encourages walking by providing for pedestrian comfort and safety, connecting people with varied destinations within a reasonable amount of time and effort, and offering visual interest in journeys throughout the network.” Among the advantages of a walkable city are environmental sustainability and the promotion of physical health for the city’s residents.
Southworth offers six factors that he argues to be important for a walkable environment: (1) connectivity; (2) linkage with other modes of transport; (3) a varied land use pattern offering the essentials of daily life; (4) safety; (5) quality of path; and (6) context of path.
Connectivity requires barrier-free sidewalks with frequent intersections between pedestrian paths and small block sizes. Southworth argues that the traditional grid layout is preferred to other city layouts, such as the cul-de-sac arrangement of many suburban developments or more intricate and irregular arrangements. Berkeley’s downtown area would appear to score highly on this count, as it offers continuous, unobstructed sidewalks with frequent intersections in a grid-like pattern. Berkeley also scores highly on Southworth’s linkage requirement, as the Downtown Berkeley BART station is a short walk from all points in the “downtown” area and numerous bus lines run through the city. Berkeley also has adequate quality of path in the Downtown area, as the sidewalks are well maintained and have handicapped-friendly ramps.
On the remaining counts, however, downtown Berkeley performs less well. Southworth defines variety in land-use as easy access to the essentials of daily life, including cafes, restaurants, schools and shops. While Berkeley does offer a variety of stores and restaurants, is situated near green spaces and contains schools, the quality and utility of the stores in the downtown area is low. Poor quality restaurants and stores offering shoe or vacuum repair do not constitute tempting commercial opportunities, and the area lacks access to essentials like a grocery store. Berkeley’s downtown area contains many unlit or poorly-lit streets and a significant homeless population, contributing to a perceived lack of safety. While pedestrian crosswalks exist, many do not offer adequate time for elderly or handicapped persons to cross the wide and heavily-trafficked streets. In terms of “path context,” Southworth advocates avoiding repetitive building designs and promotes an abundance of outdoor seating and cafes, and the inclusion of trees and other natural elements. He also claims that straight streets are preferred to winding ones because they instill a perceived sense of freedom of movement. On this count Berkeley receives a middling score: although the downtown area has straight streets and contains some natural elements, there is a lack of outdoor seating and few outdoor cafés.
Interestingly, Southworth devotes no discussion to the inclusion of residential apartments in his article, although one would assume this is implicit in a walkable city. Also lacking is discussion of the area’s weather pattern, which common sense would suggest to be important and which is one of Berkeley’s strengths.

Matt Sieving