“Walkability” is a buzzword, but like the related term “urbanism,” nobody can agree on what it means.
Is a neighborhood walkable simply if it’s easy to walk around? Or is it only walkable if all the amenities of daily and weekly life are within a mile of your house?
Plenty of websites and nonprofit organizations issue “walkability scores,” which ought to include sidewalks, crosswalks, trails, and speed limits. But should it also include parks, schools, creeks, and woods — or mostly cafes and cocktail bars?
That is, when we think of the people walking, do we include children?
Urbanism is getting plenty of attention these days, but we don’t really have an urbanism for families. Also, because urbanism is at its heart a study of how the built environment affects human behavior and interaction, it ought not ignore the suburbs, or the more suburban, sprawly parts of our cities.
A little urbanism spat flared up on X about Phoenix.
Sami Gold, a pro-Palestinian “cultural Marxist” writer with a Ukraine flag in his profile name, asked a reasonable question: “Genuinely, what is there appealing about Phoenix Arizona. Why should one live in a city that only exists due to air conditioning.”
He then posted a satellite image from Phoenix’s Paradise Valley Village — a suburban grid of rectilinear streets lined with nearly identical taupe-roofed homes and basically no trees.
“What about *this* is appealing?” Gold asked.
Lyman Stone is a pro-family pronatalist with three bison in his X profile name, and he was baffled by the Marxist’s question. Stone reframed Gold’s question as, “Why would people want to live in a dense walkable neighborhood full of nice houses with pools?”
This triggered all sorts of replies, most interestingly “Walkable to what? I don’t see any bars or restaurants or cafes in that pic. Just more houses.”
And here, the first great dividing line was clearly drawn. What is it that you want to or need to walk to from your own house?
Stone pointed out that four small neighborhood parks were visible in the frame, which included about 92 single-family homes in 18 acres. Further inspection reveals only one, rather skimpy playground among the four parks. But the bigger distinction is whether you value walking to see your friends and neighbors, or only your barista and bartender?
Another nuance: Are you the only one whose walkability from your house you care about? Or are you considering the walkability for littler people, with littler legs, whose cravings might be more for friends, basements, and backyard swimming pools than for lattes and negronis?
But the walkability problems in Paradise Valley Village don’t end with the lack of bars. A lack of shade with midday temperatures of 100 degrees in the summer might disqualify a place as walkable. And the architecture, houses whose facades are almost entirely garage doors, can turn off some front-porch-type conservatives.
Writer Shane Morris, for instance, denigrated the “endless rows of carhauses where people lock themselves up to consume miles away from the site of any productive or family-friendly activity, essentially trapping anyone who lacks a car in a culture desert.”
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Morris is a writer for the conservative Christian Colson Center and a married father. As you can see, the battle lines here are far less straight than those on East Desert Cactus Street.
What’s clear is this: Talk of “walkability” is important, but it also needs to ask “walkable to what, to whom, and by whom?”