10 steps for walkability
Walkable City, by Jeff Speck, is one of the latest books that I have read. It has taken me around 2 months to finish it (without public transport, my reading pace gets affected), and I had a good feeling after reading it. It is not the kind of book that will change your mind or make you stay awake at 3 AM. But the collection of data, the easy structure of the book, and the good examples that he gives about America will allow me to discuss why we need walkable cities with more enthusiasm and knowledge.
We need walkable cities
I experienced the suburban lifestyle from my 14th birthday to my 18th birthday. I did not come back to it until a pandemic turned social interactions into a hazard. In between, I lived in the city, though I was never able to afford a place downtown. And now, I live in a semi-urban environment where I can afford rent at the same time that I can still move by bus and bike. For me, the winner keeps being the city. Having a familiar place to have a morning coffee; a nice pub where to meet your friends; being able to walk back home, after a few beers, without any driving; finding new things to do downtown; and sleeping without remorses about the huge amounts of CO2 that are being generated by your lifestyle.
The last point might is especially important. We have duplicated the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. And still, we do not have any realistic plan to halt the emissions. When influential people are asked about it, they usually answer about green energy, electric cars or even nuclear fusion. But behind these answers, there is nothing more than the idea of preserving our lifestyle at all costs.
And honestly, I don’t understand why we need to kill the planet to save the boring and bland lifestyle of the suburbs.
A 10 steps guide for “walkability”
The book starts by trying to convince the reader about why walkable cities are the winners of the future. But, as I find in this kind of book, this is not usually necessary; if you are reading this book, is very likely that your mind is already set. Then, the book becomes a 10 steps guide to generate walkable cities. Each chapter will deal with some of the aspects that you need to care about to make cities walkable. Some of them are somehow obvious: a 10 lanes street does not invite people to cross it. But some others might be a little bit counterintuitive. For instance, many people believe that cities need many big parks that breathe for the city. However, the author argues that too many parks make the city too sparse and boring. Walkable cities are also not just about having a compact city with narrow streets. They need to provide an exciting urban landscape that makes walking not just a way of commuting but a way of living.
What I missed
Even though I’ve enjoyed the book, I was a little bit upset about the lack of content related to some of the processes that are affecting people the most in European and American cities, like gentrification and turistification. In the end, my feeling is that the book is rather a guide to turn a city more interesting than other cities than a manual for revolutionary urbanism. In many chapters, I get the feeling that the real target of walkability, as it is understood here, is to bring rich hipsters that will make urban neighborhoods too expensive for their previous owners. And it could be even worse with tourists.
An interesting example in this line is the transformation of Barcelona. Home of a deeply transformative (and sometimes negative) process starting around the Olympic games of 1992, it is a great example of gentrification and touristification. During the later years, Barcelona has introduced one of the major changes and most exciting changes in urban structure: the super-islands, whole blocks with no inner traffic. However, at the same time that I was excited about this change, it seems that some people living there were not that excited about it. According to some neighbors, these beautiful projects would bring wealthier neighbors, as digital nomads, that would be able to pay higher rent and shift the neighbors. This kind of negative effect might explain why some people have misunderstood so badly the 15-minute-city concept so badly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I find this book an interesting guide, especially in the context of American cities. It has not changed my perspective and I still need to find another book about gentrification. But it was a pleasure to read.
PD: There is a great podcast chapter of Tech Won’t Save Us that covers the topic of how cities are being designed to attract tech workers, ignoring other needs.