In the U.S., Walkability Is a Premium Good

Urbanist scholars as far back as Jane Jacobs have extolled the benefits of walkable neighborhoods, though they have been notoriously hard to quantify. Now, a new report by Christopher Leinberger and Michael Rodriguez at The George Washington University School of Business takes a close look at the effects of walkable places on the wealth and equity of metros.

To do so, the report ranks walkability for America’s 30 largest metros using data on 619 walkable urban neighborhoods (based on their high walk scores and large concentrations of office and/or retail space). It then examines the connection between metro walkability and factors like economic development (based on GDP per capita), educational attainment (the share of adults with college degrees), and social equity (based on housing and transportation costs, as well as the number of jobs near a given residence).