Architecture, Civic & Community, Commercial, Landscape Architecture, Multifamily Residential
Building Walkable Neighborhoods
The walkability of neighborhoods is an important factor in community health and livability. While we see around the globe the benefits of neighborhoods that are easily traversed on foot or bike, in the U.S., many of our cities are oriented toward vehicular traffic, rather than pedestrians. So what could make our communities more walkable?
January 8, 2026
Walkability is one of the most important factors that makes a neighborhood livable. Americans love to vacation abroad in walkable places like Kyoto, Japan, Florence, Italy, and Copenhagen, Denmark. And then, ironically, return home to car-oriented lifestyles.
For many of us, this is a function of the environment we live in, not personal preference to use a car every day.
In addition to helping residents enjoy recreating in pleasant streetscapes, it makes it possible for more trips to be walked or biked instead of driven by car. Promoting pedestrian and bike transportation provides a double shot of health, encouraging physical activity while lowering air pollution.
Cities that have been around for centuries are often still very walkable due to small streets and a tight-knit grid that developed organically when walking and riding horses were the primary way to get around.
However, many American cities have only developed since the middle of the last century and are very dependent on the distance and speed that cars afford us.
Cars were the driving factor behind the creation of postwar sprawling suburbs and gave us ubiquitously car-oriented infrastructure like strip malls and drive-through eateries. None of these urban features lend themselves to walkability.
How can architects and landscape architects help create walkable neighborhoods?
Great neighborhoods are created over time, not all at once. Countless small interventions add up over decades to define a place feels and functions.
Urban planners are well-versed in the ways that city zoning and policy help create desirable neighborhoods over time, from a broad perspective.
However, many moves on the scale of individual buildings and parks contribute as critical parts of the whole. For example, a pocket park or a well-designed interface between a building and a street can help stitch together the urban fabric.
It’s not a one size fits all solution. Making neighborhoods walkable is multifactorial.
Prioritization of Pedestrians
Traffic-calming measures like narrow driving lanes, speed bumps, visual cues like bollards, narrowed travel lanes at intersections, and raised crosswalks all help pedestrians on the sidewalk stay safe.
In some cases, with enough traffic-calming measures the street itself can be reclaimed as pedestrian space, such as Occidental Avenue in Seattle.
Well-designed sidewalks are not just continuous strips of paving. Integrating landscaping and seating helps enliven the streetscape, and overhead weather protection makes it more feasible to walk in the rain.
Where the sidewalk interfaces with buildings, features like sidewalk cafes, seating, and public art help enliven the pedestrian realm.
More Housing Types
A critical mass of people living in a neighborhood is necessary to make the streets feel safe to walk, and to support community establishments like coffee shops and restaurants.
More housing types means more variety, like small apartments, large apartments, and townhouses. (See this blog post for why we need more middle housing!)
Equitable Housing
Many urban neighborhoods gentrify as they become more livable (and more walkable). Of course, a neighborhood is not walkable for the people who cannot afford to live there.
Social inequality also contributes to more carbon emissions from commuting, as people must commute from more affordable neighborhoods to more expensive neighborhoods to work in offices or service professions.
In many of our multifamily apartment projects, affordable units are provided interspersed with market-rate dwelling units.
Lots of Greenery
Trees provide shade for pedestrians and can help create a buffer between vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The best trees are those well-suited for urban environments, with plenty of open space below their canopies and don’t reduce sight lines.
Including greenery like trees also mitigates high temperatures caused by asphalt and concrete paving. It is well documented that leafy environments are beneficial to physical and mental health and give people another reason to get outdoors instead of getting in their cars.
The Right Balance Functions
When residents have easy access to a variety of recreational spaces, they don’t have to get in their car to access the things they need.
This is not limited to parks, restaurants, and coffee shops. With gyms, schools, music venues, and offices in range of walking or public transit, residents may rarely or never need a vehicle.
Ironically, many of us spend our vacations at resorts that exemplify the qualities of walkable neighborhoods.
Resorts are often designed around a tight circuit of sidewalks connecting hotel rooms with dining, recreation, and other amenities. University campuses and well-designed senior housing complexes are also great examples of self-contained walkable neighborhoods.
If we design the rest of our cities like a leafy campus quad or a well-appointed resort, will we all live like we’re on vacation all the time?
