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back to Trust the Process podcast, where we talk
about new homes, the real estate industry. construction
and everything in between. Today we are going
to talk a little bit about walkability and that's
something that we have touched on a few times.
It comes up. I feel like it's come up enough
times that it's sort of words. I think so. its
own episode. So focusing on that some of the
zoning, which is how we've talked about it in
the past subdivision stuff, kind of how that
comes into play. And there's a lot other countries
that are more walkability. And so what that means
older cities, cities, East Coast has a lot of
lots of walkability lifestyle. And some of that
I think maybe came over. With probably and, and
because some of those cities predated the car
maybe. Yeah. And we, you know, when our cities
are built around the car, which is kind of at
odds with walkability. If you think about what's
good for the car is not good for the pedestrian
in general. Right. And, and we've had a push
pull in the last hundred years and the car one.
Right. And I think a lot of that is not just
legislation or this grand conspiracy by general
motors, even though they did buy all the street
cars and the, and the Northeastern seaboard.
between them and Bridgestone Tire Company bought
and shut down the streetcar lines. A little trivia.
We only went back 100 years on that one. We usually
go back a lot farther. We're always going to
get that little tidbit of history where we can.
Walking started about two million years ago.
We came from all fours. So that's how I look
at it. As a developer, I think that the car and
the pedestrian are at odds with each other. And
although we do our best to try to do mixed use
neighborhoods or make our suburbs walkable, It's
you really need a few factors. You need the pedestrian
to feel safe. You need density. And then you
need a destination. So if you look at a walkability
score, Zillow and this third party syndication
sites have walkability scores and you'll never
really see a suburb with a walkability score
higher than in the 70s. Usually goes zero to
100. And in fact, a lot of them are under 10
or under 15. And I don't exactly know what goes
into the formula. I don't even know if it's public
information. They just kind of come up with a
walkability score. But the way I look at a Michael
walkability score is how is the density? So that
is shorthand for what's the distances between
here and where you're walking. People are only
willing to walk, you know, maybe a mile, mile
or two. You might start to see resistance at
a two mile because then it's a four mile round
trip. It's over an hour of walking. That's a
lot of walking. That's a lot. And there are times
throughout the year where you just in our city
here. Right, right, right. 110. Right. And a
mile long walk is good. Yeah, exactly. Not good
for your health. Yeah. So if you look at those
things, and then you got to look at the safety
of the pedestrian. And we talked about this in
one of our other episodes, we're talking about
a subdivision and street widths and Minimums
and you know sidewalks on both sides. So in one
in one hand the city is saying put a sidewalk
around your entire cul -de -sac Even though you're
only 300 feet from the main roads cul -de -sac
or the main streets cul -de -sac. I mean, I'm
sorry the main street sidewalk We want a sidewalk
to go this extra hundred and thirty feet. It's
really nothing I mean, I don't even know how
long it take you to walk 130 feet probably under
30 seconds, right? So I get that they're doing
the walkability there great the same breath.
They're saying your street is too narrow We're
not going to give you a waiver. We want you to
do a 47 foot wide, not a 33. Wide streets, scientifically,
are less pedestrian friendly from a psychological
standpoint. When they pull pedestrians and their
overall safety score of a certain route, its
street width is a huge Factor and people don't
even realize that they just feel it. They say
why don't I don't want to walk on this road?
I don't I don't want my kid riding his bike on
this road. I don't like it. So you look at horizontal
distance i .e. street width and then the vertical
element. So if you're hemmed in by something
tall next to you and a narrow street, that's
the most pedestrian friendly. And then it goes
out from there. The farther out, there's actually
a ratio on a YouTube channel called City Beautiful.
And he's a really, really intelligent city planner.
And he breaks it all down. I wish I could find
a link, maybe we can embed it. He has, there's
a kind of a good golden ratio. You want a certain
amount of height. Now at the same time, if you
go to lower Manhattan or financial district,
sometimes the height is too much. So the height.
You know can be overwhelming depending on but
generally speaking you're going to max out this
more than you quicker than you're going to max
this out. People will tolerate walking next 100
story office buildings more than all tolerate
400 foot wide Boulevard. They're just not going
to walk in Houston. Let's say these big wide
boulevards and they call them strode. They're
not streets. They're not roads and they're First
of all, the horizontal plane is so wide, you
don't feel comfortable. If you think evolutionary,
ooh, we are gonna go back to two million years.
Evolutionarily, I think you're more alert. You
feel like you're more on a prairie. There's more
threats to you. There's more that could come
up on you. So that horizontal element. Then the
kicker of this is, since the invention of the
car, that horizontal element now involves 3 ,000
pound, 4 ,000 pound. Four -wheeled vehicles with
people driving texting and going 35 45 miles
an hour going faster because it's wider Those
like them. Yeah, exactly. You feel like you can
I mean you're you just naturally do you go down
into old East Coast cities or in Europe they
have streets with trees between the street and
the sidewalk then the sidewalk and then there's
a Four or five -story building next to that the
drivers just drive slower and then as many times
there's cars parked on both sides drive slower,
everything there is queuing the driver to slow
down, and therefore making the pedestrian feel
safer. So if you look at those factors, so you
can have virtually queuing. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Right. And it was it was a function of these
were designed for horses and carriages. And now
we're trying to fit cars on them. So what was
a haphazard retrofit actually ended up to make
some really great walkable cities. Then with
that, With these roads and everything being narrower
and different zoning laws or no zone zoning laws.
So many of these cities were built. You stacked
everything was stacked, especially after I would
have invented the elevator more history. Uh,
this one's full of all the ones that were our
previous episodes. I've been slipping a little
bit. I think I'm trying to pack them all in here.
And I did not think an episode on walkability
would have so much history in it, but When Otis
invented the elevator, we could start stacking
up and it became a status symbol to live on the
top floors versus a status symbol to live on
the ground level or the mezzanine level. Penthouse
is kind of an invention of the 1870s onward.
The Dakota apartment building in New York City
was one of the first that had a penthouse and
it was planned around a square and they kind
of created a park space in the middle and I don't
know how tall the Dakota was. I think it was
maybe in the 20s floors. And I think it was built
in the late 1890s and through the 20s was kind
of a Tatey, the Gilded Age and all that in the
growing 20s. And that was a status symbol to
leave your uptown. Townhouse and live in a high
-rise in the penthouse So anyway moral the story
is you had tall buildings that hemmed in your
visual cues And you didn't have minimum street
widths because it just weren't designed. It was
no need to conceive of it it's probably designed
to be a sidewalk a market stall and wrote room
for a Horse, you know in the original lower Manhattan
and Philadelphia and Boston That's kind of how
they would have been laid out and most of the
cities in Europe laid out that way. So it was
just a recipe to be walkable because that is
the default for civilization was to walk to your
destination. So it's no, what we're living in
now is the abomination. What we're living in
now is the abnormality, right? So we're trying
to correct that. That's a push, I would say from
the nineties onward, maybe even later, this whole
idea of mixed use, this whole idea of neighborhood
centers, you know, Green Valley Ranch has done
it or Yeah, Green Valley Ranch. Yeah, they tried.
Right. Even the downtown, you know, that revitalization.
Yeah. And a lot of these. Yeah. Above. Right.
And hope. But again, it doesn't catch because
there's not enough. So what we've done here,
it's been a commercial endeavor because it's
easier to zone single use. So the commercial
is generally highest and best use of a piece
of land. If it can do it, if it can sustain it,
commercials are way better return on your investment.
for the same development costs, right? Because
it is a rarer zoning classification and you have
to have the demand for it. So you have to have
the traffic and the roads. So you get this commercial
center, downtown Summerlin and parts of downtown
revitalization districts nationwide, Tivoli,
those kinds of places. They're commercial centers
first. They're not there's not a residential
component to it. Not not particularly. So that's
because especially not first. It's it's just
so challenging to mix that use and mix a residential
building that has a commercial component to it.
East Coast, you can find that all day long. They're
all grandfathered in. It's really common back
there. So without that mix mixture of uses, you
don't have the destinations. So why would someone
go drive, park their car and then walk around
the commercial under they do it, we do it all
the time. But it's not full walkability. There's
still a car component to it. They're still off
shoot parking and parking garages and things
like that. Don't get me wrong. I still think
that's a better iteration of a retail center
than a shopping mall in my opinion. Just my opinion.
I think it feels it breathes better. It lives
better. Um, it's not climatized, which is weird
because you could argue that we started there
and we went to malls because they're climatized,
but people like outdoor shopping. So until we
start mixing that, we're not going to see walkability
in the suburbs. And you look, Oh, throughout
the country, even in new development on the East
Coast. DC is notorious for having this outside.
I think it's in Arlington or maybe even a suburb
of Arlington. And they've tried to catch these
multi -family mixed use. Florida's big on it.
It just doesn't land. And it's not associated
oddly enough with status. So I think that's part
of it too. I think people see you aspire to be
spread out. You aspire for low density. You start
in an apartment, you end at a house. Maybe you
circle back to a condo when you're old age, right?
But I feel that it's culturally too. You aspire
to have a home on a half acre, a quarter acre.
You aspire to have that. So we don't have that
aspirational aspect of it on the mixed use, which
until we do that, until we have a mixture of
incomes, mixture of housing products, a mixture
of uses, a mixture of intensities. You know,
is this an intensely zoned? retail center is
it kind of just got some retail like how you
downtown Santa Barbara or something where you'd
say okay there's a little shop or Sedona or something
pretty low impact right but until we see that
I don't think we're going to see it the market's
going to have to want it before this the political
pressure is going to be there to allow it so
I think it's a chicken does zoning prohibit that
or does it encourage is there In our city and
in most cities, you have to do an assemblage.
So you have to get a big enough parcel. Usually
it's around 25 acres, they have it declassified.
So you can have a planning unit development as
small as five acres and then 10. When you're
looking at commercial would be a neighborhood
center and then a power center and then, you
know, you kind of go up, there's actually cutoffs
for them on a parcel size. So until you get to
mixed use, you really have got to get up to around
that 25 to 50 acres. So now you're looking at
a developer who can take that kind of project
on very capital intensive, and they're pulling
in multiple specialties. So generally, you have
one developer that's really great at developing
office complexes, one that's really great at
developing commercial neighborhood centers, power
centers, and then a residential developer that's
pretty good to me decently good mediocre at developing
residential maybe So it's hard to get all those
combined and think that where it's worked really
well. There's a couple examples in Florida where
it's worked pretty well. One maybe land developer,
similar to how we have a master plan here, they'll
develop the idea, the parks, the other amenities,
and sell the individual parcels to homebuilders.
So you'll see that there's the one in DC I was
mentioning, they bought the big acreage, and
sold to the office to people that do offices
really well sold to commercial those and so on
and so forth. invented those builders to say,
okay, you're going to build a multifamily product
who told brothers is really good at building
luxury multifamily product. KB is good at building
and when I was good at building the entry level
multifamily product, and they kind of bring in
that assortment of offerings and capture and
lean on that builder to have a financial incentive
to say, we're going to brand this as an aspirational
place to be. We're going to say you can aspire
for a condo because it's a $2 million condo is
very luxurious. You have amenities that you're
not going to get in a single family home. So
I think that We're getting there and maybe maybe
the future is a mixture of everything like it
has been the last 20 years has been a mixture
of everything predominantly single family zoning.
What do you see apartments that surround I'm
thinking about summerland center in specific
there's there are apartments nearby that you
write it in that kind of give that it's not necessarily
in the center but. That's not purchase it's not
home so right purchase right so you have that
community field yeah so you're you know you've
got a very transient and again people look at
apartments as transient and you aspire to be
somewhere else so you have to build an aspirational.
aspect of it so and i don't think necessarily
that we have to do something i'm passionate about
but i live in the most non -walkable uh suburb
that you know i could pick in an already pretty
much unwalkable city so look what i chose i mean
it's it's fun i mean i'm not saying everyone
should live like that i just feel like it'd be
neat if we saw more of it and i think it would
lead to more vibrant cities and also the city
that takes up a lot less land when you think
about how big las vegas could get phoenix could
get When, if you zoned it, even with the missing
middle that we talked about in the previous podcast,
you doesn't only need to be zoned downtown. But
what about that missing middle, that mid -rise,
that four to eight story, a lot of mixed juice.
You could fit a lot of amenities and a lot of
people. And then, so let's say every morning
I get up and go to Orange Theory, right? And
that is a trip. But if I lived in a walkable
area, I'd walk to it. So yeah, you got a lot
of people and you'd say, oh, what about traffic,
traffic, traffic? Yeah, but some of my trips,
if there was a grocery store, a lot of my trips
would be walkable. And I would have our office,
which is actually really close to my home. I
have to drive there. I can't I mapped I couldn't
walk it. I have to cross have to get out of my
neighborhood cross a major four lane road, then
cross an eight lane inner highway. the 215. And
then a bunch of other two lane streets with signalized
intersections and stop signs. So just it's not
it's not possible. So I think about the amount
of trips I have my trips would be cut down 30,
you know, they'd be 30 % of what they are. So
I think that that would cut down on traffic and
it'd be more sustainable. Well, we'll just see
I mean, we'll see what the next gender how the
next generation Wants to live and that's gonna
dictate it previous generations wanted to live
that way, right? You know, so that was the norm
for them. That's all they knew Yeah, maybe maybe
that's why they're not away from it because it
feels again. It's aspirational Yeah, my parents
of this I aspire to do this So I think that if
you also look at back even just a few generations
ago my grandmother still going, never go to bike
and never had driver's license. So she lives
in New York, she, she does she walks everywhere
takes the city bus, or my cousins bring her my
uncle brings her and they all take care of her.
So the idea of her living out in a suburb would
just be anathema to everything that she's ever
grown up thinking is just No, I'm not. Why would
I do that? So it's it's as crazy as putting one
of us in a You know for for walk up. Yeah, just
transportation and get you guys on the bus. She's
92 years old. She gets on the bus. That's not
just doesn't happen much. No, it doesn't happen
here as much as it does in other cities. Right.
Obviously, we don't we have I mean, over the
years, they have done a lot they have to. I think
a lot of suburban cities have Phoenix has tried
to try and increase the different routes and
then, you know, make it quicker. And it's still
isn't people's go to method for transport. No,
it's not. And then we weren't really ever laid
out that way. So it's always going to be fitting
a circle into a square because I bet you I've
never done it. But I bet you to take a bus from
anywhere around here to the center of town. would
be a 20 mile 20 minute drive for me probably
two hour bus ride multiple stops and transfers
and right you're stopping and I don't know what
they express lane I don't I don't know how that
works but I mean I just imagine it's not laid
out like that was never designed to be that way
so passionate about walkability I think a lot
of our zoning laws are at odds with it minimum
street widths and you think about our little
subdivisions and how an extra 10 feet of street,
it really adds up and it makes a city sprawl.
Minimum lot sizes, it makes it sprawl and then
sprawl breeds sprawl because then more people
need cars. So then more people want houses that
accommodate cars and streets that accommodate
cars and multigenerational living. And I love
that when a builder will build a multigenerational.
4000 square foot house with a two car garage
and a two car driveway. Where are the people
that are living in this 4000 square foot home
going to park their cars? Where are they going?
Where is grandma's living with you? Where is
she going to park? So it just I again, I think
it's it's going to be market driven. And it's
going to be maybe an evolution. And it's going
to take some public policy. It's also going to
take some loaning that some changes in lending.
Um, so if you think about how challenging it
is to get a condo loan versus a single family
home, there's so many factors that are set up
for the way that we're, that we're building and
built to this day. So I don't think it'll be
a mile. I don't think I'll be building multifamily
walkable communities. It's just not, I don't
think it would take so long for the tides to
change and for people to actually want that and
for it to be marketable. But it is an interesting
topic, and a lot of people from other cities
see it as a viable way to change things. And
so you get asked, why aren't we building more
of that? Why don't we have some of that in our
lives anymore? So yeah, worth mentioning and
a good one. And like I said, it's come up in
several of the podcasting episodes that we've
talked about. We touch on it here and there,
but so kind of diving into it a little bit further.
Thank you. Yeah, of course. It was fun to talk
about. And thank you guys for joining us and
we will see you next time on Trust the Process
podcast. Bye bye. Thanks for tuning into the
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