Consider how a pedestrian could navigate each of these urban layouts - one is more permeable than the other! A good walking environment is about more than density - its about whether its desirable to walk, of which density is one influencing factor, along with good design, safety, shade/shelter and the general quality of the urban environment...
Of course it takes time to redesign a city and roll back sprawl - that's why we can and should start now! Ecocity Builders has been working on the 'how-to' of this for decades...
Excerpt from Worldchanging, 29 September 2009
'...neighborhood design exerts a powerful influence on how much driving we do. Living in a mixed-use neighborhood - with a mixture of single family homes and multi-family housing, with some stores, transit, and other services nearby - might cut the average person's driving by perhaps a third to a half, compared with car-dependent sprawl.
Living in an even more compact urban neighborhood, with lots of stores and jobs within walking distance, might cut per capita driving by a half to two-thirds, or perhaps more.
At the level of an entire metropolis, the effects of compact design can be signficant...
And yet the study also notes that land use can't change overnight...[but] the fatalistic view of land use - essentially, that changing land use is just too much hard - is not merely unhelpful, but unethical. Rather than bemoan how hard it is to make progress, I'd rather buckle down and get to work.'
Living in an even more compact urban neighborhood, with lots of stores and jobs within walking distance, might cut per capita driving by a half to two-thirds, or perhaps more.
At the level of an entire metropolis, the effects of compact design can be signficant...
And yet the study also notes that land use can't change overnight...[but] the fatalistic view of land use - essentially, that changing land use is just too much hard - is not merely unhelpful, but unethical. Rather than bemoan how hard it is to make progress, I'd rather buckle down and get to work.'
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