The Value of Walkable Neighborhoods

As a real estate agent I often hear people say they’d live in the city but they get more house for the money in the exurbs.  True enough, if you count number of rooms (or garage spaces), square footage and so on you do get more on the edge.  They have to offer something to get people out there. The more is more driving.

With home prices bottoming out in many areas nationally, people are looking for any way to get more for their homes. For some, there is a ray of hope….walkability. A new study says that if you want more dough for your house (tell us if anyone says no) it helps to be in a walkable neighborhood.

That’s the conclusion of the analysis from CEOs for Cities that reveals that homes in more walkable neighborhoods are worth more than similar homes in less-walkable neighborhoods.

The report, “Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities” by Joseph Cortright, analyzed data from 94,000 real estate transactions in 15 major markets provided by ZipRealty and found that in 13 of the 15 markets, higher levels of walkability, as measured by Walk Score, were directly linked to higher home values.

Key findings include:

• In 13 out of 15 metro areas studied, higher levels of walkability were directly linked to higher home values.
• In the typical metropolitan area, a one point increase in Walk Score was associated with an increase in value ranging from $700 to $3,000. Gains were larger in denser, urban areas and smaller in less dense markets.
• In the typical areas studied, the premium commanded for neighborhoods with above-average Walk Scores ranged from about $4,000 to $34,000.

(source | study-PDF)

To many of us this is common sense.  I’m willing to pay more or at least make trade offs to be in an environment where walking is an option.  Walkable inner-ring suburbs have the same relationship as the core, less house but more walkability.  You could not pay me enough money to live in the fanciest McMansion in a drivable (non-walkable) area.

Schools, ah yes, schools.  Many correctly point out that older districts suck when it comes to test scores.  Well, the sucking sound is caused by caring parents who should be contributing money & their time to established districts rather than continually creating new edge school districts.  There is value in your child having classmates from different economic classes.  The ability of your chilld to learn to walk to the store, alone, to get a loaf of bread cannot be traded for a media room.

I’m not suggesting everyone needs to live downtown.  Single family detached with a yard and everything between that and my loft is fine.  But understand that walkability adds value to homes.  By buying a home in a drivable area you are saying you don’t value walkability.  At least not enough to pay for it.

– Steve Patterson

A Small Pedestrian Victory

Friday night last week I was out later than usual.  After getting a veggie hot dog from Sam at Hot City Franks at 13th & Washington I started to head home.  At 16th I ran into a friend who was walking home to 10th Street.  It was around 11:45pm so I decided to escort her home.

On 10th Street at St. Charles Street I spotted this Chevy in front of a fire hydrant. While that is upsetting I was more upset by this car on St. Charles Street:

This Dodge was parked in the crosswalk and blocking the ADA curb cut.  I’ve blogged about cars blocking this ramp before.  It was now midnight and I call the police non-emergency number.  They had bigger issues to deal with on a Friday night.  As I sit there I realize that drivers may not realize the crosswalk exists.  The curb is faded yellow and the crosswalk is unmarked.

So from this spot at 12:05am I email the above photo to a trio of city officials to get some resolution.  I sent it to David Newburger, Commissioner on the Disabled, Todd Waeltermann, Director of Streets and Phyllis Young, Alderman for this ward (7th).  Newburger & Waeltermann both replied Saturday morning with Young replying on Monday morning.

Last night, less than a week later I pass by the same intersection and I’m pleased to see my requested crosswalk stripes.  Around the corner is a “no parking here to corner” sign as well.  So kudos to David Newburger, Phyllis Young and especially Todd Waeltermann for getting my requested solution completed.

Now I need to get this trio onto the problem one block West at 11th Street:

At this intersection a block away the crosswalk has two issues.  1) like the other it is not marked and 2) the near curb lacks a curb cut, eliminating the East side of 11th as a viable route for me.

I think to get action it is always a good idea to report a problem to more than one person.  In this case the three all knew the other two were aware of the same problem.  Many would have placed a phone call to the Alderman during the week but I think by going directly to the persons involved in a solution but making the elected representative aware helped speed up the fix.  Had I placed a phone call to Phyllis Young we probably would have played phone tag a few times, it would have been hard to verbalize the issue and then she would have had to turn around and do the same with others.  So before you pick up the telephone to contact your Alderman about a problem try contacting the department and/or Citizens Service Bureau by email, preferably with a picture of the problem.  Copy the appropriate Alderman on the correspondence so they are aware of the issue and request for service but the responsibility for action falls to a city staff person.

– Steve Patterson

Going Postal, 23rd Anniversary of Edmond OK Postal Shooting

It happened as I was preparing to start my sophomore year at the University of Oklahoma in the Oklahoma City suburb of Norman.  On the other side of the region, in Edmond, postal employee Patrick Sherrill killed 14 & wounding others before killing himself:

He was a relief carrier. He would carry different routes on different days, and was making delivery errors. He also delivered mail later than the customers were used to getting it. When people called to complain, they spoke to supervisors. On the afternoon of Aug. 19, 1986, Patrick was reprimanded by two supervisors in a glassed-in office.

On the afternoon before the killings, he approached a female clerk who had been kind to him (while most people ignored him or hassled him) and asked her if she was coming to work the next day. She replied, “Of course.” He told her she should stay home.  (Source: Wikipedia)

Locally and nationally, everyone was in shock.  Such shootings have become too commonplace over the last 23 years.  Security measures have increased.

A few months shy of nine years later was the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (Wikipedia). By that point I had been living in St. Louis for nearly four years.

Every region has tragedy.  I think we tend to forget about older tragedies as new ones happen.  So today I remember those who died in Edmond Oklahoma 23 years ago today.

– Steve Patterson

The Worst Main Street Revitalization Ideas

Main streets across this country, from big cities to suburbs to small towns, have been abused by urban planners over the second half of the 20th Century trying to find the right formula to reverse the exit to the edge.

In big cities you had white flight and schools as explanations for flight but in many small towns these reasons didn’t exist.  They didn’t have the mall on the edge of town drawing customers away from main street.  They had only the single school district.  However, many had Wal-Mart pulling customers out of the existing downtown’s.

The “solutions” were almost universal from big city CBD‘s to suburban areas to small towns.  With some exceptions these all failed:

• One-way traffic – charming main streets were turned into high speed roads to get through town.  See Collinsville IL and many others.
• Elimination of on-street parking – Saw this in Springfield MO.  A street where you could drive through but you couldn’t stop and shop.
• Pedestrian mall – a few have done well but most separated remaining customers from remaining stores.
• Indoor mall – an alternative to the open-air pedestrian mall is the enclosed indoor mall.
• Removal of projecting signs – main streets were cleansed of unique signs.  Projections were viewed as a bad thing.
• Uniform signage – uniformity was considered an asset. All businesses were encouraged to have the same font & size.
• Concrete canopies – numerous towns were sold the idea of uniform concrete canopies over the sidewalks.  Beautiful facades were bisected.
• Modernize facades – cheap modern materials covered detailed old storefronts.  Sometimes the original facade can be restored but often they are damaged beyond repair.
• Structures over roadway – Salina KS has 4-5 open grid structures over their main street.  Adds nothing but a dated look.
• Parking in rear – Many towns built excessive parking behind main street buildings.  With new rear entrances the street out front became useless.

Visuals of some of the above, all coincidentally from Kansas towns:

Agree?  Disagree?  Have additional “solutions” to add to the list?  If so, use the comments below.

– Steve Patterson

Welcome to Houston

Hello from Texas!

A little over a year into property ownership in this town in which I have been resident for two years has been an education in “development without borders.”  As many are no doubt aware, Houston, the fourth largest city in the country (a title once held by St. Louis), has no zoning laws.  In addition, the building requirements are also quite minimal.  Oh and historic preservation laws?  Hardly.  It makes for largely unregulated market-based development, and it’s interesting to see the results.

My current home is “Inside the Loop,” as we say here, which means it is inside the innermost highway ring of the city in which downtown is at the center.  As urban as the location may be, it is a far cry from the layout I grew up with in Dogtown.  My neighborhood is a redeveloped community that started turning over in the late 90’s, after Houston removed its minimum lot size restriction that had resulted in the building of tiny bungalows on huge lots for decades prior.  It was a great plan for creating the urban density the city lacks, but it left the planning of that re-creation largely up to the developers who now buy the properties, tear them down, and squeeze massive townhouses into the space like mini cul-de-sacs.

Now that my neighborhood has almost completely turned over, it is easy to see where a little guidance from the local planning commission might have prevented a few of the annoyances we currently face over things like parking, sidewalks, and utilities.  Alas, the “damage” has been done, and the residents are left to make it work somehow.  This is good, in a way.  It promotes community activism and participation in what your neighborhood becomes.  When people decide they no longer can tolerate this style of community, they will move to an area that more closely fulfills their needs.  If enough people turn away from this area, developers can tear down the current stuff and start all over with a new “product.”  Market-based planning at its finest.  It’s not very “green” but there are no rules against it, so it will happen.

It’s too early to predict how all of this will play out, so for now, I give you my neighborhood – and a couple of others later on – as they currently stand, along with the issues that come with them.

A well-kept version of the bungalows that used to dominate this neighborhood:

This is what is left of two nearby bungalows by 4 in the afternoon, after receiving demo permits that morning:

A typical townhouse cul de sac development. The prevailing design of the three story townhouse consists of two front entrances: one for the household cars and a much smaller one for the people. In some designs, the “front entrance” is on the side of the house. It is not very inviting for guests. Street parking is awkward as well, as can be seen in the following picture.

Another typical set up across from the cul de sacs – driveways on one side, narrow parking on the other. When this area started to redevelop, the city did not seem to pay any attention to the narrow streets, the awkward utilities, or the drainage options. As a result, the developers are able to build all the way up to the narrow right of way, and the residents play chicken with each other down the streets. The loser ends up in the drainage ditch or backing into the closest available driveway. There is talk of making the neighborhood streets one way and moving to permit parking. This will be an interesting issue to watch.

It’s been an interesting adjustment to change my expectations of what I think neighborhoods should have and what is provided. I’ll try to tackle a few of the areas of my neighborhood I would have liked to see done differently, plus show off a few of the other trends in other neighborhoods and a little bit of real estate politics down here as I go along. Be patient though! I also have to get your natural gas delivered safely to keep my own lights on!

– Liz Rutherford