Density and Mixed Use
In walkable communities, local services
are primarily accessed by walking. When distances are small, say from home to a grocery
store, or from your office to a lunch spot, this journey is likely to be made on foot. Longer journeys are mostly made by
transit, but frequent transit service can only be provided when sufficient numbers of
people live, work, or shop within walking distance of each transit stop. This level of density can be achieved by limiting the
amount of land used for roads and parking, and by building two to five story buildings. Excessive
density, such as that found in Manhattan, is not necessary to achieve these goals.
A major feature of suburban
planning is zoning, or the separation of land uses into different areas. This is necessary
for certain uses, such as heavy industry, but the effect on separating residential,
retail, office and light industrial uses from one another is that one can no longer walk
from one use to another. By allowing a diverse range of uses in the same areas and
sometimes in the same buildings, walking distances are further reduced, and transit is
made more viable because the same lines are used by different people at different times of
day.
