Urbanist Richard Florida writes in CityLab about a new report from the George Washington University School of Business regarding the effects of walkable places on the wealth and equity of U.S. metro areas. Cincinnati is rated #18 of the 30 metros studied and is ranked in the "lower-middle walkable urbanism" grouping, the second lowest of four tiers.
Florida explains that the report ranks walkability for America’s 30 largest metros using data on 619 walkable urban neighborhoods based on their high walk scores and large concentrations of office and/or retail space. It then examines the connection between metro walkability and factors like economic development (based on GDP per capita), educational attainment (the share of adults with college degrees) and social equity (based on housing and transportation costs, as well as the number of jobs near a given residence).
"While walkable neighborhoods occupy only one percent of land mass across the 30 largest metros, they account for the majority of office and multi-family rental development," Florida writes. "Between 2010 and 2015, the market shares of walkable urban places increased in all 30 metros, with 27 metros seeing their growth double since 2010."
The top-ranked tier of walkable cities includes (in order) New York City; Washington, D.C.; Boston; Chicago; San Francisco; and Seattle. Other cities ranked in the same tier as Cincinnati are Cleveland, Detriot, Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, Kansas City and St. Louis.
Read the full CityLab story
here.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.