Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America is a book that pledges the importance of city planning and believes that the deliberate, methodical structure that we give to where we live will reflect back into how we live our lives. Jeff Speck, author of the book and esteemed city planner, claims that one of the most important features of city planning should be the city’s accessibility to pedestrians, a feature Speck sees as being largely and mistakenly ignored in today’s more car-focused era. He states that walkability will not only help us, the people living in these cities and towns, but also ultimately help the environment for the better. Speck makes abundantly clear of the importance of lifestyle changes in his book, but I believe there
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It seems that the meaning of being so called ‘green’, in today’s society, is the collection of these ‘green’ inventions. Speck includes a quote from Witold Rybczynski stating that “rather than trying to change behavior to reduce carbon emissions, politicians and entrepreneurs have sold green-ing to the public as a kind of accessorizing” (56). Being environmentally conscious has become a form of gadget collection made exclusive to those who can afford to deck out their homes with extraneous features that make little to no tangible difference with regards to the environment. Speck himself even admits to buying into this idea at first, but ultimately pledges that it is changes in lifestyle that are the most important for change. Making a conscious decision to live in an environment where you do not have to use a car to get around is unbelievably more effective in reducing your carbon output than any alternative. Speck does a good job at challenging the comfort level of Americans and their complacency with this ‘gadget collection’ …show more content…
He presents data that confirms that the price of houses in a city that has a hiring ‘walkability’ score is higher than those in a city that has a lower score. Most notably he shows a piece of data from a study done by Joe Cortright that “[Cortright] found that an increased Walk Score form the metropolitan average of 54 (somewhat walkable) to 71 (very walkable) correlated with an increase in average house price from $218,000 to $314,000” (27). And when Speck talks about this, it makes it very clear that he seems this correlation as an entirely good thing, that the rise in property value will only bring more money into the local economy and allow for better neighborhoods. What he doesn’t address is that this rise in housing price will gentrify these communities, and cause people who will not be able to afford a rise in their rent to be driven out into the streets. If Speck does see this displacement of the lower class as a necessary evil to make neighborhoods ‘better’, then he should make it more clear in his book on how to combat this gentrification, because his lack of acknowledgment for these people altogether leads me to believe that he thinks that it is an unavoidable
It seems that the meaning of being so called ‘green’, in today’s society, is the collection of these ‘green’ inventions. Speck includes a quote from Witold Rybczynski stating that “rather than trying to change behavior to reduce carbon emissions, politicians and entrepreneurs have sold green-ing to the public as a kind of accessorizing” (56). Being environmentally conscious has become a form of gadget collection made exclusive to those who can afford to deck out their homes with extraneous features that make little to no tangible difference with regards to the environment. Speck himself even admits to buying into this idea at first, but ultimately pledges that it is changes in lifestyle that are the most important for change. Making a conscious decision to live in an environment where you do not have to use a car to get around is unbelievably more effective in reducing your carbon output than any alternative. Speck does a good job at challenging the comfort level of Americans and their complacency with this ‘gadget collection’ …show more content…
He presents data that confirms that the price of houses in a city that has a hiring ‘walkability’ score is higher than those in a city that has a lower score. Most notably he shows a piece of data from a study done by Joe Cortright that “[Cortright] found that an increased Walk Score form the metropolitan average of 54 (somewhat walkable) to 71 (very walkable) correlated with an increase in average house price from $218,000 to $314,000” (27). And when Speck talks about this, it makes it very clear that he seems this correlation as an entirely good thing, that the rise in property value will only bring more money into the local economy and allow for better neighborhoods. What he doesn’t address is that this rise in housing price will gentrify these communities, and cause people who will not be able to afford a rise in their rent to be driven out into the streets. If Speck does see this displacement of the lower class as a necessary evil to make neighborhoods ‘better’, then he should make it more clear in his book on how to combat this gentrification, because his lack of acknowledgment for these people altogether leads me to believe that he thinks that it is an unavoidable