Quote:
Originally Posted by ILUVSAT
Please specifically define "walkable density" in your terms.
The capitol is one mile from Lady Bird Lake. UT extends at least another 2 miles north of there. Austin is not New York or Chicago...but, it's [I]urban core[/u] is pretty darn dense (and walkable) for a city of almost 2.4 million people!
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Walkable density means having enough homes close together that they can support the basic amenities of daily life within a 15 minute walk. And sidewalks! Many of our neighborhood streets don't even have sidewalks!
For the purposes of my description, I'm including UT, Capitol Campus and West Campus as 'greater Downtown area' because they are not regular 'neighborhoods'. Using the Urban Transect nomenclature, they are SD (Special District) or T6 (like Downtown).
What we need are T5 and T4 neighborhoods throughout the urban core, let alone within 1 or 2 miles of the 'greater Downtown area'. For example, Plaza Saltillo is T5, but a block away is T3. Clarksville is maybe T4 in spots, but mostly T3 and Tarrytown is absolutely T3 except along Enfield and parts of Exposition. Heritage, North University, Hyde Park, mostly T3 with pockets of T4.
We are beginning to build T5 along our corridors, but the development is mostly spotty, and not very pleasant for walking for the most part. If the corridors were more continuous, and we had T4 for at least 1/4 mile from the corridors, they would be more urban.
What we need throughout the core is more development like Saltillo, Mueller, Triangle, the Grove and the Domain. Most of those are examples of the kind of T5 we need along corridors and special opportunity area like around transit stations, and the missing middle residential areas in Mueller are a good example of the kind of T4 we should have near the corridors, throughout the traditional 'neighborhoods'.
https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/tra...gram-diversity