I lived in Capitol Hill in Seattle and found it to be a very walkable lifestyle. So much so that I never used my car except to leave the city. I was walking distance to four major grocery stores, dozens of restaurants, buses, trains, etc. I would ride my bike 10ish minutes to SLU to go sailing.
It’s also worth noting that Boulder’s main downtown area is dominated by Pearl Street, on which cars are not allowed ever. Denver has 16th street running from one end of downtown to the other, the only vehicles allowed there are free shuttles.
My point isn’t that American cities are more walkable, it is that it is silly to say that they all aren’t walkable as a rule as the GP said.
Is Barcelona a more walkable city than most American ones? Yes. Are there areas in Barcelona that you would be a fool to try and walk in? Also yes.
> My point isn’t that American cities are more walkable, it is that it is silly to say that they all aren’t walkable as a rule as the GP said.
> Is Barcelona a more walkable city than most American ones? Yes. Are there areas in Barcelona that you would be a fool to try and walk in? Also yes.
My experience has been that it's matter of "what is the exception?" In Munich, most areas were (highly) walkable, areas that didn't feel walkable were an infrequent exception.
In Seattle, Capitol Hill is reasonably walkable yes, but areas like that or Belltown are the exception at least in terms of geographic area. Most parts of Seattle aren't really that walkable. They're still better than average for the US for sure, but far from great, or even good.
It's especially damning if you consider urban areas and what's part of the principal city. Munich takes up most of the immediate urbanized area (there are suburbs, of course, but they're mostly separated by farmland from Munich proper), and yet it's still mostly walkable. And even the surburbs do pretty well on walkability.
Seattle, though? Long before you reach the suburbs, you've mostly lost walkability, and the suburbs are mostly really walk-unfriendly except for little strips of downtown.
When I was in Munich I was living on the outskirts, we were less than a five minute bike ride to forests and horse paddocks, and yet I still had a general purpose grocery store in less than ten minutes by foot, and multiple options for that within a ~5 minute bike ride.
It’s also worth noting that Boulder’s main downtown area is dominated by Pearl Street, on which cars are not allowed ever. Denver has 16th street running from one end of downtown to the other, the only vehicles allowed there are free shuttles.
My point isn’t that American cities are more walkable, it is that it is silly to say that they all aren’t walkable as a rule as the GP said.
Is Barcelona a more walkable city than most American ones? Yes. Are there areas in Barcelona that you would be a fool to try and walk in? Also yes.