Bri’s Reviews > Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time > Status Update

The biking chapter was very interesting. I think the problem with downtown Sacramento putting in protected bike lanes on J and 15th Street is what the book mentioned -- that fast one way streets are still dangerous no matter what. Slowing down that traffic will help everyone.

Very interesting analysis about how trams, trains, and buses all serve different purposes for pedestrians. And I hadn't really thought about the importance of a "neighborhood" having *everything* a citizen needs to live in it and connecting neighborhoods with transit. I think neighborhoods in the US are too caught up with the suburban ideal of quiet homesteading to be livable.

Not a huge fan of the author's attitude that housing at "market rate" is much better than income restricted / subsidized housing. Basically this author's reasoning for *why* downtown should be walkable is what I disagree with, but the methods he gives to get there are sound.

I like the arguments for getting rid of cars. Makes me want my city to be just a little more walkable / transitable so I could not have a car at all. Not a huge fan of the positives being "increased property values" when tearing down freeways, although this was written 10 years ago when housing wasn't insane because of COVID.

Any simulation is only as good as its model and inputs. Makes sense in how it relates to traffic studies.
"Traffic studies are bullshit."

Maybe this book will be like "Utopia for Realists" in which it focuses on the monetary benefits as the reason for social good. Not my favorite reasoning but I see why it's so popular, especially for the book being written 10 years ago.

Not sure I like the attitude that all cities need to be designed around economics and that the millennial "creative class" is fundamentally culturally different than prior generations. Downtowns don't need to be profitable and millennials preferring biking and buses could have as much to do with being poor as it does with being "cultural".

Haha, disagree, the automobile industry definitely declared war on the pedestrian with targeted jaywalking advertising