Walk This Way (Are high gasoline prices leading more Americans to consider living urban areas?)

MarketWatch ^ | July 17, 2008 | Amy Hoak

[Zhang Fei]

High gas prices are getting most people down these days -- unless, perhaps, they live in San Francisco.

The city was named the country's most walkable, according to a list released on Thursday by Walk Score, a Web site that assigns grades to addresses based on the proximity of amenities surrounding them. Chinatown, Financial District and Downtown were the most walkable neighborhoods in the city, according to the site.

New York followed at a close second, mainly due to the high walkability of neighborhoods including Tribeca, Little Italy and Soho. The rest of the top 10 walkable cities were (in order): Boston; Chicago; Philadelphia; Seattle; Washington; Long Beach, Calif.; Los Angeles; and Portland, Ore.

[Zhang Fei]

I have my doubts about people moving back to cities, primarily because housing costs in crime-free urban areas are off the charts, but it's certainly a possibility - for the arithmetic-challenged.

[Paleo Conservative]

How about more telecommuting jobs away from central cities?

[ODC-GIRL]

Nope, never. Detroit holds absolutely NO interest for me. I live 10 minutes from my work and my husband telecommutes, so we’re just fine, thank you.

[2ndDivisionVet]

"How about more telecommuting jobs away from central cities?"

Exactly! All my loan originators telecommute from their own homes...

[SoldierDad]

SF was found to be one of the “most walkable” cities? Did anyone from the group who makes decisions on this actually visit SF? The hills there do not make that city “walkable” in the least.

[xDGx]

SF was actually the “most skippable” and “most sashayable”

[VeniVidiVici]

Yeah, right. The most walkable - until dark.

[w1andsodidwe]

My nephew and his wife just sold their 700 sq ft condo in SF for about $750,000 because it was too small now that they have a baby and it was impossible to find any sort of day care they could afford. Yeah, they could walk everywhere, but it became unlivable for them as a family.

[Rebelbase]

Outlying suburban areas and rural areas are taking a hit as far as sales go. In the pay-check to pay-check culture, doubling the commute bill can equal a car payment.

[Rebelbase]

I just went to telecommuting full time. My office is 100 miles away and hopefully I’ll only go there twice a year.

[Panzerfaust]

I was in San Fran last month on business. Very walkable, if you were prepared to stiff-arm the bums panhandling incessantly in the street.

[SaxxonWoods]

“Are high gasoline prices leading more Americans to consider living [in] urban areas?”

I think that would be great. I’ll even let you guys go first.

[Myrddin]

I've been telecommuting part time since 1983 and full time since 2000. Working in my home office is far more productive. I don't have to worry about having my expensive technical books stolen from my office. That certainly wasn't the case when operating from an office on company premises. I have better networking, lighting, furniture and access to my kitchen. I can listen to Rush or Mark Levin as I work (unless I'm on a teleconference) with no complaints from co-workers. No gasoline burned for commuting is a big plus. No time wasted in traffic before and after work. No obnoxious co-workers yammering in the hallway or on speaker phones turned to maximum volume. I do have to process all my postal mail, FedEx and UPS activity. No big deal.

[webschooner]

SF was found to be one of the “most walkable” cities?

Not really, unless you enjoy tripping over and being harassed by the homeless.

[Republican Wildcat]

This has been the agenda of liberals for a long time now - they purposely want gas prices high for this reason. It’s why they proposed higher gas taxes. It is about restricting freedom.

[ripcasc]

I live 80 miles east of San Francisco and I know a lot of people who commute over to the San Francisco Bay Area everyday because housing is cheaper in the Central Valley than in the Bay Area. Yes, now housing is coming down but not in a lot of communities in the Bay Area (yea in some areas houses that would have sold for 900,000 a couple of years of ago now sell for about 700,000). The Bay Area is still unaffordable to a lot of people. So if the trend will be for people to move to urban areas then home prices are going to have to give and there are lots of people who are sitting on these houses and want to have these high prices on their homes. Oh and some of these people are very liberal too. Something will have to give.

[Marie]

I live in a rural area of central Texas and the high gas prices do hurt, but don’t plan on moving any time soon. I like my freedom too much.

I can do most anything I want out here and nobody cares. I like being able to ignore my grass for a month or start a fire and roast a few marshmallows without the neighbor’s blowing a gasket. My son can shoot his BB gun and the neighbors don’t even have to know.

Yeah, I’ll pay a bit more for my gas to keep my privacy.

[sergeantdave]

“The city was named the country’s most walkable...”

If you don’t mind walking through armies of bums hitting you for change. I carried Betty Crocker coupons - 50¢ off a cake mix. I’d be 100 yards downwind before the bum figured out what I gave him. Giving out 10 yen coins is also a good strategy. I found, too, that screaming at aggressive bums in Russian scares the hell out of them.