Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

https://nathenry.com/writing/2023-02-07-seattle-walkability.html

by sebg • 3 years ago

249 386 3 years ago

duxup12• 3 years ago

I like the idea of walking 15 minutes to get all the things.

But man when I think of the costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere (no small cost to drop in a high school somewhere), or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reasons.

Heck I'd be annoyed if someone decides "Sorry we're rezoning / creating an incentive to build a restaurant in the plot next to you, not enough restaurants nearby. Good luck..."

logifail4• 3 years ago

a High School

(This is going to sound like we're playing Sim City 2000) but don't forget to add a hospital (a proper one, with an emergency room), a fire station, a police station...

a grocery store

Are there many neighbourhoods which don't already have some kind of grocery store?

Qworg• 3 years ago

According to the USDA, about 6.2% (19M) Americans have limited/no access to a grocery store.

https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts covers the research (and links to the paper).

ry4nolson• 3 years ago

Are there many neighbourhoods which don't already have some kind of grocery store?

Tons. They're called food deserts.

trillic• 3 years ago

They're called food deserts and they exist all over the United States. Even in big cities.

They are not the same as a food dessert.

ghaff10• 3 years ago

It probably depends on what you mean by "grocery store." In dense urban areas, bodegas, chain convenience stores, and pharmacies with a small grocery section are pretty plentiful. Supermarkets a lot less so.

That's probably part of a shift over time. In general, we probably have more relatively large but spread out businesses than little mom and pop places on every corner.

(This is sort of a US comment. There seem to be more serviceable smallish grocery stores in Europe that are in between a supermarket and a convenience store. That's less common in the US other than one-off markets and sometimes downsized chain grocery stores.)

dylan604• 3 years ago

Yes, there's a term called "food desert" that exists for a reason. Think inner city areas. Parts of the town that are attempting to be "gentrified" (in whatever discriminating tone that word implies) where there were places to live, but stores were more than 15 mins by car. it was just yet another reminder of how city planning is anything but good.

micromacrofoot• 3 years ago

Yes, these are called food deserts, some people "grocery shop" at Walgreens, 7-11, Rite Aid, or CVS and have very limited access to fresh produce.

actionfromafar3• 3 years ago

Zoning laws are too strict. Buy a home and convert it to a grocery store? No can do, in many places.

duxup12• 3 years ago

I agree generally about zoning laws. But I also think they do a good job of keeping joe schmo from trying to turn a random plot into a car repair business that is just not suited to the job. Rando business guy doesn't care if the area is suited for it and neither do their customers.

I speak from experience as I lived in a house near a guy who decided to do just that... broken down cars parked everywhere (leaking all sorts of stuff), noise at all hours.

Gotta be a balance between things.

Ialdaboth• 3 years ago

Zoning laws are a great way to implement social segregation without explicitely saying it too loudly, I guess that's the reason they are so popular in "free" and "open" societies.

blakesterz• 3 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. This doesn't seem like it's a realistic goal, as much as I do really like the idea. 15 minutes of walking isn't really much in terms of feet or meters or however you want to measure it. 15 minutes of biking time, that's better. I guess I live in a "15 Minute Area" if you only count the bike time. Maybe more like 20 if you count the time I end up sitting at intersections?

danny_codes• 3 years ago

Better bike infrastructure really unlocks a lot of potential. With good bike infrastructure, rides of ~30 minutes are quite comfortable, which is a distance of about 4 miles.

IMO a well-designed city could easily keep all necessary amenities in that range.

jrochkind13• 3 years ago

My guess is that most USA urban neighborhoods in, say, 1960 (or 1930), met the 15 minute criteria.

Still, I'd guess you'd be right that it would be enormously expensive and difficult to bring this back.

But it was once this way, and it was human decisions that made it not this way. If we want it to be this way again and start, it can be eventually.

duxup12• 3 years ago

I think it is plausible to work towards, much of it. Some of it is fairly low hanging fruit. If you get several of the check boxes but not a coffee shop, high school, restaurant .... that's pretty good, you got a lot of bases covered.

kasey_junk• 3 years ago

It was enormously expensive and difficult to undo that so it’s not at all surprising it’s hard to go back.

nicoburns5• 3 years ago

Politically difficult, yes. Enormously expensive, I'd imagine not. Retrofitting a house to be a cafe/shop isn't that difficult or expensive. And it needn't be done all at once, it could be done gradually over time.

dabbledash2• 3 years ago

I think it's possible that we lost this because, while people do genuinely like it, they like quiet, space, and privacy more.

spacemadness• 3 years ago

My hope is that if not Gen Z then the following generation will push for American cities to get their act together and become better for people to live in. It is going to take a lot of political will to make it work as the entrenched older generations want things to stay the same as always and/or cannot envision a different way of living. A walkable city with car free zones seems like a fantasy and that is a real shame.

fatnoah• 3 years ago

Still, I'd guess you'd be right that it would be enormously expensive and difficult to bring this back.

I've moved into and out of downtown Boston over the past 20+ years, and it's been interesting to see this trend actually happen. In the neighborhoods I've lived in, there are usually 1-2 smaller markets that offer convenience at a price, and then a more "traditional" grocery store within 5-10 minutes of walking.

Over the years, a few new grocery stores have been built in the urban core, and they've actually been of the "larger traditional" variety. In most cases, they're part and parcel of new development, so the space, loading, and (reduced) parking requirements can be accommodated as part of the build.

The key is that the stores are being built concurrently with more housing being developed as well, so the stores are effectively meeting new demand. In my most recent "city phase", I actually had 3 "large format" grocery stores, 2-3 smaller markets, plus the assortment of convenience stores within a 15 minute walk.

Pxtl3• 3 years ago

Imho it was pre-war when it peaked. You look at rust-belt cities that were designed to be suburban but transit-oriented and you see a good balance; 3-bedroom houses where everybody has a back-yard but not necessarily a driveway, and the cities were irrigated with street-cars. Minor arteries would have corner stores and there were local shopping districts.

elAhmo• 3 years ago

Having schools distributed within walking distance should be done by city planners ahead of time.

duxup12• 3 years ago

Unless you're building a new city from scratch or have a lot of open land I think you're way far from what the article is about.

jgwil22• 3 years ago

I think every neighborhood should have an elementary school within walking distance (my local elementary school is not and it annoys me to no end) but I agree that for high schools this might be unrealistic, and anyway a good transit system should be able to make it easy for kids to get to high school whether they attend their local school or not.

nicoburns5• 3 years ago

he costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere (no small cost to drop in a high school somewhere), or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reasons.

A high school I understand (where I live in the UK it's common for high school kids to catch the bus to school if they don't live close - as long as you live within a 15 minute walk of the bus stop that seems fine). But a grocery store? What's difficult about that? Just convert a house.

duxup12• 3 years ago

Yup, kids busing to school is very common in the US too. I agree about a bus stop.

Heck even suburban schools around me are trying to stop everyone from dropping off their kid with their car in person. It's just a hassle / traffic.

pjc502• 3 years ago

Just convert a house.

In many places there is a miserable quantity of political and legal infrastructure to prevent that from happening. Undoing that is a necessary part of 15-minute cities, but it may be weirdly unpopular.

(also, people expect a wider range of things than will fit in an old style corner shop, and you need to have HGV parking..)

piva00• 3 years ago

But a grocery store? What's difficult about that? Just convert a house.

I feel that the American view of a grocery store is one of those mega-Walmartesque stores with infinite aisles of stuff, rather than the more common small-scale grocery stores we are used to here in Europe.

At least on my trips to the US I don't recall seeing many small-scale grocers in neighbourhoods, it was either stores like CVS or going to a mega-grocer.

jsz02• 3 years ago

But a grocery store? What's difficult about that? Just convert a house.

The difficultly is making the typical residential dwelling compliant comply with existing regulations like the Americans with Disabilities act and complying with things like commercial insurance policy requirements.

adamsmith1432• 3 years ago

You perfectly describe the Nimby mindset.

I like the idea of walking 15 minutes to get all the things.

But

Heck I'd be annoyed if someone decides "Sorry we're rezoning / creating an incentive to build a restaurant in the plot next to you, not enough restaurants nearby. Good luck..."
But man when I think of the costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere (no small cost to drop in a high school somewhere), or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reasons.

Even has the weak "what about the costs" argument.

duxup12• 3 years ago

I feel like people wield around “NIMBY” labels so that they don’t have to think about how to plan things.

pjc502• 3 years ago

annoyed if .. creating an incentive to build a restaurant in the plot next to you, not enough restaurants nearby

Why?

insane_dreamer10• 3 years ago

Good point in that European high schools (generally) do not have large sports facilities and therefore are suited to typical urban multi-story buildings. Kids do sports at private/public sports clubs that are usually located outside town or in suburbs.

So high schools within 15 min walk/bike in Europe is much more doable than in the U.S.

Caveat: this is how it was when I was growing up in France; it may have changed since then, though I looked up my old high school and it's the same.

throw0101a• 3 years ago

But man when I think of the costs involved in making sure there is a High School (in the US they tend to be large and draw from a distance) within 15 minutes of everywhere

Not absolutely everything needs to be walkable in 15 minutes. Once kids are teenagers having go to school on transit or bicycle would be fine.

Perhaps focus on elementary schools being walkable.

brewdad3• 3 years ago

Elementary schools having the added advantage of being a smaller footprint. In my area, elementary schools tend to be 200-400 students. Middle schools are around 800 students and high schools about 1500. I (car dependent suburb) live within walking distance of one elementary and a second one would be walkable if you didn't have to wind through a series of cul-de-sacs to get there.

The closest high school is 2.5 miles away and the high school my child attended was 6.5 miles away due to a quirk in the boundaries and which schools feed into which higher level school.

dkarl• 3 years ago

You make a good point. Living in walkable neighborhoods means evacuating most of the country and concentrating ourselves in fewer, denser cities. It'll be a great thing to the extent we can accomplish it, but people have a strong attachment to place and to suburban lifestyles, and the shift will fuel the nasty culture war we already have.

com2kid6• 3 years ago

Seattle doesn't have nearly enough density to have that many high schools. Given the ever falling birth rate, it likely never will. The density would need to be obscenely high.

Figure high schools have 4x the number of students that elementary schools do, and we'd need 2x the elementary schools to make them all walkable, that means Seattle would have to have 8x the number of students in high school than it currently does to justify building enough high schools to make them all walkable.

Not to mention Seattle couldn't really afford to build that many schools, as the city can't even maintain the current schools to basic levels of safety (ongoing lead water pipe issues...)

duxup12• 3 years ago

Seattle doesn't have nearly enough density to have that many high schools

That's a good point too.

The local urban schools near me have had to close high schools, not open new ones.

f1yght• 3 years ago

I would love smaller more local schools, but It's worth noting that unfortunately a bunch of the schools have reduced enrollment and the funding is per kid. I don't know how to fix it but I hope it doesn't lead to closing even more schools.

bailoon• 3 years ago

Given the ever falling birth rate, it likely never will.

But Seattle and Washington are attracting people from the world and the rest of the nation. Both Seattle and Washington have been experience positive population growth for decades now.

LeanderK3• 3 years ago

or plop down a grocery store in a neighborhood ... that sounds both super expensive and politically difficult, and for some good reasons. Heck I'd be annoyed if someone decides "Sorry we're rezoning / creating an incentive to build a restaurant in the plot next to you, not enough restaurants nearby. Good luck..."
Heck I'd be annoyed if someone decides "Sorry we're rezoning / creating an incentive to build a restaurant in the plot next to you, not enough restaurants nearby. Good luck..."

I don't get this. Isn't a restaurant at the corner great? Why would you be annoyed? I like living next to a restaurants. It increases your quality of live I think, you can literally just swing by if you feel like it and after a while you get to know the owner and develop a personal relationship. It really makes this place more my home I think, I always greet them and have a quick chat, and brings some life to the street. Of course, there's a question of the size but that can be dealt with. A grocery store is another thing because often they tend to be really big, but I think often suitable places can be found. But I think the supermarkets in mind are small, not a giant supermarket. Something where you can get most of your stuff but don't really have a variety to choose from, something where you swing by because you forgot your eggs.

I don't live in the US so I am really unsure why that's so bad. I don't think living 15 minutes to a Walmart (I picture them to be massive) is meant.

I assume, of course, that you're living somewhere somewhat suitable. But we're talking about living in seattle, so I assume it's ok.

jgwil22• 3 years ago

Really neat visualization. Would love to see it for other cities (perhaps Paris would be a good one for comparison, since it's touted as the fifteen-minute city par excellence).

david927• 3 years ago

I don't see how Paris is the best example. I would nominate Zurich.

Strangely, I live with my wife and daughter in Boise, Idaho and we don't own a car. The high school, my work, grocery stores, etc. are all within a short walk.

ahoy3• 3 years ago

Almost every town in the US used to have these kinds of livable zones. Every "historic downtown" used to be a place where people lived and worked. You'd walk to the pharmacy, or the hardware store, or the grocery. You could live your whole live without a car payment yoked around your neck.

It bums me out that we had that taken from us. I'm glad you found one of the places where you can still make it work!

hammock• 3 years ago

The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. They are usually surrounded by a mile of blacktop and concrete, for all the drive-in shoppers in the front and all the trucks offloading goods or picking up deliveries in the back.

Would much rather be near a decent small or midsize grocery with no or limited off-street parking, and which receives its deliveries on the street in the early morning (no loading dock)

gtk40• 3 years ago

I haven't spent a lot of time in Seattle so I can't comment there, but in my experience urban supermarkets are more likely to have a parking lot underneath the building or in general have less parking than a suburban supermarket.

Example: https://goo.gl/maps/AeXZhm6ZfYntEE1p7

teucris7• 3 years ago

Seattle has a mix of these. In my neighborhood, the closest supermarket has a gigantic parking lot. I never think of walking there.

crowbahr• 3 years ago

That's what the supermarket in Lower Queen Anne looked like when I lived in Seattle.

throw0101c• 3 years ago

The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one.

In a walkable neighbourhood, they'd just be a store front:

* https://www.google.com/maps/place/197+Roncesvalles+Ave,+Toro...

* https://www.google.com/maps/place/1435+King+St+West+Toronto,...

Or at the very least, much smaller:

* https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6395232,-79.4172267,3a,75y,3...

rhino369• 3 years ago

Chicago neighborhoods on the near north side (which are some of the most walkable in America) have large supermarkets. They just have parking garages (either above or below them). They are slightly smaller than suburban ones, but not that much.

Whole foods has plenty of them in all big cities.

It's just a cultural reason why some cities lack them--probably because people don't cook at home as much in NYC, for example.

Brystephor• 3 years ago

I live in downtown Seattle. In the more dense urban areas such as Queen Anne and South lake Union the grocery stores aren't like that. They have underground parking and street parking. If you get into more residential areas such as Pinehurst, Lake City, etc then you find more grocery stores that are similar to what you're describing.

dfxm12• 3 years ago

The more dense the area, the more likely you're in a 15 minute city and the more likely there is a supermarket with no big parking lot. Compare the Whole Foods in the UES Manhattan vs the Whole Foods in Manhasset.

qbasic_forever• 3 years ago

All of the grocery stores in the core of Seattle are exactly like that--urban centers with underground parking. Some even have apartments on top of them so you could live above the store if you desired.

BryantD• 3 years ago

Can confirm. This is also true in the denser areas outside the core. Ballard has a couple of large supermarkets with a lot of parking (although one of them is likely to get purchased and turned into a light rail station), but it also has several supermarkets that fit the urban core description. Fremont has an urban core supermarket right in the middle of the neighborhood; the U District has one coming.

dmoy• 3 years ago

I guess that depends on your definition of "core of Seattle". There's definitely grocery stores in ID, Wallingford, UW area, etc that all don't have underground parking and have outdoor lots taking up a lot of space.

superfrank• 3 years ago

I wouldn't say all. In the downtown core, most are (some in the ID are not), but once you start getting out of the more urban neighborhoods, it's hit or miss. West Seattle, North Seattle, and South Seattle all have plenty of supermarkets that are large one story buildings in the middle of a big parking lot.

allturtles2• 3 years ago

This comment seems to be based on a misconception of what "supermarket" means. These days supermarket pretty much == grocery store. The grocery stores that existed before supermarkets (with limited selection, probably no meat department, maybe no self-service, maybe no prices listed on the items) don't exist anymore. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarket.

edit: this is in a U.S. context, I don't know how these terms are used in other English-speaking countries

jimmaswell2• 3 years ago

Does this fit your definition of the kind of grocery store that doesn't exist anymore? They have a few misc. items, but it's almost all just food, and a fairly small building.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/KSnn5Fq37DQwiSpAA

throwayyy479087• 3 years ago

I live on top of a large supermarket, and did at my old building. It's absolutely awesome. No parking lot at all, but why would you need one? It's always packed.

ahoy3• 3 years ago

Well yeah, a "15-minute-city" kinda precludes the 10-acres-of-asphalt style development.

I live in brooklyn, exactly the kind of city described. I'm within a 10 minute walk of at least 4 grocery stores, none of which have a parking lot at all.

JieJie• 3 years ago

That's actually what kills walkability in my neighborhood, the ridiculous acreage of parking lots in North Seattle near 130th and Aurora Ave. Most of my neighbors are in senior housing and are pretty much afraid to cross the street, so the three grocery stores a block away might as well be on the moon.

mtalantikite• 3 years ago

It's different in most parts of NYC, they're more like what you're describing as wanting (and I agree with you). The original supermarket in my neighborhood, about a block away, has no parking and a loading zone in front of it to receive shipments. I've always liked these regular NYC supermarkets.

A Whole Foods moved in down the street a few years back and they do have a parking garage under the building, but I'd guess most customers aren't using that. I wouldn't be mad if it went away tomorrow though.

We're of course a very different city than pretty much all other cities in the US, as we're not at all car dependent in most parts of the city.

costcofries2• 3 years ago

I'm not American but I really agree with this comment. Each time I do go to America, everything just feels very.. American. Lots of concrete, big vast spaces of industrial, roads that seem far too wide and just overall very, overwhelming and big.

Just my personal observations of course.

ejb9992• 3 years ago

True in a lot of areas in the USA, but someday when you are in the US explore some of the less populated areas in small to mid-sized towns, far away from the major population areas.

Sometimes I think people that grew up in, and live in a big city forget that not everyone in the USA lives like that.

There are still a tremendous amount of beautiful places in all 50 states.

Spivak• 3 years ago

America really lost the cultural victory here. In pretty much anywhere else in the world a place's unique atmosphere, customs, architecture and way of organizing would be generally respected even if to an outsider it's unfamiliar or odd.

You see this idea everywhere, it's not "corn is one America's staple crops and the use of corn syrup which is sweeter and more abundant than cane sugar gave Americans a preference for the very sweet" but "Americans with their unrefined pallets, unhealthy diets, and obesity crisis put heaps of sugar in everything."

com2kid6• 3 years ago

The way “supermarkets” are in the US, I don’t WANT to be a 15 minute walk from one. They are usually surrounded by a mile of blacktop and concrete, for all the drive-in shoppers in the front and all the trucks offloading goods or picking up deliveries in the back.

I live in a walkable Seattle neighborhood. Accordingly, the "supermarkets" are not quite the mega-large stores they are in other parts of the city, and they have smaller parking lots accordingly.

This is a generalization, but as a rule, Seattle is laid out on a grid system, and every 5 blocks there is a larger 2 lane road where the speed is 25 MPH instead of 20MPH. Grocery stores are generally on the corner of those larger blocks.

Would much rather be near a decent small or midsize grocery

In my experience, prices are higher and the selection is very limited, so living near one of those doesn't present much benefit to me.

Which is my next point, despite living walking distance to 3 grocery stores, I still typically drive a mile away to a larger store because prices there are 2/3rds to 1/2 what they are at any of the stores close to me.

sandworm1019• 3 years ago

> ...despite living walking distance to 3 grocery stores, I still typically drive a mile away to a larger store because...

A mobile consumer base, people with cars that can travel to potentially hundreds of retail options, is a backbone of American competition. Like cars or not, they empower consumers to defeat local monopolies. The next stage, pickup trucks, then empowers retailers to sell large products (appliances) to an enormous consumer base from a central location without dealing with transport companies and/or teamsters for local delivery.

inpdx• 3 years ago

I have sympathy for the argument, but a lot of people can't afford to spend the extra money a smaller store charges.

jdlyga2• 3 years ago

I live in an apartment complex that has a full-sized grocery store in it in the US. It's actually not what you think. The grocery store and shops are on the bottom, with 5 floors of apartments on top. There's no big giant parking lot, but a parking garage that's built into the apartments. Shoppers park in the 1st floor of the garage (free for shoppers). It's a very walkable area, since it's about 500 feet from a riverside pedestrian path connected to tennis courts and a nice park. It's a little bit of a unique situation since it's across the river from a major city, and most people (rich or poor) take the bus or ferry in instead of driving.

vikingerik• 3 years ago

Is this in Jersey City, across the river from Manhattan? (you don't have to dox yourself if you don't want to, but everything you say matches what I saw living there, particularly the ferry)

burnished• 3 years ago

Where I grew up we had the kind of huge parking lot stores you are talking about - where I live in Seattle now those dont exist. Some places have parking lots but none of them are big enough for a rousing game of hide and go seek.

devoutsalsa• 3 years ago

San Francisco & Washington DC are USA cities in which I’ve lived that I enjoyed walking to & from the supermarket. I’d be fine walking 20 minutes each way, carrying a couple bag on groceries home with me. Those cities are very walkable, and by walkable I mean interesting.

upon_drumhead• 3 years ago

The IGA in downtown Seattle is a great example of how it should be. It's just a standard store front on the block that goes down a level to a normal sized grocery store. No huge parking, and in fact, I walked past it for years before realizing it was a grocery store.

slillibri2• 3 years ago

That store closed last year, I believe. That entire block of 3rd is a deserted wasteland now.

jandrewrogers2• 3 years ago

Many of the supermarkets in the urban areas of Seattle have no surface-level parking lots and some have no parking lots at all. They are mixed in with all the other store fronts.

epistasis• 3 years ago

There's nothing I hate more than a massive massive super market, offering the same variety of products as a decent sized store but with wiles filled with many feet and entire shelves with exactly the same product. So much pointless walking, hunting, and searching for so little benefit.

My favorite grocery store is about 1/4 to 1/5 of the typical supermarket like a Safeway, because it has all the same products without all the fluff. And an actual real butcher counter with plenty of on staff butchers, instead of row upon row of prepackaged cuts.

sandworm1019• 3 years ago

Maybe is Seattle, where weather means you can have door/windows more often than not. But opinions change north/southern in places that alternate between heating and air conditioning. Noise is less of an issue and walking takes much more commitment. It was -15c last night outside my place. I would love to be 15min from a large supermarket. At the moment I am a 25m drive from the nearest place selling bananas. Even if I biked, my food would likely freeze before getting home. And in summer (30c) I couldn't buy meat/frozen food. Motorized transport to buy food isn't going away, at least not outside inner cities.

frosted-flakes• 3 years ago

You don't live in a city though.

dag114• 3 years ago

The two supermarkets I use most in downtown all have parking underground and are optimized for pedestrians.

QFC: https://goo.gl/maps/yt2X53i8adHddNA7A

PCC: https://goo.gl/maps/aXT2U24qXvA1VH6t9

kenperkins• 3 years ago

Seattle is complex in this regard as the elevation changes between neighborhoods are an additional dimension. If I was living at the base of Lower Queen Anne and the "facilities" meeting the 15m criteria was at the top, that's not something I would consider a viable walk.

com2kid6• 3 years ago

Seattle is complex in this regard as the elevation changes between neighborhoods are an additional dimension.

And then there is the socio-economic history of elevations in Seattle. tl;dr Historically poor people (and minorities) lived at the bottom of hills, rich people at the top. To this day, you can literally see houses get nicer as you go up hills.

There are also neighborhoods with a hill in the middle where one side of the hill was historically poor, and the other side well to do. My dad used to tell me that when he was a kid, him and all his friends knew not to go to up the hill where they didn't belong.

harshalizee• 3 years ago

Well, today I can't afford to buy anything on either side of the hill on QA. Equality achieved! I'm only half kidding though.

Izikiel43• 3 years ago

You see this in Magnolia neighborhood, the east side is where all the renters live as that's where there are buildings, the further west you go, the more expensive it gets.

karaterobot2• 3 years ago

Was thinking about this too. A 2D distance map doesn't do it justice, really, because it ignores the non-trivial hill in the middle of your route.

The other thing about Seattle is that you can have a grocery store nearby, but still not really have access to it if you're lower income. We have a lot of premium stores, especially in walkable neighborhoods. When I was a student I lived in Wedgwood, and I had 2 grocery stores within a 5-minute walk: the PCC, and the Metropolitan Market, both places where a week's groceries were about 2-3x as expensive as they were at the nearest Safeway, which was more than 15 minutes away.

Not faulting the creator of this article, as it's an okay rule of thumb, and it's hard to include details like that in a model.

beoberha• 3 years ago

I own a home very close to the PCC you’re talking about and only ever go there if we forgot something in the large weekly grocery run we do at the QFC. Met Market isn’t really an economical option either, but we do love their pre-made food options for when we don’t feel like eating leftovers.

bialpio2• 3 years ago

(...) that's not something I would consider a viable walk.

Why not? As long as it's truly a 15m walk? The metric should take into account that the speed is going to be reduced when walking on a steep incline, otherwise it's a bad metric...

bears-n-beets2• 3 years ago

You might change your mind if you saw how steep Queen Anne Hill is, haha

bombcar• 3 years ago

Half the roads on Queen Anne are just literally staircases.

A 15 min walk down and up stairs in a skyscraper would count but few would want to do it on the regular (and those who did wouldn’t need to worry about leg day).

jgust• 3 years ago

What's the difference between walking and hiking, elevation gain?

kyeb• 3 years ago

I'd be super interested to see an analysis using exactly the same methodology as this performed on various other cities (SF, NYC, LA, maybe some European cities like Amsterdam or Cologne) for comparison. I would bet Seattle is near the top for the US in walkability (probably behind NYC only)

hiidrew• 3 years ago

it makes the top 10 according to this: https://www.walkscore.com/cities-and-neighborhoods/

honestly surprised that SF is more walkable than NYC with this criteria

ghaff10• 3 years ago

I'm guessing because NYC is not just Manhattan.

petetheheat• 3 years ago

SF top neighborhood: Tenderloin.

...starts to question list.

Aunche• 3 years ago

SF is a much smaller city. Areas in NYC not connected to the subway tend not to be particularly walkable like Staten Island.

tomtheelder• 3 years ago

I think that’s because of where the city is defined. SF is just SF- it doesn’t extend that far south and doesn’t even include the east bay. NYC on the other hand includes big areas like east Queens and Staten Island that are effectively just suburbs.

I’ve lived in both and if you’re sort of near the core then NYC is much, much more walkable than SF.

ackfoobar• 3 years ago

Depending on the boundary of the city, it might not be an apple-to-apple comparison.

I wonder if NYC will rank higher if Staten Island is excluded. Not that I have anything against it, just that judging from the heat map it is less walkable than the rest.

It's similar in Canada too. Toronto is the megacity (1998 amalgamation) including some suburbs; Vancouver does not include Richmond; Montreal has weird holes like Westmount.

powersnail• 3 years ago

SF is walkable if elevation is not a problem for you. Some slopes are so steep that it's like hiking up a trail.

At least it isn't like San Jose or Newark, where sidewalks just aren't there along some roads, in residential area, or suddenly cut short in the middle of a block where you have to walk back to the previous crossing for an alternative route. And there are _so many_ dead ends without warning. So many.

tobiasdorge2• 3 years ago

I can’t imagine Seattle being more dense than San Francisco, though I can imagine it’s in the top 5

98codes• 3 years ago

Seattle isn't remotely dense. Maybe a neighborhood here & there, but it's largely single family homes for most of the city.

Seattle doesn't make the top 133 for densest census designated places in the US*

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

__derek__• 3 years ago

Cool map. If you select Elementary schools and all of the amenities except Link stations, the map basically highlights Seattle's Urban Villages (plus a few extras).[1]

[1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattles-... (using this for the nice map image because Seattle insists on publishing hulking PDFs)

insane_dreamer10• 3 years ago

I'm going to venture an educated guess that proximity of things like grocery stores, restaurants and schools in urban areas is going to be highly correlated with income. Lower income neighborhoods are going to have gas stations and 7-Elevens/AMPMs. So an effort to make a true 15-min city should help improve quality of life and access to healthier food for lower-income residents. That would be a good thing.

kortilla3• 3 years ago

Has any city been able to do that? With the current hands-off punishment of theft, stores have multiple incentives working against them to open in low income neighborhoods.

ahoy3• 3 years ago

Retail theft as a new/major issue is mostly a lie, told by corporations and parroted by the media who love a crimewave story, even if its fabricated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli...

insane_dreamer10• 3 years ago

Is there a problem with thievery of apples, oranges, asparagus and beetroots? I don't have the numbers but I would bet money that most store thievery is cigarettes, alcohol, maybe sodas, and small electronics, pills at CVS, etc.

So no, I don't think theft is the major factor.

bitschubser_2• 3 years ago

this is a very US centric view and problem... in other countries lower income does not correlate with no access to local grocery shopping school etc... a german newspaper did a great income analysis of german cities [1]. You really see the differentiation in income, but if you overlay (at least for the cities I looked at) it with a map even in the low income neighborhood you get decent grocery shopping in walking distance (Lidl has also good organic produce/groceries) and schools and gyms etc...

[1] https://www.zeit.de/community/2023-02/einkommen-deutsche-sta...

elbigbad• 3 years ago

The article is about Seattle, which is currently a US city, so imho it’s reasonable to have a US-centric view of the problem.

insane_dreamer10• 3 years ago

Yes, I was specifically referring to the US (since the article was about Seattle). I've lived in Europe / Asia and it's very different of course.

jsz02• 3 years ago

Gas stations and corner stores also tend to have the highest prices. Climate change policy advocates are doing a real disservice to their cause by not being honest with people about the sacrifices/hardships these polices will cause in the short term. Deception is not a viable long term political strategy.

purpleturtle22• 3 years ago

If you take the corner store model as far as many European, NY, etc cities - You remove the $300-400+/mo cost of a car (ballparking here)

Otherwise if the local shops are more expensive (in any meaningful way), consumers would simply drive the additional N miles to the Walmart Supercenter as things kind of are as is

insane_dreamer10• 3 years ago

Gas stations and corner stores also tend to have the highest prices.

Yes, along with the least healthy food. Food poverty (in the sense of being unable to afford or access healthy food) is a very serious problem in America that contributes to the high numbers of unhealthy people and obesity rates. It's one of those things that isn't talked about enough, and certainly I don't read much about efforts to fix it.

Pxtl3• 3 years ago

The toggleable map in there is amazing and you can really see how it's the schools and libraries letting the map down... which is distinct in that they're the government-provided services. Here in Ontario we had a knock-down fight like a decade ago as the province decided to save money by shutting down unneeded schools, ending a lot of locality in the school system... and ever since the school boards have been scrambling to deal with insufficient bus-drivers as they effectively offloaded the problem onto the busing system.

Aside, the conspiracy-theory right has decided that "15 minute city" is another "agenda 21" conspiracy to force all westerners to live in tiny urban walled ghettos, and traveling outside of your "15-minute-city" will be illegal. And of course, the mainstream right media has been feeding this monster by treating walkability as some nefarious conspiracy but without explicitly mentioning the most insane tinfoil-hat parts of it.

sbierwagen2• 3 years ago

I would say that the right wing conspiracy theory is half being locked in a ghetto, and the other half just who you're being locked in with, given right wing views on immigration and the "police abolition" movement.

chabons2• 3 years ago

Interesting how the visualization highlights the Eastlake and Montlake neighborhoods (along the south bank of the canal northeast of downtown) as walkability outliers. When I was newer to the Seattle area and looking for housing I did a similar exercise and charted the location of grocery stores. I was surprised that those neighborhoods just didn't have any grocery stores, especially given their proximity to downtown and the UW. Given the amount of investment the city/state is making to improve the WA-520 corridor (the east-west highway which goes through there) for cars and pedestrians, I wonder if that's going to change in the near future.

bradford• 3 years ago

I was surprised that [Eastlake and Montlake] just didn't have any grocery stores ... Given the amount of investment the city/state is making to improve the WA-520 corridor

Montlake had a small grocery store that was torn down precisely because of the 520 construction. (I can't speak for Eastlake).

520 is a highway after all, and highways are hostile to walkability for a multitude or reasons. (this fact still remains, even though efforts are being made to improve the situation in Montlake).

chabons2• 3 years ago

Montlake had a small grocery store that was torn down precisely because of the 520 construction.

Right, I forgot about the Montlake Market. That closed before my search, but I did hear about it.

520 is a highway after all, and highways are hostile to walkability for a multitude or reasons

Yeah, that's fair. I'd argue that 520 in it's final incarnation will be a little bit less hostile than most, as it's mostly over water, and the lids over the 2 land crossings (with parks + transit) will partially mitigate the walkability concerns. It'll still be a noisy eyesore though.

Geographically, Montlake is in a pretty desirable location. It will have quick transit connections to downtown Seattle+SLU, UW (and light rail), and the eastside. I imagine the future only blocker to development will be zoning and pushback from existing residents.

dendrite9• 3 years ago

The 520 construction took out a gas station and a small but varied grocery store on the south side of the highway. I believe the Montlake library was a drug/grocery store long ago. And there used to be gas stations at 24th and Boyer.

Currently I'd guess the grocery options are Monts, Little Lago, Eastlake market, and Petes. But I doubt many people do all their shopping at any of those they are closer to convenience stores than grocery stores.

TurkishPoptart• 3 years ago

As the mental health and drug crisis grows, I simply don't want to walk anywhere, and don't want my family walking places. Plus, it's incredibly inconvenient to do grocery shopping on foot. Yes, I know that people do it and it's possible and I've done it when living elsewhere.

Still, this 15-minute city is an initiative created by the WEF which should be ignored and not implemented. If the WEF is so concerned about the "carbon footprint" of regular citizens driving to work and to the store, a much more effective solution would be to ban private jets. Bill Gates' flight to Davos on a private jet (to urge people to eat fake meat) exhausts more carbon in one trip than my family's entire car usage.

ejb9992• 3 years ago

>As the mental health and drug crisis grows, I simply don't want to walk anywhere, and don't want my family walking places.

Good point. There is very little motivation to make cities more 'walkable', if your walk requires stepping in or over human feces and discarded needles and homeless people camped out on the sidewalk. That problem needs to be fixed first before there is going to be widespread support for proposals like this.

lazyasciiart8• 3 years ago

Good news - allowing people to build more housing in cities achieves both outcomes.

calt2• 3 years ago

I think that the two go hand-in-hand. In car-centric America, if you can't meet the minimum of a car, then you can't live there. So you migrate to the city where the cost of a roof is artificially high.

And having more livable cities in America are exactly what we need to help solve the problem.

buildbot2• 3 years ago

It's really much safer than it used to be to walk anywhere than it was in the 80s or 90s... Sometimes you have to be street smart and maybe walk across the road to avoid some sketchiness, but by and large violent crime and muggings are not really a thing. I walk to the grocery store nearly every day, the most potentially lethal part is crossing the street (because of cars) by far.

rileyphone• 3 years ago

The decision to leave libraries in the standard criteria made the numbers at the end meaningless for the most part - most libraries are barely open as it is, and should be accessible enough by bus regardless. Still a very cool visualisation for Seattle; I think this city has great potential for denser urban development, while still retaining its charm.

Dig1t5• 3 years ago

Seeing the UK’s implementation of 15 minute cities, where cars are locked down to zones, movement is tracked by ubiquitous camera surveillance, and residents have to apply for a special pass to leave their zone. Talk of 15 minute cities in the US makes me nervous.

When we talk about 15 minute cities here, do we mean zoning changes to build things differently? Or are we talking about authoritarian enforcement?

Edit: Okay maybe what I read was overblown. Seems this is being trialed in Oxford as "traffic filters" but the ubiquitous camera surveillance is certainly part of it. There is also talk of this expanding to other cities in the UK. Though not specifically talked about as apart of the 15 minute city plan, this seems to go along nicely with that concept.

Edit: A source: https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2023/01/25/15-minute-city-plan...

throwawaythrow1• 3 years ago

As someone who lives in the UK, this is news to me. Can you substantiate this please?

DoughnutHole• 3 years ago

I presume he’s talking about the London congestion charge zone. Although he’s certainly being melodramatic.

Dig1t5• 3 years ago

I admit that the way it was described to me was probably exaggerated, but this is what I'm talking about:

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23073992.traffic-filters-w...

"People can drive freely around their own neighbourhood and can apply for a permit to drive through the filters, and into other neighbourhoods, for up to 100 days per year. This equates to an average of two days per week."

This is enforced with surveillance cameras.

As I said in another comment: it does seem to me that enforcing movement like this and adding bureaucracy to drive through certain places is a solid step in the direction of authoritarianism.

The article is titled "Traffic filters will divide city into "15 minute" neighbourhoods"

eptcyka• 3 years ago

What are you on about?

lazyasciiart8• 3 years ago

The wingnut right thinks that “15-minute city” is a global Jewish conspiracy to lock everyone into defenseless small neighborhoods and then I dunno, aliens?

PaulDavisThe1st2• 3 years ago

My family lives in the UK and they all own cars. None of them have ever had the experience that you're describing. Either you're confused, or making it up, or there's something happening as an experiment in a few cities that you're blowing out of proportion.

Dig1t5• 3 years ago

I admit that the way it was described to me was probably exaggerated, but this is what I'm talking about:

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23073992.traffic-filters-w...

This is enforced with surveillance cameras.

As I said in another comment: it does seem to me that enforcing movement like this and adding bureaucracy to drive through certain places is a solid step in the direction of authoritarianism.

The article is titled "Traffic filters will divide city into "15 minute" neighbourhoods"

actionfromafar3• 3 years ago

It's unfortunate to mix surveillance with these other things. It's completely orthogonal to other things.

(And yes, surveillance is real in London, but not the other things. You can also camera surveil sprawling, car oriented areas, and technology makes it cheaper every year.)

_Wintermute• 3 years ago

Are you talking about LTNs? They were initially turning some residential roads into cul-de-sacs to limit through traffic, but a minority of motorists feigned concern about emergency service access so many were replaced with no entry signs and cameras, now the same minority are feigning concern about a surveillance state?

It's definitely non-locals using small resident roads as short cuts who are now slightly inconvenienced performing mental gymnastics.

teucris7• 3 years ago

Incredible analysis! As a Seattleite I can say the conclusions here are very close to accurate, with the key additional note being that distance is not the only thing that defines walkability.

Seattle has some of the most confounding civil engineering I’ve ever seen, and I’ve lived in five cities and visited dozens more. Here are some things that make a pedestrian life near impossible in my neighborhood:

- two high-traffic, multi-lane streets where people routinely run red lights and drive erratically, one dividing us from my child’s elementary school

- Many areas with no sidewalks and no area on the side of the road that’s safe to walk

- 5-way intersections with extremely confusing walk signals.

watermelon59• 3 years ago

Seattle has so many intersections that are completely bonkers. They’re not only poorly walkable, they also make driving extremely stressful.

goostavos• 3 years ago

Queen Anne has a 7-way stop! The first time I encountered it I was thoroughly stumped. Actually, I'm still stumped years later every time I go through it. At some point, I just commit and hope for the best.

sbierwagen2• 3 years ago

Seattle's street plan is so stupid it has its own wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_layout_of_Seattle

These three grid patterns (due north, 32 degrees west of north, and 49 degrees west of north) are the result of a disagreement between David Swinson "Doc" Maynard, whose land claim lay south of Yesler Way, and Arthur A. Denny and Carson D. Boren, whose land claims lay to the north (with Henry Yesler and his mill soon brought in between Denny and the others):[2] Denny and Boren preferred that their streets follow the Elliott Bay shoreline, while Maynard favored a grid based on the cardinal directions for his (mostly flat, mostly wet) claim. All three were competing to have the downtown built on their land.

Gigachad2• 3 years ago

Do you guys not have red light cameras?

Australia has them everywhere so running a red light is almost never seen.

danielodievich• 3 years ago

My favorite intersection in Seattle is the most awesome Bellevue/Bellevue/Bellevue. Yes it's real https://goo.gl/maps/o4doz6JNfaezyRjf8

shidoshi• 3 years ago

The QA 7-way is nightmare fuel. I hate it. I hate going through it every-single-time I'm forced to.

MivLives• 3 years ago

It's interesting how variable that is depending where you are. The area I live in Seattle will have people wave you through the stop sign if you're a pedestrian, has side walks on every street, and is grid based except where i5 runs through.

teucris7• 3 years ago

In my experience, those areas exist but are disconnected, expensive, and still primarily car-centric.

hinkley2• 3 years ago

Stuck in traffic I often wondered why downtown Seattle is in the worst spot possible on the east side of Puget Sound. For a small town it's a fine spot, for a major metropolitan area it's right at the chokepoint of a narrow north-south corridor.

That may be one of the reasons. If you're in Kent and you want to sell strawberries to Everett you basically have to go through Seattle. The other is that Seattle originally was going to be founded in West Seattle, but the weather was so bad they moved off the peninsula but in the lee of it. The Port of Seattle is built into a river delta that was probably only traversible in the mid 1900's so just moving to the lee side would have not helped with access.

But here we are 150 years later with a city built like a corset.

pchristensen• 3 years ago

After West Seattle, the city built up around the area where the stadiums are. Capitol Hill was called that because they were going to put the Washington state capitol there, but decided not to because it was too far from "Seattle". That should give some idea of how small the city was. There were single digit thousand white people in the entire area at that time. The width of the isthmus was not a problem at that time.

The reason the city picked that spot is because it had the best deep water access on Elliott Bay.

seanmcdirmid7• 3 years ago

You can take 405 to bypass Seattle, but these days that’s hardly any better. Just two north south corridors to consider.

2bitencryption• 3 years ago

And my personal favorite:

Street traffic is allowed through Pike Place Market.

Every weekend I have a grand old time in the market, watching tourists make the worst mistake of their visit, their rental car crawling at 1mph through probably the largest tourist attraction in the PNW.

rootusrootus2• 3 years ago

Right where they throw the fish? I've only been to Pike Place Market a few times, but there's a little road there that looked like an absolute nightmare if you inadvertently turned down it.

marssaxman4• 3 years ago

Street traffic is allowed through Pike Place Market because the vendors want it that way. The Market is an irreplaceable treasure and I think we generally ought to support the preferences of the people who make it work, for fear of "fixing what ain't broke".

How much damage can drivers do at 1 MPH, anyway?

loeg5• 3 years ago

Where do you encounter roads that lack sidewalks and are also unsafe to walk on? I've frequently experienced the former in Seattle, but usually they're very low speed residential streets that are safe to just walk on. The only real counterexample I can think of is 5th Ave NE by the golf course.

dweinus2• 3 years ago

Basically anywhere in District 5, including some of Aurora: https://www.knkx.org/2015-election/2015-10-23/in-seattles-si...

deeg• 3 years ago

I lived in Seattle for a couple of years (lower Queen Anne) and live in Boston now. I miss the sane traffic patterns (and drivers) of Seattle.

seanmcdirmid7• 3 years ago

Not to mention highway 99 where the pedestrians are just as crazy, if not more so, than the motorists. The guy coasting down the highway in a shopping cart takes the cake.

I put a lot of thought into the house I bought in Ballard, my kid won’t have to cross a four lane road (15th) till he hits high-school.

mdorazio• 3 years ago

Of the 89 neighborhoods considered, only nine are “15-minute neighborhoods” walkable for 90% or more of their residents.

I'd love to see the median rent in those nine compared to elsewhere in the city. Can any Seattle residents here provide some insight?

WaxProlix3• 3 years ago

Downtown (CBD): Expensive

International District: Euphemism for Chinatown, not expensive

Pioneer Square: It varies, but fairly expensive despite the rampant homelessness

Pike Place Market: Very expensive

Ballard: Expensive new buildings, more affordable older ones

Capitol Hill: Expensive, generally

South Lake Union: Expensive

Madrona: Expensive

chamanbuga2• 3 years ago

Living in ID is not a choice, but a necessity when other options fail.

Rediscover2• 3 years ago

Pike Place Market: Very exspensive.

And also extremely on the other side - Market housing can be very low-cost. A number of my friends are paying < $300/month for some nice/decent apartments with a very long wait-list.

Cf: the apartments under the Market and Stewart House.

wenc2• 3 years ago

International District: Euphemism for Chinatown, not expensive

It’s not a euphemism. Euphemism refers to a word that conceals something unpleasant or embarrassing. It is anything but. It is working class yes but nothing wrong with that.

The full name (since 1999) is Chinatown-ID. The majority of the inhabitants are Chinese but it encompasses Little Saigon and the less prominent but still existing Japantown (Uwajimaya and several Japanese businesses still have a presence).

lazyasciiart8• 3 years ago

Madrona probably doesn’t have anywhere to rent, it’s just enormous old houses. 6 of the 9 are downtown+surrounds, all very expensive. Ballard and Green Lake are going to be the cheapest on the list, and I would guess they’re in the most expensive quarter of neighborhoods?

lph2• 3 years ago

It's not about rent so much as density. Seattle has this "urban village" concept where designated areas have zoning that allows apartment buildings and usually has a commercial strip. I'd guess the urban village map [1] overlaps the 15-minute zones pretty closely.

Outside of the urban villages, Seattle is comprised of neighborhoods of single-family homes. Those areas can't all be 15-minute walkable because catchement areas don't have the population needed to support those amenities.

But it's also certainly a class issue. The people walking to the grocery store are mainly the poor, students, and a small core of idealists who go out of their way to live a "city lifestyle". Everybody else drives everywhere. Which has a strange effect that wealthier neighborhoods are less likely to have things like a pharmacy, because the wealthier are in the habit of driving everywhere. I get my prescriptions filled at Costco, five miles from my house, even though the closest pharmacy is one mile.

[1] https://i.pinimg.com/736x/87/cd/9f/87cd9ffd44c33154445747de3...

jobs_throwaway2• 3 years ago

Do any Seattle-ites not have a car? How do you get around?

Asking as a NYer who would consider living there if the car-free life wouldn't be too painful

chamanbuga2• 3 years ago

Living the car-free life in Seattle is depressing due to gloomy weather. Life in Seattle is great if you accept the grey and live outdoors as much as possible. For that you need a car.

jobs_throwaway2• 3 years ago

I was afraid that'd be the answer. Do you use your car for everything, or are you able to handle day-to-day stuff on foot and use the car mostly for adventures?

simplyluke2• 3 years ago

This is the real answer. I walk/ride a bike a ton for about 7 months of the year here. Winter months I am driving much more often than anything else. Standing around waiting for a bus, walking a mile+, etc in the pitch black when it's 40 degrees and raining is not fun and given the option of just driving I take it.

noirbot2• 3 years ago

I'm not sure that tracks? When I've visited Seattle with friends, I walk to almost everything, even in gloomy weather. I don't see how "living outdoors" requires a car - if anything, driving everywhere is the the opposite of living outdoors.

Sure, if you want to go out to the mountains every weekend you need a car, but with a light rain-proof jacket, it's not too bad to walk or bike through much of the city. The grey weather is either depressing or not, but I don't find it to be much more depressing out of a car than in it.

et-al• 3 years ago

I know folks who live in Seattle and they get around by bike fine.

However they all own cars as well to go to the outdoors on the weekend. Feel like that’s half the reason of living in Seattle.

If nature is not high on your priorities, I dunno why one would trade NYC for Seattle. State income tax?

solson4• 3 years ago

I lived in Seattle from 2016-2020 and didn't have a car for about half that time. If your house and work are near a link stop you certainly don't need it, everything you'll need is in walking distance or a train ride away. Other than link and the rapid buses, there's good bus coverage, but it's slow, wouldn't want to rely on it IMO.

Biking is not great. I did it a lot, but I'm comfortable riding through heavy traffic on steep hills, if you're not, probably would be hard to rely on.

Finally, I'm big into climbing/mountaineering and lack of a car was never a big problem. I'd rent one the few times I had too (way cheaper than parking and insurance), but otherwise could usually carpool with someone else who was going. Sorta' puts you on someone else's schedule, but if you need a belay partner anyway...

mhink• 3 years ago

To be perfectly honest, although it's technically possible to go car-free here, it can be more trouble than it's worth. You'll be able to get to the essentials easily enough, but there are a long tail of places that you may want to get to which are only bus-accessible if you transfer- and that can add a ton of time to your trip.

It's more realistic to think of Seattle as a city where you can be "car-light": it's entirely possible to go without driving during the week, assuming you commute by bus and have a small supermarket nearby to pick up dinner/essentials. Then, on the weekend, a vehicle can be super useful to fill in the gaps, whether that's going to the larger supermarket for bulkier goods, getting out of the city into nature, or going over to a distant neighborhood to check it out.

Part of this is because of the city's geography- I might not mind (for instance) living in West Seattle and commuting by bus to downtown, but if I'm trying to go visit the Woodland Park Zoo up, I'd probably want to drive there because it would be a considerably longer trip involving a transfer in Downtown.

jandrewrogers2• 3 years ago

Yes, I've lived in Seattle without a car, that is easily achievable and many people do this. In the core, you can get around by walking since the weather is mild most of the year, you don't even need to use public transit. You can expand your footprint on light rail and buses, which has been slowly improving its range but many people don't use those if they are in the dense urban areas.

The one gap is that Seattle is surrounded by very popular nature and outdoorsy activities up in the mountains or out on the islands. It is one of the major perks of living in Seattle. If you want to spend a lot of time wandering around the Cascades, you'll need a car. Some people that have a car use it almost exclusively for outdoors activities, not day to day living.

aendruk• 3 years ago

Exactly, I have a $2k bicycle for daily use and a $1k jeep for getting outdoors. No concerns about leaving that at a trailhead overnight.

Analemma_• 3 years ago

It depends where you live. I used to live in Belltown and did not have a car, this was just fine. But Belltown is right downtown so your choices are either very expensive newer buildings or older buildings that are somewhat affordable but kinda decrepit. But I'm now in the odd Queen Anne/Westlake border area and I think a car is pretty necessary, and if I were in the aggressively single-family zoned places like Magnolia it would be even more so.

slillibri2• 3 years ago

I've lived in Seattle for ~10 years and haven't owned a car the entire time. I use public transit, walk, or a Lyft to get around. I live in Belltown (5th and Vine) and in general all the places I need to get to are within walking distance. Even the international district is only ~20-30 minutes walk for me, or I can take the light rail.

whateveracct2• 3 years ago

There's a lot of fun places a 20-ish minute drive from Seattle. It's definitely worth it to have a car. And Tacoma is only 45 minutes away.

poly_morphis• 3 years ago

What's in Tacoma that would warrant a 45-minute drive?

RandallBrown• 3 years ago

A friend of mine has lived in Seattle for about 8 years without a car so I have a pretty good idea what it's like. We both live in one of the 15 minute areas from this article.

Public transportation is decent compared to most of the US (but worse than NYC obviously.) There are also lots of other ways to get around like Uber, scooters, bikes, and Gig cars (rental car you pick up and drop in public parking spots.)

The biggest problem is getting to the mountains if that's your thing. That's the main reason I have a car.

lph2• 3 years ago

It's possible, but you have to carefully choose where to live. I spent my 20's in Seattle with no car: I lived in an apartment-dense neighborhood close to shops and groceries (Capitol Hill), and relied on buses, walking, and biking for transportation. That was before Uber and Lyft, which would have helped to fill in the gaps. It was a fun bohemian lifestyle, but I wouldn't want to do it now that I have kids and have a much busier schedule. Buses here are really slow.

jdlyga2• 3 years ago

Anyone else torn between wanting to live in a 15 minute city and in a log cabin in the woods?

trgn2• 3 years ago

Yes!

Both are not trashed up by cars. That's the relationship.

I think that's the main reason why the escape-to-the-woods fantasy is so strong in the US. It's an escape from car dependent drab. You don't have to flee to the woods for serenity; urban environments can feel spacious and verdant. But those will always be walkable, have calm traffic, or no cars at all.

monktastic1• 3 years ago

I've always felt that South Lake Tahoe is my ideal town for this reason. You can get a 15 minute cabin in the woods!

Scuds• 3 years ago

lol the busses don't go through Laurelhurst. why not? Oh, people who ride the bus don't live there.

goodpoint• 3 years ago

More like 51 minutes. Of driving.

ruined2• 3 years ago

the supermarket map discounts a some of the very good corner and ethnic groceries that serve specific neighborhoods, which are a worthwhile and important (and imo better) segment of the grocery market. and some of the "no restaurant" locations definitely contain restaurants.

pclark• 3 years ago

Great work!

I live in West Seattle and tbh the maps for West Seattle look pretty solid, especially when you factor in the significant reduction in housing costs. I remain more people don't live here!

mattpallissard• 3 years ago

I used to work with Nat at IHME. He and others there did great work in the global health space.

I highly recommend playing around with some of the datasets and visualization tools.

https://www.healthdata.org/data-tools-practices

battery_glasses2• 3 years ago

This underscores how important small businesses are to the health of a city.

I live a in less walkable neighborhood on this map - but about a year ago a small (tiny really, ~700sqft) corner store opened up 2 blocks from me. It sells coffee, pastry, simple sandwiches, but also pantry staples (flour, sugar, milk etc.) and has a really good beer and wine selection.

I can't do my normal grocery shopping there, but being able to walk 2 minutes to get coffee or a quick breakfast or that missing stick of butter for a recipe has been such a wonderful change to the neighborhood. (btw this store is not reflected on the map for coffeeshops or groceries.) They also host food trucks several days a week so its almost like having a restaurant in the neighborhood too.

All it took was 1 little store, owned and operated by a couple who lives in the neighborhood, to turn a 20 minute neighborhood into a 5 minute neighborhood for several thousand people.

ThePowerOfFuet• 3 years ago

(btw this store is not reflected on the map for coffeeshops or groceries.)

Why not fix that? Submit it to OSM, Apple Maps, or Google Maps or all three.

battery_glasses2• 3 years ago

It shows up on all 3, I think it might be a labeling issue. My guess is that its a classified as a "convenience store", but in reality its closer to a coffeeshop and bottleshop that sells pantry items.

marssaxman4• 3 years ago

This is why Euclidean zoning needs to die.

greesil• 3 years ago

Manifold zoning is definitely better in principle, but it's hard to compare neighborhoods that are farther apart.

kneebonian• 3 years ago

Shame we decided to shutter all those down across the country, for an extended period because they were deemed "non-essential", leading to many of them to shutter forever. At the same time massive mega-corps were able to be deemed essential, and allowed to continue to operate, turning record profits.

But of course that's just conspiracy theory thinking and only someone who hates grandma would say something like that.

Retric• 3 years ago

Many cities never closed those during the pandemic. So it was really a local decision.

vkou• 3 years ago

Shame we decided to shutter all those down across the country, for an extended period because they were deemed "non-essential", leading to many of them to shutter forever.

This meme needs to die already.

A lot of those businesses shut down in 2020.

It's 2023 now, we haven't had any COVID restrictions for 2 years, and all the ones that have gone away... Have long since been replaced with equivalents. Some of whom have also shut down, and have been replaced with equivalents.

Restaurants and coffee shops die and open all the time. 2020 was rough, but in the long term, the net impact on my neighborhood has been ~zero.

You know where they have been dying and not re-opening? Downtown, because half their former patrons are now WFH and don't go into the office anymore. Unfortunately, that's a little harder to blame on COVID shutdowns.

irrational• 3 years ago

Not everything closed during the past few years because of restrictions. There was a chocolate shop that we loved going to for date night. All the locations closed during the pandemic AFTER they had been reopened for months because the parent company was bought out by a venture capital firm who only wanted the chocolate production part of the business (for selling to high end grocery stores) and didn’t want the retail stores.

silisili• 3 years ago

I lived in a neighborhood like this too, and it was fantastic. I hated the city, but loved where I lived. I've been wishing to find something like it ever since, but it was a very old neighborhood and everything now seems to be planned, isolated communities.

We need zoning revamped, and you'd see a lot more of this.

kweingar• 3 years ago

This underscores how important small businesses are to the health of a city.

In this case it wasn’t the size of the business but rather the size/location of the physical store that mattered.

rubidium• 3 years ago

Would you mind naming the shop and location? I’ve been tossing a similar idea around and would love to contact the owners to learn from them.

tiffanyh• 3 years ago

7-11 or CVS/Walgreens fills this void in a lot of US geographies.

They aren’t as personalized or localized as the neighborhood place, but the use case you describe is exactly the market 7-11/CVS/Walgreens is going after.

zw1234562• 3 years ago

When I started reading

zw1234562• 3 years ago

When I first started reading this article, I'll admit, the first thought, as a life-long Seattlite, that crossed my mind was, here we go again, some dumbass writes about what it is like to live in Seattle. Goddamit. But when I saw the chart that showed walking distance to a park at the top of the list then I started to realize this one hit the mark. I actually purchased the home that I did because it is one block from my favorite park in the whole world, it is a magical place, to me, I discovered on a bike ride training for the STP. And I vowed I was going to buy a place near this park someday. Call me crazy, but parks, just in general, are so extremely important to the quality of life and sometimes I think people overlook the importance of having a lot of public spaces like that.

sjkoelle• 3 years ago

seattles park situation is all time

lotsoweiners3• 3 years ago

I just want a property with a park like atmosphere in the backyard. Pretty jealous after taking my kindergartener to a classmate’s birthday party a few weeks ago.

genuine_smiles• 3 years ago

Which park is it?

cafard• 3 years ago

I spent my childhood in an inner suburb of Cleveland. Between kindergarten and eighth grade, I took a bus to school for part of sixth grade. Otherwise everything was in the 15-minute distance, mostly afoot. (The junior high school might have been twenty or thirty minutes on foot, but of course less on a bicycle.) Nobody mistook it for Paris, but within the radius was a quite decent library, an independent bakery, a deli, and a grocery store.

mungoman2• 3 years ago

Fantastic visualization! Would be really cool to get global coverage for this. Possible by leveraging Google Maps?

Is Seattle a 15-minute city? It depends on where you want to walk

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