The importance of community walkability

Walkability has emerged as a pivotal metric for steering infrastructure and investment decisions in city planning. In fact, a 2023 survey by the National Association of Realtors found that 79% of Americans would prefer to live in a walkable community, and 78% would pay more to do so.

Environments optimized for pedestrians and micromobility reduce pollution and encourage residents to live healthier, more active lifestyles, making them more desirable for both homeowners and renters. Culdesac, a new car-free neighborhood housing 1,000 residents in Tempe, AZ, not only exemplifies how walkable urban design can mitigate transportation's leading contribution to US emissions, but also can make residents happier

Further underscoring the importance of walkability analysis is the US Access Board's newly published Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines (PROWAG). Mandating upgraded standards for sidewalks, pedestrian signals, curb ramps, and more, the guidelines aim to ensure consistency with technologies that disabled individuals rely upon for navigating cities.

Walkability is also a key factor in private funding allocation. For example, granular scoring based on proximity to amenities quantifies how pedestrian-friendly a location is for siting affordable housing supported by Low Income Housing Tax Credits. With $10B+ of this funding allocated annually, walkability analytics can help optimize where developments break ground.

Understanding how pedestrian-friendly an area is can inform many community planning analytics, including environmental sustainability, public health, accessibility, inclusion, and affordable housing allocation. However, having the right data and tools to derive meaningful, actionable insight is critical. Fortunately, location intelligence can help community planners analyze pedestrian infrastructure with confidence.

Unlocking walkability insights with location intelligence

There are many elements to consider when analyzing the walkability of an area, typically requiring planners to source and layer multiple datasets together. For instance, planners need to layer sidewalk data with points of interest to understand how accessible amenities are to pedestrians. Walkability analysis could then be taken a step further to understand sidewalk width compliance with PROWAG. Demographic data could also be layered in to identify neighborhoods with high concentrations of disabled residents.

Walkability analysis also provides value by highlighting differences across hyper-local areas. Consider how walk scores for cities like San Francisco and Miami would highlight range across neighborhoods, from car-dependent peripheral areas to transit-connected downtowns and mixed-use districts. These types of insights are a goldmine of market intelligence for real estate developers, homebuyers, community leaders, and others, but are difficult to glean.

While geographic information systems (GIS) technology and data make these types of in-depth urban planning analytics possible, it’s not always easy to source the right information, derive meaningful insights, and communicate the complex results with stakeholders. That’s where MapDash™ comes in.

Leverage turnkey walkability analysis with MapDash

At Datastory, we specialize in making GIS accessible to everyone. MapDash is our one-stop-shop location intelligence platform for accessing authoritative geospatial data, conducting spatial analytics, and creating compelling visualizations to share the insights derived from mapping analysis. 

MapDash provides robust walkability intelligence to shape decisions. With a built-in, content-rich data library, users can easily layer in the information they need to understand the pedestrian accessibility of an area. Straightforward geospatial analytics tools help turn that data into mobility metrics around access to jobs, healthcare, schools, and more. MapDash even has preconfigured infographic and report templates to make the results of walkability analysis digestible to non-technical audiences. This turnkey location intelligence helps cities effectively prioritize infrastructure upgrades for vastly improved accessibility, inclusion, and livability.

As people-first city planning converges with climate change, equity, and economic priorities, walkability analysis provides a wealth of insight to inform decision-making. Let MapDash reveal your next step towards sustainable and inclusive community progress - schedule a demo today.