Northwestern students and their neighbors can buy groceries, shop for clothing and visit their bank in Evanston - all on foot.
Evanston is the fourth most successful “walkable” suburb in the U.S., according to an article published earlier this month in The Wall Street Journal. Walkability, which describes how easily residents can access a city by foot, is often the result of grid-like streets, nearby schools and workplaces and many public spaces.
And it’s having an impact on the happiness of NU students.
Betsi Burns, NU Assistant Dean of Students , saidEvanston’s walkability attracts prospective students.
“To be close to a metropolitan area, to know that you can get easily to campus by walking, I definitely believe that it is a checkmark in that pro column when families and students are making their choices,” she said.
Medill freshman Antonia Cereijido said she was drawn to how walkable Evanston is and prefers walking to having to drive everywhere.
“In San Diego it’s impossible to walk around. I couldn’t go anywhere until I got my license,” said Cereijido, referencing her hometown. “Being able to walk to places for me is like a blessing.”
The Journal ranked successful walkable suburbs based on education levels, per capita income and travel time to work. Walkable suburbs are some of the country’s best places to live, according to the article.
The ability to walk to most places drew former Chicago resident Judy Krizmanic, Medill ’88, and her family back to Evanston.
“One of the features that we really liked was that Evanston had so many districts, these neighborhoods and business districts where you could walk to from residential areas, where you could shop, go to the library or a cafe,” Krizmanic said. “We weren’t interested in moving to a suburb that didn’t have that feeling of walkability.”
Evanston became more walkable when city officials wanted to revitalize the downtown area in the 1980s and 1990s, said Albert Hunter, NU professor of sociology and director of urban studies. The downtown area used to be a shopping mecca with four department stores, but city officials closed it in 1957 when the Westfield Old Orchard shopping mall opened.
“What is happening now is an attempt to build the old urban density back into our urban developments, to create higher density so there could be more walkability and get away from the reliance of the automobile, and that is feeding into the green movement as well,” said Hunter, an associate member of the Evanston Planning Commission
The presence of an urban university often correlates with how walkable a neighborhood is, said Christopher Leinberger, a professor at University of Michigan whose 2007 study of walkable towns in the U.S. was quoted in the Journal article. Leinberger cited examples such as NU, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan.
“Basically, Ann Arbor (Mich.) is the only economically viable part of that very depressed state to the northeast of you and it’s because of the knowledge economy, it’s because of the university, it’s because of the great walkable urban environment in Ann Arbor,” Leinberger said. “It’s not because of their football team, I can tell you that.”
It takes civic leadership to develop a successful walkable community, and the obstacles presented by some city governments hold up development of walkable communities, Leinberger said, citing his experience with developing high-density projects in suburban Chicago.
Though a walkable community may benefit economically, richer communities may find it easier than others to become walkable. Princeton Township, N.J., is the second most successful walkable community, and Princeton’s upper-class residents contribute to the success of its urban planning, said Communication sophomore Carrie Heckel, who grew up just outside of Princeton.
“The way it was built helps the community, so you can walk from a store to another store to a restaurant,” Heckel said. “A lot of that is because it’s so old, it has been planned well. A town can’t do much if it doesn’t have the money.”
Changes have always been led by the wealthy, but the interest in walkable communities is not limited to affluent neighborhoods, said Dan Burden, director of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute, Inc. , which helps rebuild towns to be more walkable. Demand for his services has increased a lot, and some people credit him with the term “walkability,” Burden said.
Burden said that throughout all of the world’s history, towns have been built “around the human foot.”
“It’s only since 1928 that we tossed our common sense aside and started to build our towns around the automobile and now we’re coming to realize that probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do,” Burden said. “So we’re now getting back to where things will be more sustainable, healthier and in all respects better.”
