Walkable places in demand and getting top dollar

Metromode has always known that walkable communties with density are more attractive to professionla folks... but we had no idea they were as attractive (re: expensive) as Brookings Institute researchers Christopher Leinberger and Mariela Alfonzo reveal in a new study.

Excerpt:

Instinct probably tells you that you’ll pay a lot more to live in a downtown apartment, above a grocery store, next to a bar strip and within walking distance of your work place than you will to settle into a comparable home in a bedroom community outside of the city. As this model of compact urban living grows more popular – and every new housing projection reaffirms that it is – walkable places are also growing more expensive.

Just how much more expensive, though, may shock you. New research from the Brookings Institution has created a five-tiered scale of walkability for metropolitan neighborhoods, from completely non-walkable places (exurban residential communities where everyone gets around by car) to mixed-use, dense and amenity-rich neighborhoods where you may not need a car at all (think, in the Washington, D.C., region, Dupont Circle and Georgetown).

Read the rest here.
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