A step ahead for smart growth: creating walkable neighborhoods

The smart growth movement placed emphasis on walking as a key component of creating places that are sustainable, healthy, and economically viable. This chapter reviews the progress made in promoting walking in cities over the 30 years of this movement, including the research agenda, planning tools, and policy strategies with the end goal of fostering more pedestrian activity. Aided by improvements in data, this period marks a great advancement in the understanding of walking and the policies that support it. These data coupled with scholarly findings have given rise to the development of several new pedestrian planning tools and models. Although many urban spaces have been transformed and the use of active modes is on the rise, concerns persist about the unequal distribution of the benefits of walkable places, the persistence of pedestrian fatalities and injuries, and the continued dominance of the automobile in suburban areas.