That’s a good way to put it: quality of walking opportunities. Reduced or enhanced because I don’t read the language? I’m not sure.
I say enhanced. More generally, I see Paris and Buenos Aires as the two cities with the highest quality of walking opportunities. Not many cities in Asia do well on this score, mostly because of congestion and pollution. Los Angeles is an underrated walking city and Sao Paulo used to be; maybe it is too dangerous now.
Buenos Aires is fantastically polluted and filled with killer cars. I would not rate it highly as a walkable city, although YMMV. When I was there a couple years back, I would spend the day walking around the city and then get back to the hotel feeling like shit and with a weird kind of ringing sinus headache that I have never experienced before or since, caused by breathing concentrated diesel fumes all day.
Also, many of the sidewalks are oddly thin considering the amount of foot traffic, and the porteñ@s walk like maniacs at top speed, occasionally forcing the dawdling tourist (admiring the retro-futuristic decaying urban fabric) into traffic or dogshit. It’s walkable city if you’re on top of your game, but not for the faint of heart.
How about Vienna? It’s much more concentrated – inside the Ringstrasse – than Paris.
My faves in Europe were Stockholm and… Venice.
I would suggest Amsterdam is near the top, but for all of the bikes. Having to watch both car lanes and heavily used bike lanes takes some time to get used to. Otherwise, the canals and cafes make it very walkable.
I can report that Montreal is a nice walking city as long as your hotel is in Le Vieux Port, and Lisbon is a nice walking city if you enjoy getting lost and stumbling across wonderful hole in the wall restaurants (as I do).
The first district has a population of only 6000. It is about tourism, boutiques, prestigious lawyer’s offices, bars and coffee shops. This is hardly a model for an entire City, but more of a statistical outlier.
Parts of Vienna are very walkable. Some less so, especially the soviet style post 1960 housing complexes.
It is difficult to make an assessment as a tourist. Paris seemed pretty walkable to me. But i didn’t visit the banlieue, so how could I compare?
I nominate Budapest for walk-ability.
I found Kuala Lumpur surprisingly walkable.
I think one thing that makes cities more walkable is good public transportation. Then you can easily get from one walking district to another. Or home w/o a car.
San Francisco and Prague are excellent waking cities in my experience. It helps that both are small, and both have lots to see/do.
-MM
Tyler,
doesn’t this kind of be the question? You are against government intervention. How do we get these great walking citites (or interesting cities in general) without a heavy government hand. Been to Dallas or Houston lately?
Boston. You can walk across the city in about twenty minutes, and the length of it in thirty. Then you can take the T back.
Amsterdam is very walkable, even with bicycles.
I’ve walked in Mumbai, from Mahim to Byculla (in two stages on different days, but the whole way). It’s hot, humid, noisy, and crowded, but I still enjoyed it.
Tyler refers to Los Angeles as ‘an underrated walking city’. As an LA resident, and one who loves walking around, I’m curious to know what was meant by that comment. Unfortunately, I don’t actually think it’s even remotely possible to survive in Los Angeles without a vehicle, and walking to most places is completely out of the question. However, if there are fantastic walking opportunities that I don’t know about, I’d love to hear about them. So what makes LA an ‘underrated walking city’?
Suburban Sprawl is the result of a heavy governement hand in the form of restrictive zoning regulation, not of laissez faire. Scrap the zoning regulations and introduce road pricing and laissez faire would soon lead to densification and increasing walkability.
São Paulo is not such a great city to walk, not because of criminality, but mainly because of it’s geography…
Sisyphus shouldn’t believe everything he hears in ’80s pop tunes. Lots of people walk in L.A. You may not be able to walk from one end to the other easily, but you can certainly walk around many interesting neighborhoods.
Philly. Crime is bad but not where you`ll be walking.
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