Washington, D.C. is the fourth most walkable city in the United States, according to a report by the Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis.
Dedicated to “conduct influential real estate research” especially for students and alumni, the center prepared the study titled “Foot Traffic Ahead,” based on its examination of the country’s 30 largest metro areas.
The District of Columbia came fourth in 2018, following New York, Boston and Denver, respectively.
The list was put together according to metro areas’ amount of total office, retail, and multi-family rental space in WalkUPs, as measured by occupied square footage.
DC is the Fourth Most Walkable City in the US https://t.co/v81XcNF6FO pic.twitter.com/mYJGFwWOu3
— CHOOSE DC (@CHOOSEDC) July 9, 2019
The report stated that the areas with higher scores in those “tend to have a population with higher levels of educational attainment and a higher GDP per capita,” adding that it is not yet clear if there is a causal connection.
The main reason why Boston and D.C. took the third and fourth spots is the significantly larger share of their WalkUP space in suburbs (40 and 44 percent respectively), the study explained.
Both cities are praised for urbanizing their suburbs in “Cambridge and Somerville in metro Boston, Arlington and Reston Town Center in Northern Virginia, and downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring in suburban Maryland.”
D.C. ranked second in terms “social equity performance,” after New York City, in the report.
On the other hand, more walkable neighborhoods in D.C. have extremely high prices, according to some.
I’ll give it some more thought but the prices in the more walkable DC neighborhoods are insane and the more affordable, spread-out areas are so far from everything.
— sarah kelly (@thesarahkelly) July 2, 2019