Philip Langdon, of New Urban News, reviews Frommer’s list of the most walkable cities, noted below, and makes this intriguing comment on Vancouver:
Vancouver, British Columbia? As modern cities go, Vancouver is pretty good. It has walkable, close-in neighborhoods like Kitsilano (perceptively examined in Patrick Condon’s recent book, Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities, reviewed here) where principal streets are lined by four-story buildings with restaurants and shops at ground-level and apartments above. It has mixed-use downtown neighborhoods where the sidewalks are lined by retail or by doorways (and sometimes tiny patios) of houses and apartments. It has enough density to support a lively public realm.
Vancouver also has the attractions that Frommer’s specifically cites: among them, the False Creek shoreline promenade, the Sea Village houseboat community, a 1.5-mile walking route through Ambleside Park, and a 6-mile walk through Stanley Park that “lets you experience breathtaking views, inner city beaches, public art, lighthouses, and other city landmarks as you make your way around the peninsula shore.”
But those, for the most part, are designed for a different kind of walking — “hiking” would be a more apt word. And that’s true of a number of the photographs of cities that Frommer’s includes in its slide show — photos of big scenes, distant vistas, large bodies of water, impressive skylines. To my mind, those scenes have relatively little to do with the joy of walking, as opposed to hiking. Urban walking is an activity that depends upon relatively intimate surroundings — upon experiencing “outdoor rooms” and a continual sequence of things close at hand.
Boston, one of Frommer’s two choices in the United States, and one where I’ve spent a lot of time, qualifies by that standard….
