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PREFACE:

This book provides guidance for planners, developers, designers, and citizens to create more livable, connected, and vibrant multifamily developments and neighborhoods. Livability is a measure of a community’s quality of life and includes factors such as access to education, employment, entertainment, and recreation. The last few decades have seen a groundswell of interest in livability and how our built environment can hamper or promote it. Dense and compact development, the design of transportation systems, the design and distribution of open space, and the mixing of uses all contribute to an area’s livability. The typical disconnected and isolated models of development seen throughout the country have been linked to reduced quality of life, health, and social connections. 

Yet because of codes and the culture—and at times, simply habits—of planning, development, and design professionals, this form of development persists. This book is focused on shedding light on these codes, cultures, and habits and on describing the aspects of multifamily site design that contribute to livability. A key concern of the current livability movement has been to increase accessibility, safety, and social interaction by reducing the dominance of the automobile— and design is central to this concern. Single-use, low-density, segregated, and disconnected environments that are uninviting or hostile to pedestrians and cyclists strongly favor auto use. The design of these environments typically lacks basic pedestrian amenities such as sidewalks, allows parking to dominate the landscape, provides no direct route to destinations, and frequently leaves pedestrians and cyclists exposed to fast-moving and dangerous traffic. 

When faced with these environments, residents make rational choices and elect to travel by car, even when their destination is within walking or biking distance. Changing the design of these areas in a way that balances the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders with the needs of motorists is a key step in increasing livability. 

Multifamily housing features prominently in livability discussions, as increased density is an important component of compact and walkable development. This is compounded by the fact that multifamily housing is typically located near destinations such as shops, services, and parks. This condition makes multifamily development an ideal candidate for the livability concept of the “twenty-minute neighborhood”—the idea that many of our daily needs should be located within a twenty-minute walk from our homes. By focusing on local daily trips and not on work commutes, the twenty-minute neighborhood increases the quality of life for residents by making it easier for them to access the activities, goods, and services they regularly desire. 

Year after year, surveys have shown increasing interest in living in areas that are well connected to shops, services, and schools. While for some people this is merely a preference, for others it is a life-changing characteristic of their neighborhoods as greater accessibility increases independence for the elderly, the young, and the economically disadvantaged.

This book provides guidance for planners, developers, designers, and citizens to create more livable, connected, and vibrant multifamily developments and neighborhoods. Livability is a measure of a community’s quality of life and includes factors such as access to education, employment, entertainment, and recreation.

 The last few decades have seen a groundswell of interest in livability and how our built environment can hamper or promote it. Dense and compact development, the design of transportation systems, the design and distribution of open space, and the mixing of uses all contribute to an area’s livability. The typical disconnected and isolated models of development seen throughout the country have been linked to reduced quality of life, health, and social connections.

 Yet because of codes and the culture—and at times, simply habits—of planning, development, and design professionals, this form of development persists. This book is focused on shedding light on these codes, cultures, and habits and on describing the aspects of multifamily site design that contribute to livability.

 A key concern of the current livability movement has been to increase accessibility, safety, and social interaction by reducing the dominance of the automobile— and design is central to this concern. Single-use, low-density, segregated, and disconnected environments that are uninviting or hostile to pedestrians and cyclists strongly favor auto use.

 The design of these environments typically lacks basic pedestrian amenities such as sidewalks, allows parking to dominate the landscape, provides no direct route to destinations, and frequently leaves pedestrians and cyclists exposed to fast-moving and dangerous traffic. When faced with these environments, residents make rational choices and elect to travel by car, even when their destination is within walking or biking distance. Changing the design of these areas in a way that balances the needs of pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders with the needs of motorists is a key step in increasing livability. 

Multifamily housing features prominently in livability discussions, as increased density is an important component of compact and walkable development. This is compounded by the fact that multifamily housing is typically located near destinations such as shops, services, and parks. This condition makes multifamily development an ideal candidate for the livability concept of the “twenty-minute neighborhood”—the idea that many of our daily needs should be located within a twenty-minute walk from our homes. 

By focusing on local daily trips and not on work commutes, the twenty-minute neighborhood increases the quality of life for residents by making it easier for them to access the activities, goods, and services they regularly desire. Year after year, surveys have shown increasing interest in living in areas that are well connected to shops, services, and schools. While for some people this is merely a preference, for others it is a life-changing characteristic of their neighborhoods as greater accessibility increases independence for the elderly, the young, and the economically disadvantaged.

Focusing on the livability of multifamily housing can truly move the dial on livability. There are currently more than 20 million units of multifamily housing in this country and they are nearly evenly split between urban and suburban locations. Nationally, it is one of the fastest growing housing types and more than half of the new multifamily developments in the next twenty years will be in infill and redevelopment areas. Increasing the livability of these developments and taking advantage of their location near a mix of uses is an important first step in affecting the livability of the country as a whole .