Which Cities Are Adding Walkable Housing the Fastest?

The percentage of housing in walkable neighborhoods has dropped from 19.4% to 12% since 1970. Overall, though the number of housing units in America has outpaced population at a ratio of 3:2 since 1970, the number of housing units in walkable neighborhoods has trailed behind population growth at a ratio of 3:1. Now that market preference has returned to dense housing, this mismatch has left us far behind in adequate supply.

The silver lining is an uptick in decade to decade construction of dense housing. The net gain of housing in walkable neighborhoods as a fraction of total net housing gain by decade has increased from just 0.3% in the 1970’s to 10.7% in the 2000’s.

Virtually all major metros increased their absolute supply of attached housing between 1970 and 2010 (Figure 1). The largest absolute increases tended to be in larger housing markets in which housing is already dense, but when broken down by the point change in percentage of total housing (Figure 2) [at the top of this post], a very different set of cities rises to the top. The most dramatic shifts occurred in growing low-regulation markets in pleasant climates such as Miami, Orlando, and San Diego. Trailing just slightly behind are west coast cities like Portland, Seattle, San Jose and Los Angeles. At the bottom of the list are cities that have weathered difficult economic trajectories, like New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Buffalo.