20-Minute Neighborhood as the New England Town

Guest Blogger

Phil LaCombe

TND Planning Group Intern

Although we write mostly about the 20-minute neighborhood in the context of the city, sometimes small towns remind us that cities are really just a collection of neighborhoods and that the best cities are collections of 20-minute neighborhoods.

Recently, I took a trip from Maryland up to my home region of the Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts and in my travels visited the town of Greenfield, Massachusetts. Around 17,000 people call the Town of Greenfield home and roughly 6,000 people live within 20 minutes’ walking distance from the center of town. Greenfield is neither a tourist or college town, yet its Main Street contains all the right elements to provide a solid foundation for a 20-minute neighborhood.

We all need to eat, so a grocery store is arguably the most important element in a 20-minute neighborhood. Greenfield has the reasonably-sized Green Fields Market, which presents an inviting storefront in a compact space directly on the sidewalk but provides a thorough selection to meet nearby residents’ daily needs. A full-service food store brings people of all demographics to the main commercial street and can even serve as a community gathering space. A jazz ensemble, writers’ workshop, and yoga class all regularly make use of the second floor of the store. Sitting at a table on a sidewalk, I noticed that many of its patrons do not drive but walk or bike to the store.

Because I’m in just my early twenties, I never knew a time when people went downtown to shop at a department store. I was shocked to find Wilson’s Department Store on Main Street in Greenfield. There’s no need to drive to the mall or big-box store outside of town to buy clothing or housewares—you can walk to Wilson’s. Like all of the smaller buildings on Main Street, Wilson’s sits directly on the sidewalk to encourage walking. Much of Main Street features diagonal parking that helps to calm traffic on what would otherwise be a very wide street.

The “necessity” amenities in Greenfield, which include the grocery store, department store, post office and more, support “optional” amenities and activities such as the movie theater. (The movie titles on the marquee are out of date because I took these photos on a previous trip.) There’s also the library, YMCA, art galleries, smaller shops, a great park, and an array of cafés, bars and restaurants. All of these amenities feed on the foot and bike traffic from each other, creating synergies that not only bring life to the town but also circulate dollars in the local economy.

Because Greenfield’s businesses sit directly on the sidewalk, engage the street, and exist in a connected mixed-use fabric with nearby residences, they create synergies for walking and overall livability. One could live well in this town of just 17,000 people without using a car on a regular basis!

For good reason, the center of Greenfield earns a Walk Score of 92, making it a “Walker’s Paradise.” However walkable it may be, it’s important for a neighborhood to also have good transit access so that it’s possible to travel to other neighborhoods, towns and cities without a car. A transit center currently under construction will provide local bus, intercity bus, and paratransit service just two blocks from the center of town. In a few years, the transit center will offer Amtrak rail connections to other cities in the region as well as the Northeast Corridor, including New York City and our very own Baltimore. 

Road Trip: Savannah's 20-minute neighborhoods

As part of a whirlwind getaway last week, I visited Savannah, Georgia, one of the preeminent walkable cities in the U.S.  Even with Savannah's legendary oppressive heat, experiencing this place is a pure delight for anyone who appreciates great pedestrian-friendly urbanism.

This small city of approximately 136,000 was established in 1733 and laid out by General James Oglethorpe. His unique plan included 24 squares inserted at regular intervals into a uniform street grid. 21 of these squares still exist today and are one of the primary reasons why Savannah is such an inviting and special place. Savannah also boasts the nation's largest National Register Historic District which encompasses its entire downtown and its adjacent neighborhoods.

Despite its's small size, Savannah is a city of over 100 distinct neighborhoods, many of which would qualify as 20-minute neighborhoods. I was there visiting a good friend and fellow urbanist who lives near Forsyth Park, a vibrant urban oasis that seemed continuously filled with joggers, dog walkers, and stroller pushers.

We spent Friday evening and much of the day Saturday walking the city, where I was able to experience many of the wonderful squares - each with its own special charm and distinct character, the great human-scale architecture and walkable streetscapes, great local food and drink, and the general ongoing revitalization of Savannah's downtown core and neighborhoods.

A major factor in the revitalization of downtown Savannah is The Savannah College of Art and Design, or SCAD for short. SCAD is a relatively new school, having been in existence only since 1978, and is entirely embedded into the urban fabric through the reuse of mostly historic buildings for classrooms, dorms, and administrative offices.

I also observed Savannah's emerging bicycle culture where bicycles are increasingly being used by all ages and socio-economic groups as a basic form of transportation. Savannah is mostly flat and easy to get around by bicycle. The city has started putting in bike lanes, and there were obvious opportunities to do much more to make the streets bicycle-friendly.

The compactness of the city also puts most of it within reach of a short bus ride, some of which are attractive open-air rubber tired trolleys. Savannah's transit system, called CAT, includes a free trolley bus route that circulates through the urban core. Like Baltimore, Savannah's buses now have bike racks on them.

One of the most important aspects of creating 20-minute neighborhoods, is proximity to a full service grocery store or supermarket. There is a relatively new 44,000 square foot Kroger grocer in my friend's neighborhood, less than a 5-minute walk from his home. The free bus route also runs directly past the market.

There are also several smaller specialty grocers within a 5 and 10 minute walk of his home, as well as coffee shops,  restaurants, retail stores, health centers, parks, places of worship, and more. In fact, the Walkscore of his home address is 91 out of 100, classified as "Walker's Paradise."

Workshop Results Round II: Baltimore Place Mapping

Baltimore Google Primary and Secondary Place Map 

It's been two months since the workshop and we've continued to analyze the input we've received from participants. This week, we share the results of the place mapping exercise. One of the basic concepts covered at the workshop was that of creating a network of "primary and secondary" transit and bike routes that connects "primary and secondary" places. This multi-tiered approach that connects different kind of places with a similarly appropriate transit and bike network is common in other parts of the world but represents a departure from the largely one-size-fits-all approach to urban transportation and land use policy that has been in place in the U.S. for decades.

Primary places include those that either have a distinct center or sense of place and have the potential to generate large amounts of pedestrian activity, and/or major destinations or attractions that typically draw people from throughout the metropolitan area or beyond. Examples of primary places include universities, sports complexes, downtowns, regional transportation facilities, entertainment districts, major employment concentrations, and regional shopping centers.

Secondary places are those which also have a distinct center and have potential to generate significant pedestrian activity, but draw from a more local market within part of a metro area or surrounding neighborhoods. Examples of secondary places include neighborhood commercial districts, main streets with local shops, parks, and other types of destinations that do not draw from the entire metro area.

Worskhop participants at each of eight tables were asked to map primary and secondary places in the Baltimore metro area by placing a blue dot over the center of primary places and yellow dots over secondary places. Participants were then asked to identify if places were either "healthy", meaning that they were already relatively pedestrian friendly and walkable, or "have potential" - meaning that they have the potential to become walkable and vibrant if revitalization efforts or other steps are taken to transform them.

Since the workshop, we have been working on conducting an assessment of the place mapping results. As part of the process we have built a geographic information system (GIS) database, or digital map, of the place mapping. We have also built a Google Map of the place map results, which can be seen by clicking here.

The map includes places that were identified by at least 3 or more of the 8 tables. In cases where a place was identified as both primary and secondary by different tables, the dominant category was used. There were a handful of cases where a place was identified equally in both categories. In those cases, we used our judgment and knowledge of the region on how to classify each on the Google map.

The GIS maps shown below illustrate the number of  times that places were selected as either primary or secondary. The larger the circle, the more tables identified them. Places that were identified by fewer than 3 tables do not appear on this series of maps. Clearly, there are places that did not make it onto the maps that should be added. Those did not appear because they were either not identified by enough tables or they were not identified by any table. We would like input on places which should be added in order to gain a high level of confidence that the list is comprehensive.

Secondary Places

Primary Places

Composite

Generating a comprehensive list of primary and secondary places is the first step in identifying where 20-minute neighborhoods are located, as well as places which are not 20-minute neighborhoods themselves, but are destinations that can serve 20-minute neighborhoods.

Soon, we will be rolling out the next step in the analysis, which is to look at the Walkscore and Transitscore of select Primary and Secondary places. This will help further identify elements of the 20-minute neighborhood framework and another step in determining how those places could be better connected by transit and bike facilities.