New data show the resilience of walkable commercial areas through the recent recession. Parking minimums, however, prevent new projects from taking advantage of the strengths of such development patterns.
"Neighborhood walkability has been a huge asset for commercial landlords during the recovery from the 2008 recession," reports Matthew Yglesias using a dataset from Moody's and Real Capital Analytics that breaks down commercial real estate prices by WalkScore.
From an infographic created for the dataset, Yglesias produces the following conclusion: "whether it's in suburbs or in central business districts, prices have rebounded from the recession much more strongly in walkable areas than in car-dependent ones…"
As for why that might be, Yglesias argues that car-based retail has suffered the impacts of online retail services like Amazon. "Bars, restaurants, and homey shops that don't compete directly with Amazon work better in walkable areas."
FULL STORY: Neighborhood walkability is good for the commercial real estate bottom line
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