Tampa Ranked Last in Study of Walkable Cities

Picture a place where you can step out of your home and walk to work, the movies or a restaurant. Just don't picture Tampa. A new survey ranks the city dead last for walkability among 30 major metro areas. The top three: Washington, D.C., Boston and San Francisco. Miami ranked eighth, and Atlanta 14th. It's not the first time Tampa has been rapped for its mean streets. A 2004 survey determined pedestrians in the Tampa Bay area take their lives in their hands more than in any other metro area in the country except Orlando.

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With places like Ybor City, Channelside, and other historic neighborhoods in Tampa, what is keeping the city from bringing the densities needed to harness important walkable places?

Walkability

I seem to always have ideas of what might work in an urban setting, in between places, or around. One of the recurring thoughts that complements these ideas is creating a place that people not only want to frequent, but a place where they feel like they can make (and do make) a contribution to it's overall existence. Whether it be a vegetable stand on the side of the road, a local coffee shop, public park, or music venue, these places must be able to connect with the "locals" more often than not, and create a meaningful amount of interaction between these people to improve their daily lives. It has been proven that people want to exercise (or just walk) more, why not design these places to be easily walkable.

But, the dilemma in creating these walkable places relates to creating that critical mass that attracts the retail necessary to sustain such walkability. Because, people are not going to walk for the sake of walking, they want to walk to accomplish a goal such as grocery shopping, a cup of coffee, or a haircut. These commercial places, referred to as "third places" by Ray Oldenburg in his book The Great Good Place must exist to create everyday interactions that make walkable places so valuable to the community.