Foot Traffic Ahead 2019, released today by the Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis (CRUEA) at the George Washington University School of Business, Smart Growth America/LOCUS, Cushman & Wakefield, and Yardi Matrix, identified 761 regionally significant walkable urban places (i.e. WalkUPs) in the country’s 30 largest metros. While these WalkUPs occupy less than 1 percent of the land mass in those 30 metros, they punch far above their weight economically.
To get a sense of their impact, and the level of walkable urbanism in each city, Foot Traffic Ahead examines the share of total retail, office, and multifamily housing space located in WalkUPs and then ranks the metros. The top six metros with the most real estate in walkable urban places are New York City, Denver, Boston, Washington, DC, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Chicago, in that order.
These top tier metros account for almost half of the 761 WalkUPs examined—375 in total. Among all 30 metros, the number of distinct WalkUPs varies widely. Unsurprisingly, New York tops the list with 149 while metros like Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco are in the high 50s. On the low end of the scale are Las Vegas (2), Orlando (3), San Antonio (3), and Phoenix (5).