Yule Heibel's Library tagged walkability →  View Popular, Search in Google

I wrote about the same thing on my blog recently, with respect to the neighborhood centers in Portland OR: the really successful ones draw in plenty of visitors from *outside* the immediate neighborhood, and they become attractions for people from surrounding areas. See: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/yulelog/2011/12/19/city-of-villages/ and scroll down to the section "Hungry and hungrier"...
QUOTE
For the formula [of walkable, viable neighborhood commercial centers] to work, the businesses must also be large enough to draw some customers from outside the neighborhood:

The tricky part is that the business concentration needed to encourage walking appears to be larger than most neighborhood residential populations can support. Given that, suburban regions should focus both on fostering pedestrian centers and on knitting those centers together with transportation networks, though such networks need not accommodate only cars.
UNQUOTE
To be read in conjunction with Why Do Some Neighborhoods Get Overrun With Chain Stores, While Others Don't?
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/01/why-do-some-neighborhoods-get-overrun-chain-stores-while-others-dont/909

urban_design walkability retail atlantic_cities kaid_benfield

Well, the old CBD - Central Business District - (as a monoculture of urban downtowns) sure seems to be taking a back seat...
QUOTE
All of this is leading to something of a convergence across America’s best neighborhoods, a morphing of what we used to think of as suburban versus city life. More and more of our most desirable suburban communities look more like cities, with bustling town centers alive with pedestrian life, while our best city neighborhoods have taken on many of the characteristics we used to see as the province of suburbs: good schools, green spaces, safe streets, and family life.
UNQUOTE

richard_florida cities suburbs walkability atlantic_cities

Meshes nicely with the research that shows sitting to be harmful to your health (whether in offices or in cars...)
QUOTE
Cars have so altered the way cities are planned that "it's arguable that zoning is now health averse," said Larry Frank, a professor at the University of B.C.'s school of community and regional planning. One of his studies found that for every hour spent in a car, there's a six-per-cent increase in the likelihood that you'll be obese.

Old cities are pedestrianfriendly because they had to be. But the rise of mega-cities makes that impossible, unless you consider public transit to be an extension of walking. Transit riders almost invariably walk to and from their bus or train to work or home. In fact, they are nearly 3.5 times more likely than drivers to meet minimum physical activity guidelines, according to another of Frank's studies.
UNQUOTE

vancouver walkability cities cars health walking

Short video clip produced by CEOs for Cities, which asks, "How much is it worth, to live two miles closer to work?" The answer(s) is (are) astonishing, when you take those 2 miles and make them cumulative, for the whole US. That said, imagine what it does mean, then, if we build cities that are walkable, that engage people in public transit, that shave those 2miles off people's commutes/ daily drives?

ceos_for_cities automobile cars driving video walkability urbanism