I have a confession to make. I was asked to come here today because people have come to think of me as the methods girl, a data geek, a methodholic.But actually, I'm a placeoholicMethods, data, definition, rationalism, are just my drugs of choice I use to feed my place addictionI very much embrace the notion thatIf you cannot measure it, it doesn't existbut not for the sake of measurement itself'but for the sake of changing itfor the sake of convincing other people to change itfor the sake of communicating the value of urban designBut I didn't start out this way.

Improving

China’s

Why the Path Toward a Sustainable China is a Walkable

One and How Best to Pave It

TM

Mariela Alfonzo, Ph.D.Founder, State of PlaceTM

Assistant Research Professor, NYUShenyang, China

May 10th, 2015

?

Walkability

Walkability

63%

1986 2009

SH

AR

E O

F TR

IPS

BY B

IKE

18%

housing construction

18B SQ M 2000 –

= 5M

2014

1982 = 3,428

1990 – 2004

BUILT OUT AREA

DENSITY

Communities

162% 67%

80%

2007

GATED

12%

DIABETES IN CHINA

2013

1%

1980

50%2013

PRE-DIABETES

63%

2004 2010

EM

ISS

ION

S per capitaCHINA’SEMISSION RATE

1/3TOPof emitters

AIR POLLUTION

IN 2010 RESPONSIBLE FOR

1.2 Million DEATHS 8YOUNGEST

LUNG CANCER

PATIENT ON RECORD

YRS OLD

$18.3B

INCOME LOSSof

HEART DISEASE, STROKE & DIABETES

IN CHINAdue to

IN 2005 ALONE

RESIDENTS2.5B

500M

YRS LIFE EXPECTANCY

IN 2009

9%

GROSS

NATIONAL

INCOME

DUE TO ENVIRONMENTAL

DEGRADATION

LOSS OF

People who use public transit are less likely to be sedentary or obese

Proximity to public transit is linked to higher transit use More and higher quality sidewalks are linked to more walking

& a lower likelihood of being overweight Residents of neighborhoods with sidewalks on most streets

were 47% more likely to get moderate-to-vigorous physical activity at least 5days per week for at least 30 minutes each day than were residents of neighborhoods with sidewalks on few or no streets

For every 1% increase in the length of on-street bicycle lanes, there was a 0.31% increase in bicycle commuters

Fast and heavy traffic is commonly cited by youth and adults as a barrier to walking and cycling

High levels of vehicular traffic have been associated with lower rates of physical activity in nearby areas.

People who lived in compact, higher-density counties walked more and were less likely to be obese and hypertensive than people who lived in more sprawling counties

Residents of counties with more sidewalks, bike lanes and trails; more walkable mixed land use development; and strong planning policies had higher levels of physical activity

Walking for transportation was most strongly related to living in neighborhoods with high residential density, mixed land use and short distances to destinations

In Atlanta, those who lived in the most walkable neighborhoods were 35 percent less likely to be obese than were residents who lived in the least walkable areas

For each additional hour of driving per day, residents’ obesity risk increased by 6 percent

The obesity rate among adults who drove the most was 27%, which is about 3x higher than the than the obesity rate (9.5%) among those who drove the least

Residents who lived within one mile of a park reported 38% more exercise sessions and were 4x more likely to visit the park at least once per week than were residents who lived further away.

VMT in the US, 1971-2012

Mode Split in the US, 1960-2010

Walkability is related to decreased vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and increased walking

CO2 emissions are largely linked to VMT Can extend link between walkability and VMT to walkability

and GHGs (Frank, et. al. 2010) Transit accessibility, residential density, and street

connectivity (all related to walkability) are related to decreased energy expenditures related to motorized transport and more walking

People who live in neighborhoods with the lowest walkability drive 39 miles more per person each weekday 30% more than those with the highest walkability On weekends, those in most walkable neighborhoods drive 40% less

Shifting 60% of new growth to compact patterns would: Save 85 million metric tons of CO2 by 2030 Would be equal to a 28% increase in CAFE standards to 32 mpg in

2020 (but benefits extend well beyond) Equate to a fuel cost savings of $250 billion by 2030

Rockport (shoe company) advertisement

Fast forward ten years later. Today walkability is such a known commodity that it’s even made its way onto a shoe ad!I cannot tell you how happy this makes me – when I first told my friends in Miami I was moving to Southern California to study walkability, they thought I was nuts! We’ve come a long way in the past 15 years. The health benefits of walkability are now well known – people walk more when it’s, well, easier to walk! And that has huge impacts on obesity rates and associated chronic diseases. The environmental benefits of reduced GHGs and air quality have also come to light in the recent years. People now talk about sustainability and resiliency in the same breath they talk about walkability. And recent studies have even extolled the happiness factor that walkability brings, not to mention sense of community and sense of place. But it’s really the economic story that has pushed walkability to the real estate limelight…

Today, walkability is no longer a nice to have or a luxury, it’s key to economic competitiveness. Survey after survey now show that an increasing number of both Millennials and older adults want to live in lively, dynamic places where it’s safe, convenient, and pleasurable to walk to everyday destinations and amenities. Walkability now even has a role in the innovation and startup economy, with a large majority of Venture Capital money going to center cities or walkable suburbs. Even the CEO of Twitter talks about the appeal of an urban campus – and he’s not alone. Facebook, Google and other major tech players are increasingly locating in the walkable core of cities. I cannot tell you how many stories I hear about cities going the “walkability” route after losing bids to lure large firms to other cities in their regions that offered employees a better quality of life, specifically walkability – this was the case for Oklahoma City, where I just gave a talk about the power of place at their second biannual Placemaking conference. Again, walkability is no longer a nice to have, it’s a need to have.

80%

OF 18-34SURVEYED WANT

TO LIVE INWALKABLENEIGHBORHOODS

YEAR OLDS

"I love the idea of an urban corporate campus with all the energy and variety that provides" Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey

40%

W I T H IN OF DAILY

GOODS &SERVICES1

WANT TO L IVE> 50 YRS OLD

MI

5 INVESTMENTM A R K E T S

58%IN

TOP VC OF CAPITAL W E N T T OCENTER C ITY

OR WALKABLE SUBURBS

Over the past few years, New York City has made a concerted effort to focus on place and walkability – even though by all measures, they were already pretty walkable. But this dedication and focus has paid off. This is an example of a redevelopment of an under-used parking lot – you guys know those well, no?The City decided to convert it into a small pedestrian plaza – using very inexpensive materials, may I add. In a matter of three years, the businesses around the plaza had experienced an 172% increase in retail sales. But that’s the tip of the iceberg.

172% Retail Sales

3 YearsDumbo

Brooklyn, NY

In a study by the NYC DOT, they found that protected bike lanes not only had significant safety benefits, they also translated to dollars and cents – a 49% increase in retail sales compared to 3% borough wide.

In Union Square, a small expansion of the turning radii – literally going from a curvilinear pattern to a 90 degree angle and giving that space over to pedestrians reduced commercial vacancies by 49% compared to 5% citywide! That’s just some concrete and planters.

Again, with the parking. In Brooklyn, they converted yet another underused parking area – that translated into a 172% increase in retail sales.And even a more modest project – converting a curb lane into outdoor seating for pedestrians not only increased their volumes by more than ¾ but also increased sales at bordering businesses by 14%

And finally, back to the bike lanes, in Manhattan, my neighborhood, dedicated bike lanes not only had positive benefits in terms of safety and traffic flow but also reduced commercial vacancies by 47% compared to 2% borough wide.

But this isn’t just in NYC. In a study by Ceos for Cities of the 30 top metros, they found that an increase of 1 pt in Walkscore – a proxy for walkability that measures proximity to different commercial destinations ranging from 1-100 – translated into price premiums ranging from $700 to $3000 in terms of for sale residential values. In a different study out of Arizona State University, they found that an increase of 10pts in Walkscore was associated with an increase of 5-8% in commercial values5-8%Commercial

Values

$700 - $3kFor-sale Residential Premiums

Transit enters the equation as well – with property values within walking distance to a transit station had a 40% premium – now a lesson there – there cannot just be a transit stop, it has to be connected to destinations and amenities. Think about all of the empty lots near Houston’s light rail – they are ripe with opportunity…

Property values within walking distance of public transit stations are

40% higher than other properties in the same region.

And walkability doesn’t just mean price premiums – it means resiliency too. Since the housing peak in the mid 2000s, residential values in walkable neighborhoods had less than half the decline in value.

Residential values in walkable neighborhoods experienced less than half the average decline in value from the housing peak in the mid 2000s

To that end, not only did values decline less in walkable neighborhoods during the recession, they have rebounded that much more since, as you can see here in an interactive tool by Moody’s and Real Capital Analytics, prices have risen more sharply in highly walkable CBDs, followed by walkable suburbs, with car dependent suburbs still struggling to get get back to peak prices

Residential values more stable in walkable neighborhoods Have experienced less than half the average decline in

value from the housing peak A 10pt increase in Walk Score linked to 5-8% increase in

commercial values A 1pt increase in Walk Score linked to $700-$3000 for-sale

residential premiums Avg. operating cost /yr., Bike: $308 Avg. operating cost/yr. Car: $8,220 Urban mixed-use developments generate 25-59x

revenue/acre than suburban counterparts 1% rise in urban sprawl index increases obesity risk by 0.5% In 2008, medical $$ to treat obesity in US, approx. $147B

But this isn’t just about individual price premiums. As I mentioned before, there are serious economic development implications of walkability for city’s bottom lines as well. A study for Raleigh, NC, concluded that a six-story building downtown produces 50 times as much property tax revenue per acre as an average Walmart store. Even a three-story residential building produces more property tax revenue per-acre than a major shopping mall.

Municipal Property Tax Yield (per acre) in Raleigh, NC, 2011

$2,078

$2,837

$22,175

$26,098

$30,057

$110,461

Walmart

Single-family residential

Crabtree Valley Mall

3-4 story Residential

3 story Office

6 story Mixed-use

Outside central business district

Within central business district

Silver, M. (2012). Presentation for the City of Raleigh.

And in yet another study conducted by SGA in 2013, mixed-use downtown development was found to generate 10 times the tax revenue per acre, saves 38 percent on upfront infrastructure costs per unit, and saves 10 percent on ongoing delivery of services compared to sprawl.Walkability impacts budgets as well…

Mixed Use Development vs. Sprawl

Well, these are the issues that I’ve been trying to address through my research and with State of Place. So after years of extolling the value of walkability, I finally had the opportunity to show them the money. Nearly three years ago, I co-authored a Brookings study with Chris Leinberger about the value of of urban design and walkability. We gathered built environment and real estate data from over 60 neighborhoods in the Washington DC Metro area that were sampled from over 240 neighborhoods along a continuum of walkability, from the auto-dominated exurbs to the highly walkable core. And I developed the first official State of Place algorithm! I created a comprehensive index, ranging from 0 to 100, to make sense out of the 162 data points we were gathering with the audit tool – the same one we had used in Houston.

And then came Brookings! I finally had the opportunity to truly tie built environment features not just to walking, health, sense of place and community, but to economic value. We gathered IMI and real estate data from over 60 neighborhoods in the Washington DC Metro area that were sampled from over 240 neighborhoods along a continuum of walkability, from the auto-dominated exurbs to the highly walkable core. A meta-analyses examining the results of dozens of studies evaluating the relationship between the built environment and walking guided the development of the first official State of Place algorithm – finally! I created a comprehensive index, ranging from 0 to 100, to make sense out of the 162 data points we were gathering with the IMI. I’ll go into that more in just a little bit, but first the real Eureka moment:

As the State of Place Index increased, so did a variety of other real estate values.Specifically, we divided the Index into five levels of walkability – or quality of place – and for each level increase, we saw premiums of nearly $9/sqft in office rents, $7/sqft in retail rents, an 80% increase in retail sales, a $300/unit increase in residential rents, and more than $81/sqft in for sale residential value.

Very Low

State of Place™ Index Tied to Economic Value

0 - 20 Low

Moderate

Good

Very Good21 -

40

41 - 60

61 - 80

81 - 100

*PREMIUMS FOR EACH

LEVEL INCREASE

+ $9 SF OFFICE RENTS

+ $7 SF RETAIL RENTS

+80% RETAIL REVENUES

+ $300 UNIT RES. RENT

+$81 SF FOR-SALE RES. VALUE

As the State of Place Index increased, so did a variety of other real estate values.Specifically, we divided the Index into five levels of walkability – or quality of place – and for each level increase, we saw premiums of nearly $9/sqft in office rents, $7/sqft in retail rents, an 80% increase in retail sales, a $300/unit increase in residential rents, and more than $81/sqft in for sale residential value.

When you aggregate what that means in terms of going from the lowest to the highest level of State of Place, the numbers are quite startling.When you aggregate what that means in terms

of going from the lowest to the highest level of State of Place, the numbers are quite startling.

+ $37 sq. ft. Office Rents+ $30 sq. ft. Retail Rents+340% Retail Revenues

+ $1281/Unit Residential Rent+$347 sq. ft. For-sale

ResidentialState of Place™ Index: 90, Very Good

State of Place™ Index: 5, Very Low

And all in all, these premiums have serious implications for economic development in terms of retail and property tax bases

And all in all, these premiums have serious implications for economic development in terms of retail and property tax bases

WASHINGTON, DC

+$744 mill in residential property tax

base/neighborhood

+$96 mill in retail taxes generated/neighborhood

Sustainability

Walkability

I think what was most exciting about the Brookings study for me was the immediate applicability of its findings not just to showcase the value of place – but to be able to weave a data-driven story to support not just the why – but the how. And for me, it was the perfect way to blend the consummate academic with the energetic entrepreneur in me. Today, state of place is an urban data analytics platform that allows placemakers – cities, developers, investors, planners and designers – to identify and economically justify the optimal design, planning, and development projects that create thriving places people love.I’m going to briefly guide you through how we are doing that.

TM

So in the last three years since the Brookings study, we got the opportunity to update the underlying audit tool when we applied it to the Chinese context. We refined many of the existing inventory items, deleted extraneous items, and added items mainly related to pedestrian and bicycle barriers and architectural and building quality. In the end, we ended up with 286 items, all collected at the block level.

280+URBAN DESIGN

FEATURES

TOUCH, SEE & FEEL

WALKABILITY

FROM

ARCADES

TO

ZEBRA STRIPES

So in the last three years since the Brookings study, we got the opportunity to update the underlying IMI audit tool when we applied it to the Chinese context. We refined many of the existing inventory items, deleted extraneous items, and added items mainly related to pedestrian and bicycle barriers and architectural and building quality. In the end, we ended up with 286 items, all collected at the block level.

We collect this data on-site (or using Google street view). We use “people-power” to collect this data. All raters must go through a training process to ensure the integrity and reliability of the data, including a video training and quiz. It takes about 10-15 minutes per block, and the data is collected using our State of Place app, which significantly streamlines the process relative to our paper and pencil days! One of advantages is that virtually anyone can be trained to collect this data, including high school students and community members, allowing the opportunity to foster community engagement along with collecting quantitative data.

TRAINING VIDEO

+ INTERACTIVE

QUIZ

TRAINED COMMUNITY MEMBERS OR STAFF

COLLECT DATA

MINUTES/B LO C K

10-15

STATE OF PLACE APP

SEAMLESSLY TRANSFERS

DATA TO SERVERS

All raters must go through a training process to ensure the integrity and reliability of the data, including a video training and quiz. It takes about 10-15 minutes per block, and the data is collected using our State of Place app, which significantly streamlines the process relative to our paper and pencil days! One of advantages is that virtually anyone can be trained to collect this data, including high school students and community members, allowing the opportunity to foster community engagement along with collecting quantitative data.

As I mentioned previously, the State of Place Index itself is a score from o to 100 – you do not need to have every single item present to achieve a score of 100. Rather, 100 represents the highest observed score from our continuum of very low to very high walkable neighborhoods – it’s a realistic goal. The Index is broken down into ten urban design dimensions, all of which have been empirically linked to whether or not people walked, identified in the metaanalysis I mentioned earlier. Each of the individual sub dimensions is also scored from o to 100. The algorithm is structured in such a way as to capture urban design elements as part of a whole, so it’s not additive but interactional – it calculates if, then, what scenarios. Overall, this creates the State of Place profile, which provides a quick snapshot of how a neighborhood is doing from an urban design perspective – see, there, I said it again! One can identify its built environment assets and needs, starting to set priorities for how best to address the needs of a neighborhood – more on that later.It’s also broken up into four sets of urban design features –the Urban Fabric, or the nuts and bolts of the neighborhood, its bones; various types of Destinations to walk to; the level of Human Comfort for the pedestrian; and Liveliness and Upkeep. These are organized in terms of their level of resiliency, or how hard it would be to change them once they are in place. It’s much harder to fix and existing urban fabric than to add some sidewalks and trees.

0%

20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

DENSITY

FORMCONNECTIVIT

YPROXIMITY

PARKS & PUBLIC SPACES

RECREATIONAL FACILITIESPEDESTRIAN & BIKE

AMENITIESTRAFFIC SAFETY

AESTHETICS

PERSONAL SAFETY

URBAN FABRIC

DESTINATIONS

HUMAN NEEDS & COMFORT

LIVELINESS & UPKEEP

STATE OF PLACE™ INDEX & PROFILE

For Density, we are measuring building compactness and height, not so much population density – this is particularly important in terms of making it feasible to have enough destinations to walk to within a reasonable walking distance. It can also influence the scale of city – is it for cars or people?

DENSITYCompactness &Height

Related to that is Urban Form. Here we are measuring streetscape continuity, so we take into account building setbacks, how the building meets the street, the siting of buildings, and the number and width of buildings. This is what I like to call the hugability of a street. If the form is off, a street can feel aloof or it can feel suffocating. You know you’ve achieved the right proportions of setbacks, street width, and building height when it feels like the street is hugging you.

FORMStreetscape Continuity

In terms of Connectivity, we are measuring the relative ease of getting from one part of the neighborhood to another, as well as the presence of barriers to pedestrians or bicyclists within the block itself. I know you’ve all been there – if there wasn’t a fence, road, highway, insert barrier of choice between you and your neighborhood restaurant, you could totally walk there. But instead, what could be effectively a 5-minute walk becomes a 25-minute one, and you take the car instead.

CONNECTIVITYAccess & Barriers

Proximity refers to the diversity of the land use mix – the number of non-residential land uses there are to walk to. So literally, how many of your daily needs, services, and amenities are present within a certain distance of you

PROXIMITY Land Use Mix

With parks and public spaces, we include the presence hard and soft scape public spaces, as well as their quality and accessibility. These are often the soul and life of neighborhoods, they are the city’s living rooms. Along with museums and monuments, these are the places you bring your friends and families to when they come visit. I can tell a lot about a city based on how people use their public spaces.

PARKS & PUBLIC SPACES

Presence, Quality & Access

We also look at recreational facilities – separately. This is getting a bit more at recreational walking, but the literature found this to be an important determinant for physical activity, so we measure the presence of outdoor and indoor physical activity facilities.

RECREATIONAL FACILITIES

Photo Credit Bill Cotter

Pedestrian and bike amenities refer to aspects of the built environment that make it comfortable or pleasant to be a pedestrian, so sidewalk presence and quality, seating, bike lane presence and type, street trees, etc. Along with form, these are the features that truly help distinguish car-focused neighborhoods from people-first places – they are the things that make you want to linger…

PEDESTRIAN

AMENITIES

BICYCLISTAMENITIES

Along with that, we look at traffic safety. Here we are mainly focusing on the quality and safety of the intersection as well as the presence of traffic calming features. These include the presence of curbcuts, crosswalk markings, traffic standards, and on-street parking. These are the features that help manage all of the mobile members of the public realm – people, strollers, bicyclists, scooters, cars, and buses.

TRAFFIC SAFETY

Aesthetics goes beyond the visually pleasing; it also includes aspects of urban design that make places more dynamic and inviting. We look at the transparency of buildings, colors, outdoor dining, street trees, building maintenance, ground floor uses, etc. This is charm, character, the wow factor – the things you’ll most remember about places.

AESTHETICSLiveliness &maintenance

Finally, personal safety refers not to actual crime data but rather the aspects of the built environment that influence our perception of safety – these are called physical incivilities and include features like graffiti, litter, broken windows, abandoned buildings and lighting. These features actually influence walking rates more than the rates of crime incidents.

PERSONAL SAFETY

Neighborhood 1: Xintiandi (“High” walkable)

N= 129 segmentsN = 129 resident surveys

STATE OF PLACE™ INDEX = 54.8

Neighborhood 2: Zhongshan Park (“Medium” walkable)

N = 60 segmentsN = 243 resident surveys

STATE OF PLACE™ INDEX = 42.2

Neighborhood 3: Lianhua Lu (“Low” walkable)

N = 97 segmentsN = 291 resident surveys

STATE OF PLACE™ INDEX = 41.9

Neighborhood 4: Fengqi Lu (“High” walkable)

N = 97 segmentsN = 291 resident surveys

STATE OF PLACE™ INDEX = 40.7

Neighborhood 5: Cuiyuan (“Medium” walkable)

N= 18 segmentsN = 217 resident surveys

STATE OF PLACE™ INDEX = N/A

Neighborhood 6: Guihua Cheng (“Low” walkable)

N= 127 segmentsN = 234 resident surveys

STATE OF PLACE™ INDEX = 34.8

+22MIN

COMMUTING

DESTINATIONS

EXERCISE

+3.5MIN

+4.6MIN

+14MIN

22.7

29.5

23.9

6.5

22

16.5

Low Income

Middle Income

HighIncome

BMI

Min Walk/Wk

The Bygone Pedestrian

Low Connectivity:Physical Barriers

Low Connectivity:Scale & Psychological Barriers

Traffic Safety?Cars Gone Wild

Lack of Pedestrian Amenities:A Planning Afterthought

Bad Form

But there IS Life between Buildings:

The Pedestrian Persists…

Ped & Bike Amenities

Parks & Public Spaces

Spectacle - PleasurabilityPeople watching

you watching people

Dancing - PleasurabilityCoordinated walkability

PleasurabilityFood is the Life of the Party!

PleasurabilityAnimated Streets

New Forms

Solutions?

Land Lease as significant source of city revenues

City Center

The

“Peking”

Ordere

Sun Worshiping

Fenced In

By the BOOK

Theory

Practice

Too Many Cooks

Accountability?

Fixing what “ain’t” broke!

All that Glitters is Gold

Lack of Awareness

U.S.

In last decade

CHINAhas added

2/3 of

population

will have

Chinese cities221

over1 million ppl

By 2025 CHINA NEEDS

170 new mass-transit

5B new sq.m. of roads

40B new sq.m. of floor space

Identify Priorities

State of Place Index

State of Place Profiles

Scenario Analysis

Run Analytics

So State of Place is an urban data analytics platform – we are currently taking steps to convert the analytics I’ve been conducting on the backend into a user-facing software. And by the way, we’re currently recruiting “strategic clients” that want to work with us to build this out with us.What we are doing with State of Place is:First, helping set priorities among the landscape of neighborhoods within a region – what level of investments or interventions are needed across the region and what kind of investment structure is called for – private, public-private, or non-profit/NGO

Platform conducts “multi-criterion assessment” to identify top priorities.

Example, Walkability as a Goal:

Dimension Performance

Ranking for Goal (Walkability)

Impact*

Feasibility

Community

Score

Density 76.5 9 .432 1 4.3 91.4Form 65.4 9 .543 1 7.1 169.1Connectivity 55.8 9 .342 1 6.3 136.0Proximity 74.3 9 .765 2 9.5 353.9Parks & Public Spaces

23.5 9 .6342

7.4873.0

Recreational Facilities

13.4 9 .5482

5.7854.2

Pedestrian Amenities

55.4 9 .8133

8.6979.0

Traffic Safety 43.1 9 .745 3 8.8 1144.5

Aesthetics 58.4 9 .436 4 7.5 962.3Personal Safety 71.3 9 .512 4 9.3 529.0

*Impact scores listed here are for explanatory purposes only; the actual impact scores are proprietary.

Next, helping set priorities within a neighborhood itself – we use something called Multi-criterion assessment for that. Imagine if you had a certain budget for an airline ticket but you wanted to get the most bang for your buck, balancing your preferred airline, preferred airport, specific times, dates, non-stop vs layovers, duration of layovers, etc. If there was an app that weighed the importance of each of these factors and pointed to your ideal flight given your budget – that’s basically what we do for neighborhoods. We weigh five things 1) the performance of a neighborhood along each of the ten urban design dimensions (the index score); 2) how important certain outcomes are to you – like walkability, retail rents, office rents, etc. – at this moment, we incorporate goals for which we have data, what I outlined for you earlier in terms of the Brookings findings, but we are partnering with researchers to expand this list to include broader economic development factors like number of jobs, number of startups, etc.; 3) the predicted impact of improving a certain urban design dimension on each goal or outcome – this is based on regression analyses we’ve conducted from which we’ve extrapolated a standardized magnitude of impact that ranges from 0 to 1 – Happy to chat more about this later but I don’t want to geek out too much and lose you here!; 4) the feasibility of changing a specific urban design dimension – so something like connectivity is harder to fix than something like pedestrian amenities, as I mentioned earlier; and finally 5) if the community was involved in the data collection process, we compute an average score that measures how important and satisfied the community is with each of the urban design dimensions. In the end, the dimension with the highest “score” is prioritized, as it will essentially give you the biggest bang for your – likely limited – buck, same as with the flight ticket. It’s sort of like an exponentially better version of an existing conditions analyses – we go beyond the State of Place profile itself and use methods to help you set and justify evidence-based priorities.

Identify Priorities

State of Place Index

State of Place Profiles

Scenario Analysis

Run Analytics

The other key thing we do with State of Place is identify the specific interventions and/or development proposals that would have the biggest impact on State of Place and also create an economic justification for those projects.

Compare Interventions

See Recommendations

Compare ProjectsIf you were to compare interventions,

Choose Dimensions To Compare

Density

Form

Connectivity

Proximity

Parks & Public Spaces

Recreational Facilities

Pedestrian & Bicyclist Amenities

Traffic Safety

Aesthetics

Personal Safety

✓

✓

✓

you would choose different urban design dimensions to compare,

Parks & Public Spaces

$80,000

Pedestrian & Bicyclist Amenities

Traffic Safety

Add Park

Add Plaza

New Plaza Park Maintenance

Arcades

Benches

Sidewalk Buffers

Street Trees Sidewalk Buffers

Crosswalks

Curbcuts

Midblock Crossing

Pedestrian Countdown

CurbCuts

Enter Project Cost Enter Project Cost

Select Interventions

Then choose from different types of interventions that would boost the scores for those dimensions, and enter their project costs

Com. property tax

For-sale residential

Office rents

Retail rents

Residential rents

Res. property taxes

Vacancy Rates

Retail Rents

Enter Baseline

Select Goal

Calculate Predicted ROI

You would choose a benchmarking goal by which to compare them – again, these are the metrics for which we currently can predict the relationship to State of Place

Parks & Public Spaces

$80,000

Pedestrian & Bicyclist Amenities

Traffic Safety

$300,000 $150,000

$1.09/sf $0.89/sf

Park Maintenance Sidewalk Buffers Curbcuts

$1.43/sf

Predicted ROI: Retail Rents

+4.3% +3.1% +3.7%

Impact on State of Place Index

And we then calculate how those interventions would change the State of Place score and what the corresponding predicted return on investment would be for each project. We use that same impact score (the relationship between State of Place and these key outcomes) to calculate this number

Extending that in terms of what it means for value for money and total value capture…gives you an objective way to compare scenarios AND communicate and justify its value

Parks & Public Spaces

$80,000

Pedestrian & Bicyclist Amenities

Traffic Safety

$300,000 $150,000

$1.09/sf $0.89/sf

Park Maintenance Sidewalk Buffers Curbcuts

$1.43/sf

Predicted ROI: Retail Rents

+4.3% +3.1% +3.7%

Impact on State of Place Index

$1.36/dollar $.03/dollar $.10/dollar

Value for Money: 100k sqft

$109k $89k $143k

Total Value Captured: 100k sqft

Compare Interventions

See Recommendations

Compare Projects

We can do the same for development proposals

Enter Project Cost Enter Project Cost

Enter Project Information

Neighborhood 1

$1,800,000

Neighborhood 1 Neighborhood 1

Project 1 Project 2 Project 3Entering the different project costs

Com. property tax

For-sale residential

Office rents

Retail rents

Residential rents

Res. property taxes

Vacancy Rates

Retail Rents

Enter Baseline

Select Goal

Calculate Predicted ROI

Choosing the benchmark or goal

Neighborhood 1

$1,800,000

Neighborhood 1 Neighborhood 1

$2,700,000 $2,300,000

$1.43/sf $0.99/sf

Project 1 Project 2 Project 3

$1.56/sf

Predicted ROI: Retail Rents

+6.0% +2.0% +11.0%

Impact on State of Place Index

Map It

And then calculating the ROI on place!

We are doing this currently for one of our clients who is managing a $30M equity fund focusing on underserved neighborhoods in Boston. They are using State of Place to help identify which development projects will have the most impact on Place – and ultimately informing which ones they will fund.

Predicted ROI Impact of Proposed Projects

Ultimately, my mission has been not only to create the academic evidence to put place – and walkability – into the equation, but to transform that evidence into an accessible, real-world tool to advance the state of place of real communities. Ever-driven by my Westchester story – my aim, my passion, has been to offer the choice of place. No one should have to go through that much effort to get a chicken terriyaki sub (even if it was mighty tasty) or a gallon of milk – or a cocktail, or place to gather with friends or family. Everyone should have the option of experiencing the infectiousness of powerful places.Thanks very much

TM

mariela@stateofplace.orgwww.stateofplace.org

For full demo: bit.ly/DemoSoP