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In the past I’ve noted how important it is, from a planning perspective, to be able to walk easily and comfortably in our daily lives. A wide array of organizations, and not just planners, are now fully on board with this idea. In September the U.S. Surgeon General issued a major call to action called , which made the very clear case for walking as the critical form of exercise for most people, and for creating walkable communities as a critical part of the remedy for obesity and other health-related issues.

While public health professionals and planners have long been on the same page on the health benefits of well-planned communities, other more surprising allies have surfaced recently. The National Association of Realtors publication has done a good job over the last few years of articulating the case for walkable communities from a real estate and economic perspective. And they are not alone. The Urban Land Institute has long been an advocate for compact urban development, and even the Home Builders Association has recently published articles on the benefits of walkable communities.

A national expert on walkability, Mark Fenton, was recently in Beaverton for a seminar on the subject, and he articulated the case for creating better walking environments in a highly entertaining presentation. But he also spent some time talking about how we can be more aggressive in retrofitting our auto-oriented suburban landscape to better accommodate walking as a primary form of mobility within our communities. More on that next time.