Future Looks Bright for City Living

Eliminating the need for a car and all of its operating costs makes downtown living more affordable, green and attractive going into the future. Urban planners are at work on making Spokane a walkable city and ways to include more affordable downtown Spokane homes.

clipped from www.spokesmanreview.com Planners predict urbanized future Bert Caldwell Staff writer October 16, 2008 Americans are returning to the nation's downtowns, reversing a century of migration to the suburbs and challenging planners who grew up in an automobile-dominated society, prominent planner and author Christopher Leinberger said Wednesday. Speaking to a regional conference of planners at the Davenport Hotel, Leinberger said walkable urban spaces became all but "illegal" in the post-World War II era, but shrinking households, higher transportation costs and the desire for more amenities are bringing people back into cities. "The future isn't really going to be about the car," he said. In fact, said Leinberger, eliminating a car would go a long way toward making mortgages on urban condos or townhouses more affordable. AAA calculates the annual cost of operating a Toyota Camry driven 15,000 miles a year at $7,800, he said, a sum that by itself could support a $150,000 mortgage.