Help Requested -- Understanding Commercial Real Estate
I've recently found myself as a participant in a few discussions on urban design, walkable cities, and real estate. The idea was that North America is heavily car-centric and that walkability is underserved by both public and private spaces. I know of [at least one development underway](https://culdesac.com/) that's directly trying to address this, but I'm wondering if this is an obscure issue or something that the CRE community would like to move towards as a whole.

Specifically, I'm looking for some help with any of the following questions:

* Does creating or selling more walkability matter? If so, is it a bigger problem for the development of the property or for finding tenants?
* What's your experience with this problem?
* Where else should I be looking for answers?

Thank you.

DISCLAIMER: I'm still new to the subject of real estate and not sure if this is even the right forum, but any and all help is appreciated.
[{"id": "hw02v6p", "text": "The villages is connected by an intermodal path. You can go anywhere on a bike or golf cart. It really doesn\u2019t take much more space, just planning. Lease rate on connected property is $3-5 psf higher then when it\u2019s not.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hw0ek7a", "text": "there are very few developments large enough for this to matter imo.  Internally sure, but externally if folks still need cars and are buying apartments in a new construction mixed use community they probably make enough to afford a car.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "hw11n5q", "text": "Walkability and the pedestrian experience is a regularly considered element of new development in the planning and design stages. This is especially true of mixed use development featuring retail space at grade. \n\nGenerally the more urban the development, the more prioritized this is and there is a lot of variation by city in regards to the importance placed on walkability. So cities that are typically more car-centric like Dallas Ft Worth, parts of LA, Pheonix etc... may not emphasize this as a design imperative whereas places like Seattle, Boston, Vancouver (CA), NYC would place greater importance on pedestrian experience as they're more walkable in nature.\n\nConsider that most urban development occurs on a sub-city block basis, so each new building would need to be designed in tandem with neighboring buildings to contribute to a pedestrian friendly experience. The result of consistent prioritizing of walkability would be more street level activation for things like patios, parkettes, wide sidewalks, public seating and 18 hour tenants like cafes, restaurants, bars, consumer goods stores (as opposed to professional services or pseudo-office uses which interact less with pedestrians).\n\nWhere urban layouts feature alleyways, these spaces can be cleaned up and activated to offer a pedestrian friendly thoroughfare. Larger development formats (say half a block or larger) can also be designed to feature pedestrian through-access by breaking up streetwalls, offering punch through breezeways, internal parks or seating etc...\n\nThe benefit to developers or investors is that pedestrian friendly spaces tend to hold greater appeal to tenants as foot traffic is a significant consideration for most retailers which can lead to higher lease rates and thus greater value creation. Parking is also made less important which saves construction costs  (if underground)  and allows for more site coverage (if above ground).\n\nAccess to transit and effective mixed use development are highly correlated to a pedestrian friendly urban experience so you may want to research both for some additional talking points.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]