Specificlly built to be unwalkable in fact, to keep out "undesirables".

Source?

Look up "white flight". http://www.alternet.org/story/65404/the_future_of_cities%3A_...

Ah, I stand corrected. Thank you.

To a certain extent you have to read between the lines, people aren't usually gonna come out and say, "Yes, these regulations are to prevent minorities and the poor from coming to my neighborhood." But that's kind of the obvious takeaway from, say, zoning regulations that mandate houses/lot sizes of a minimum large size: they make it so that a lower-middle class family can't enter an upper-middle class neighborhood by simply purchasing a smaller house on a smaller plot of land.

Probably 30% of the housing in my town is manufactured homes, though (i.e., dirt cheap), and the city council and planners are actively looking for ways to improve diversity of housing. The people living here in the rich-people subdivisions predictably are against any higher density housing being built, though, probably for exactly the reasons you site (some explicitly site "undesirables", despite the already existing low-income housing).

They also complain that it will affect their view, though. Not the view from their homes, but as they drive along the road. Considering the housing is proposed for right behind a WalMart and other big box development, and in the opposite direction from the mountains from their subdivision. Sigh. "But we'll have to drive past it on the way to WalMart or the grocery! OMG!"

Despite having plenty of "undesirables" (not my word), we're in the top-10 safest cities in the state (#3 or 4, if I recall). The neighboring town (Louisville, CO) has won "best place in the US to raise a family" several times.

And the state is Colorado, where even the "rough" cities are actually pretty safe to begin with. I used to live in Oakland, CA, so there's probably no area in Denver that I'd be uncomfortable walking around at night. There are places I've been quite wary of in Oakland, though.

>That's exceptional though.

Yes, it's the exception. But it's not non-existent. You just need to choose to live in an area like that.

I lived in Oakland, CA, and had the ability to walk to tons of restaurants, a post office, and a library. And Bart. But Oakland counts as "big city" by most measures.

I also lived in Lafayette, CA [0], walkable to Bart, restaurants, and grocery shopping. And Alameda, CA, walkable to grocery, the post office, an entire shopping center (Southshore [1]), and a beach. And in Boulder CO where I could walk to a supermarket, restaurants, and a library. And another location in Boulder where I could walk to restaurants.

And I've looked at walkable housing in a dozen other suburban cities. If "walkability" is your priority, you can find it all over the place.

[0] Ironically I'm now in Lafayette Colorado. I keep saying I just have a couple more Lafayttes to live in, and I can collect the whole set. :)

[1] http://www.alamedasouthshorecenter.com/