There's lots of old, walkable downtowns in the midwest that have a feeling of appropriate density.

Most of them are part of old cities that are past their prime in economic vitality, so those areas don't have the same liveliness as what you might get in downtown Boston. (I used to work for a company based there, and would spend hours walking around at night.)

I'd recommend Pittsburgh for walkability, too. It's one of the most delightful cities I've wandered around recently.

Unfortunately, even Boston, Pittsburgh, NYC, and the lesser-known but walkable/dense areas are pretty unappealing when compared to some cities in south/central america and Europe, that were built before cars took over everything.

I suspect once a few large cities go bankrupt and cannot enforce their zoning regulations, new construction will move in the direction of rational density again.

There are a couple pictures from the article that are in Hoboken, NJ. (My home-town although the article doesn't call it out.). The city is consistently rated among the most walkable cities in the US. It's right across the river from NYC but feels even more walkable than NYC.

This said, the only reason why Hoboken and many other walkable cities can get public-support for being so walkable (and encouraging city planning as such) is the ample public-transit options.

This leads to no need for having a car which leads to most people not having one which leads to most people preferring walkable versus drivable. It's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem.

Lots of DT areas of cities are walkable, but Boston is kind of unique in that it has miles and miles of walkable streets. Its urban core is just really big.

Portions of Seattle are very walkable (From the International District going north, quite a few miles), and individual parts of Chicago are walkable. Heck there are 2 or 3 mile stretches of San Diego are walkable (there might be more than that, I only spent a week there!)

Seattle is among the most walkable cities in the US but San Diego is not. The nominally walkable areas of San Diego are for tourists with tourist desires; locals don’t live there for the most part and for good reason. I loved living there but walkable it was not.

Seattle, on the other hand, is a city where I’ve never really needed a car no matter where I lived or worked. I think that part of the lifestyle is brilliant. I have a car, but the battery goes dead between usages as often as not.

Northgate, West Seattle, Delridge. There are lots of suburban enclaves within the city.

Seattle has plenty of walkable parts, but I grew up in a working class suburban neighborhood within the city where driving to the store was most certainly necessary.

I wouldn't call Chicago and San Diego walkable (I'm talking about like european cities walkable)

> Chicago

Some individual portions of Chicago are very walkable. Likewise with some small bits of San Diego, though you are right, not as good as European cities.

I don't know about European cities, but it's generally easier to walk around the San Diego Gaslamp Quarter than it is to drive.

Gaslamp is a tourist area, you wouldn’t want to live there, there isn’t much around. It used to be really dodgy, no one sensible would go there, but they rehabilitated it to a significant extent. Unfortunately, it is mostly only frequented by 20-somethings getting drunk at the myriad bars and tourists.

I was there two weeks ago. It’s pretty much one street with a dozens of bars. Quite empty during the week.

San Francisco is quite walkable -- when I lived there, within a 5 block radius (roughly a 10 minute walk) I had 2 grocery stores, at least a half dozen corner markets, miscellaneous shops (dry cleaner, shoe repair, a cigar store, produce market, etc), numerous bars and restaurants.

The entire city is only 7 miles wide, so about half the city is within a 30 minute walking radius.

Most cities have a walkable area someplace, normally just outside of downtown (close enough to downtown that residents walk downtown), but often note actually downtown. Often is is just a few blocks so it is easy to miss (and there is a lot of traffic which is not ideal)

Brooklyn. Provincetown, MA. Charlestown, SC