Suburban sprawl over the last 50 years has led to an expanse of drivable city space, but a recent study suggests walkable urbanization may be the direction of the future.

For the past half-century, suburban sprawl has helped define the trajectory of urban building. However, in recent years, construction has begun reflecting a growing desire to stay connected, which has resulted in drastic increases in walkable urban places, better known as WalkUPs, which essentially mean areas accessible by either public transportation, bike routes or by foot, according to a new report from The George Washington University School of Business.

The study explicitly names Miami as a city characterized by its penchant for developing drivable suburban development, and the reason is largely because inner-city dwellers, including both households and businesses, would never consider or be able to afford central city walkable urbanism. Historically, residents and businesses have instead preferred building WalkUPs in suburban areas. However, the recent revitalization of downtown may provide a path for more WalkUPs in Miami proper.

Walkability By the Numbers

The study, authored by professors Christopher Leinberger and Patrick Lynch, rates Miami as a city with relative low levels of walkability, behind Detroit, Houston, Chicago and slew of others. The actual scale that measures walkability is determined by a combination of population, the walkability of office and retail space, income and the overall number of WalkUPs in the metro. In Miami, data showed:

• Metro GDP per capita came in at just over $41,000, which makes Miami twenty-fifth in the nation.
• The city has 17 total WalkUPs with an average population of 343,000 per, which ranks Miami as twenty-first in the nation.
• There is more than 522,000,000 square feet of office and retail space in the city, and 52,952,000 is located in WalkUPs.

A Bright Future

Much like Atlanta, Miami’s development over the past fifty years can be summed up most aptly as “sprawl.” The city grew in area faster than most metros, and now, a half-century later, Miami is only just starting to shift from drivable suburbs to more walkable urban areas.

The transition from drivable to walkable is likely to be a slow one for Miami, but Leinberger and Lynch speculate that that city is on the fast track. As the study ranks metro walkability, it also measures and quantifies development potential. Currently, Miami is abysmally ranked at twenty-third, just ahead of San Diego and Dallas. But going by the study’s Fair Share Index (FSI), where anything above a zero signifies that a metro’s WalkUPs have gained market share, Miami’s growth from 2010-2014 has been substantial, suggesting the city might soon rank in the upper echelon of walkable metros. See our graph below to learn more, or read our infograph story!