While many people insist that no one wants to live in a shoebox surrounded by other people, chances are that many of the most expensive apartments in your city are Located in the most walkable areasWalkable communities don’t have to be expensive, but even in the United States, demand is high, often pushing prices sky high. Culdesac Tempe was thrown as a new community designed from the ground up to be walkable and, more importantly, car-free. Is that possible in the vastness of Tempe, Arizona?
Jalopnik’s travel budget is a little tight right now, otherwise I would have visited Culdesac myself. Luckily, my good friend* Ray Delahanty has CityNerd YouTube money and recently spent some time in Arizona, including Tempe. And by the way, he made a video about the place so we can all see how Culdesac is developing.
(*He doesn’t know who I am, but I like his videos.)
If you’re unfamiliar with Tempe, it’s a suburb in the Phoenix metropolitan area. And if you know anything about Phoenix, you know that it’s built around driving. Part of what makes Culdesac work, though, is that Tempe is actually more walkable and bikeable than Phoenix. Thanks, Arizona State University! Plus, while light rail service isn’t extensive, it does connect to the airport, meaning you don’t necessarily have to drive to and from Sky Harbor.
Of course, like most cities in the US, the urban feel will vary depending on where you live, but by building in Tempe, Culdesac has some advantages that it wouldn’t have in Phoenix or other similar cities. It’s not 100% car-free, though. There’s no residential parking, but perhaps to attract more businesses to the development, the developers have added some visitor parking. Even when it’s fully built out, there probably aren’t enough residents to keep all those shops and restaurants running, so that makes sense. If you want to park there overnight, though, be prepared to pay for the privilege.
Since Culdesac is supposedly car-free, it also includes plenty of bike racks. At first glance, all the empty racks might suggest that residents don’t actually ride their bikes much. But then again, when it’s over 100 degrees every day in the middle of summer, it makes more sense to keep your bikes inside where you don’t have to worry about getting burned by hot metal.
Culdesac is only partially completed at the moment, but even without any shops and restaurants open and running, it still looks like a great place to be. There is already a grocery store with lots of Korean snacks and treats, a coffee shop, a bike shop, and a Mexican restaurant with more restaurants coming soon.
The coolest thing about Culdesac, though, is probably its layout. Since Arizona is often hotter than Satan’s ass, the buildings are designed to maximize shade and use surface materials designed to minimize heat. Leaving your apartment in the middle of summer will still be hot, but not as hot as if everything were spread out more to make room for parking.
Will this work for everyone? Of course not. However, it’s a great experiment, and I can’t help but feel that if Culdesac can succeed in suburban Phoenix, we’ll see similar developments start to appear elsewhere.
