Complete Streets policies have been adopted in communities of all sizes and the movement has hit all four corners of the country, as shown by policies adopted in Everett, WA, Brookhaven, NY, Miami, FL, and Scottsdale, AZ. The sheer number of policies being adopted every year is awesome: 25 polices were adopted in 2008, and about 50 new policies were put on the books in 2009. We’re nearing 60 new policies this year – and we still have a over a month left!
Keeping track of all of these new developments can be challenging for our small staff, but by using the National Center for Education Statistics’ locale codes, we’ve been able to put things into perspective.
The locale codes, developed using the U.S. Census Bureau’s Topographically Integrated and Geographically Encoded Referencing system, categorize local municipalities based on both their population size and proximity to an urban center. They divide territories into four categories—city, suburb, town, and rural—with subcategories to denote their location in relation to the nearest metropolitan area.
After organizing municipalities that have adopted Complete Streets policies into this framework, the results presented some expected outcomes. Of all the various categories, small cities represent the largest category adopting Complete Streets policies at 31 total. It’s also no surprise that the Pacific states enjoy the most policies: Washington state alone is home to 10 policies.
Of course, there were also some more interesting findings.
The spread of the Complete Streets movement into smaller, less urban communities is apparent when using locale codes. Of the 103 Complete Streets policies adopted by October 2010, 31 are in jurisdictions with 20,000 people or fewer and policies can be found in 26 jurisdictions that lie outside of urban areas. The number of rural areas and small towns adopting policies is exciting given the myriad benefits of Complete Streets in rural areas and small towns. Not only are rural residents more likely to be hurt or killed on transportation than urban dwellers, but also rural children are more likely to be obese than those who live in more densely populated areas. Complete Streets certainly help mitigate these outcomes.
The regional breakdown of the localities also produced some surprising results. (Here’s how we identified regions.) There are equal numbers of municipalities that have adopted Complete Streets policies in the West and the Midwest; both regions boast 31 jurisdictions. The South can claim 27 municipalities with Complete Streets measures – 12 more than can be found in the Northeast. Clearly, Complete Streets are not reserved for blue states or East Coast metropolises. The push for Complete Streets is truly a national movement.
While the locale codes offer a good rubric for interpreting the spread of Complete Streets in municipalities, they overlook policies crafted by counties, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and state departments of transportation. Accounting for one-third of all policies, the embrace of Complete Streets by counties, MPOs, and states only reverberates the findings presented by the locale codes—Complete Streets offer solutions for all Americas communities, be they large or small, rural or urban.