“Leave Your Car in the Garage” as sell copy for real estate

The trend toward walkability as a real estate selling point is noted at How We Drive, the Blog of Tom Vanderbilt’s Traffic 

Trawling through some real estate brokerage sites, typically in fairly dense small towns and pre-war suburbs, a refrain keeps catching my eye: “Leave your car in the garage.” The listing will then note the proximity to trains, schools, etc. I’m not sure who first came up with this rallying cry — and based on what I’ve seen in some of these towns (pedestrians being mostly people moving to and from their cars) I wonder if it might be more real-estate bluster than anything else — i.e., the potential of walking is there, as is the potential for the great room to be great and the massive chef’s kitchen to produce fare worthy of Grant Achatz, but in the end this potential gives way to some real or imagined vehicular reality (I need to get groceries, it’s just easier). But I can’t say I’ve ever seen a real estate ad that promised: “Take your car out of the garage, often!”

Read the rest at: How We Drive, the Blog of Tom Vanderbilt’s Traffic » Blog Archive » “Leave Your Car in the Garage”