Todd Litman wrote:

I like the term, urban village, or just village because they describe compact, mixed, walkable neighborhoods where it is easy to get around without driving. These can also be called transit-oriented development, new urbanism, location-efficient development, and recently 15-minute neighborhoods. Regardless of the name, they help residents become healthy, wealthy, and happy.

To understand urban villages, it is useful to think in terms of walksheds (a variation on the concept of watersheds), the area that people can reach on foot. Although walking distances vary, people who have a car and a free parking space at their destination will generally only walk for five to ten minutes before shifting to driving, and people who are car-free will generally walk about twice that distance, ten to twenty minutes each way, before most will ask for a ride or pay for transit or a taxi.

Most walkshed research has focused on transit-oriented development—a neighborhood organized around a transit station—but the concept can apply to other walkable communities including rural hamlets, traditional small towns, and large-city neighborhoods. In a previous column, Urban Villages: The Key to Sustainable Community Economic Development, I defined ideal urban villages as having 2,000 to 4,000 homes within a half-mile walk of commonly-used services including a full-service grocery store, a pharmacy, cafes, restaurants, schools, and parks. The majority of trips we make are for errands, so even people who must drive to work can reduce their vehicle travel and associated costs by a third or half by living in an urban village.

The table below defines some key urban village planning targets.