Walkable Arlington started like many UTA student groups—with a few students, a shared interest, and a handful of meetings to plan events. But unlike most campus organizations, their focus quickly expanded beyond university grounds. They saw the city itself as a living laboratory, a place to apply the urban ideals they were studying—many of them through the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs. What began as conversation turned into real action, and those actions started reshaping how Arlington thinks about walkability.
Tony Pham, the then-President of Walkable Arlington, became engaged in the broader Arlington community in a way that very few UTA students had before him. He attended City Council meetings, planning charrettes, and even engaged City staff in one-on-one meetings. The efforts of his group led to the installation of crosswalks on Center Street, connecting the Levitt Pavilion with key parking sites, and connecting the main corridor that many students living in off-campus apartments use to get to class.
The story of Walkable Arlington is not wholly unique. Neighborhood associations across Arlington advocate for sidewalks, traffic calming measures, and other improvements that the residents agree will improve the safety and quality of life in these areas. These small, incremental wins show how collective decision-making at the community level can shape the future of a city.
In Arlington, we’re in the midst of a generational opportunity to reshape our city’s future on a much broader scale. The City of Arlington is currently developing the Innovate Arlington Comprehensive Plan, which is a blueprint for smart, sustainable growth, with an emphasis on equity, mobility, and resilience. Public input is at the heart of this planning process, with thousands of residents weighing in during workshops and surveys, with more to come. This isn’t planning for the people—it’s planning with the people.
In addition to the Comprehensive Plan, the City is also piloting the development of Form Based Code in Downtown Arlington. Stay with me—we’re about to get a bit high-level, but the details are worth understanding. Unlike traditional zoning, which focuses on land use and what goes on within a building, Form Based Code (FBC) prioritizes how buildings relate to the public realm. It’s about creating walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods where people actually want to spend time. When Arlington hosted community charrettes for its FBC districts, we saw a diversity of voices come forward—business owners, students, retirees—all contributing to the same vision: a better-connected city.
Form Based Code empowers the essential characteristic of an urban core like Downtown Arlington, which is its mix of uses—retail next to housing, restaurants across from offices—and that kind of variety supports walkability. When people can live, work, shop, and gather within the same few blocks, streets come alive. It’s not just more efficient—it’s more human.
As our world changes rapidly, a dense, walkable, mixed-use environment is no longer an item on the wishlist. It’s a priority. Millennials and Gen Z are opting out of traditional suburbs and gravitating toward neighborhoods that foster connection. They’re not just looking for affordability—they’re looking for community. They want sidewalks, parks, and front porches. They want dog parks and farmers markets. They want to bump into their neighbors, not just pass them in traffic.
Ironically, that desire isn’t new. Anyone raised in the ‘80s will tell you: the moment the streetlights turned on, it was time to go home. There’s a deep nostalgia baked into our longing for safe, vibrant, human-scaled places. And the good news? City planning can make that happen—if we care enough to demand it.
As our City looks to the future, we must make decisions that will spark growth and prosperity for our residents by creating the kind of place that attracts young talent with intention, and the companies that look to hire them.
Even at the state level, the Texas legislature made the (surprising) decision to allow more flexible uses of space in zoning requirements, allowing for more walkability and mixed-use neighborhoods. Why? Because investing in placemaking is an economic development strategy. You can’t attract top talent or major employers if you don’t first invest in yourself.
I encourage all readers to take part in planning charrettes, and to stay informed about planning activities by visiting the City webpages dedicated to these topics, and signing up for newsletters.
Jane Jacobs, the patron saint of urban planning, once said, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” It’s time we take that to heart.
