Steve Price grew up in a Southern California tract subdivision on what was called a “superblock”—there were no sidewalks, and it was a full mile to circumnavigate his block. By contrast, quaint downtown Whittier featured smaller blocks, interconnected streets, and walkable areas. “As a kid, I always thought downtown was so cool,” he recalls. “I tried to bicycle there a couple of times, but the suburban streets to get there were too scary and too far. I just realized: something's wrong here.”
Price is the El Cerrito-based author/artist of the digital book Imagining a Walkable America: Visualizing Low-Carbon Cities, Towns, and Neighborhoods, Step by Step. First published in 2020, it’s just been updated with a new introduction and fresh images to reflect the country’s changing transportation landscape.
In the 1990s, with a degree in sociology and a background as a fine artist, Price took a photo of San Pablo Avenue and digitally manipulated it in Photoshop to show more pedestrians, street trees, and buildings facing sidewalks. He showed it to a few people and, before he knew it, the image was appearing in major newspapers and national magazines.
He soon became friendly with many architects and urban design firms, including Peter Katz, author of New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community. In 1996, Price founded his own firm, Urban Advantage, to create “green visions of walkable, socially interactive communities.” His clients include cities, urban designers, developers, transportation agencies, environmental groups, foundations, universities, and neighborhood groups.
To do this work, he uses a variety of technologies, including Google Earth, Google Maps, digital photography, Adobe Photoshop, 3D modeling, PowerPoint, and Adobe InDesign. Since first publishing Imagining a Walkable America, he realized that the urban transportation landscape was changing at an accelerated pace. He wanted to show a greater variety of cleaner vehicles now in use—such as EVs, electric bikes, and cargo bikes—and so released an updated edition in June 2024. Price posted links to the revised book on Facebook and LinkedIn and received a wildly enthusiastic response; LinkedIn congratulated him on receiving the most impressions (3,200) of any post in the previous week.
Price “walks the walk” (pun intended) of his vision. With his wife, former BPWA President Janet Byron, he lives in a condo on San Pablo Avenue and neither of them owns a car. “I've suddenly realized, wow, almost all of my daily human needs can be fulfilled right here on San Pablo or at the El Cerrito Plaza,” he says.
He’s also very involved with the El Cerrito/Richmond Annex Walk & Roll group, which advocates for “mobility choice—sustainable and equitable alternatives to the automobile.” And, of course, he’s a big fan of Berkeley’s paths and stairways. “If you can break up blocks with paths so that pedestrians don't have to do big circuits to get from one place to another, that's a huge encouragement for people to walk,” he says. “That Berkeley loves and celebrates its paths makes it very special. Berkeley is remarkably walkable compared to most of America.”