Step into Convenience: Discover the Walkable Community Lifestyle at Pecan Square
What is it that makes life in a walkable community feel so connected? Maybe it’s seeing your neighbors face to face as you walk your child to school, rather than through a car window. Or the increased time outdoors enjoying nature’s beauty. Or just knowing that you’re doing something good for yourself and the environment by not using the car this time. Whatever the reason, there’s no doubt Pecan Square by Hillwood, with new construction homes in Northlake, TX, is a prime example of a community embracing walkable living while offering an attractive blend of suburban comfort and urban convenience.
The visionaries at Hillwood Communities, who created Pecan Square, purposefully design their neighborhoods of new construction homes to be walkable, so families can enjoy their many benefits. Let’s learn more about walkable communities and all the advantages they offer.
What is a Walkable Community?
What makes a community walkable? It is more than just having plentiful sidewalks. It starts with thoughtful community planning to include short blocks, accessible amenities, and safe, inviting pathways. Shops, restaurants, recreation, entertainment, and schools are within walking distance, and streets and green spaces are well lit for good visibility after dark.
Consider a lifestyle where you can walk your child to school, grab a treat at the local snack shop, and sign in to work in a coworking space in time for your first meeting. After work, walk your child to an after-school activity and drop by an exercise class. Meet up with a neighbor for a chat on the walk home.
On the weekend, go with the kids to the community pool and read a book or visit with other families while the kids play. Later, join neighbors for a cookout, then walk to hear some live music right in your neighborhood.
You may enjoy the lifestyle so much that you won’t need to use your car much at all. In a walkable community, you can walk for many daily needs and activities, live an active lifestyle, interact with their neighbors (who soon become friends), and enjoy a more relaxed way of life. In many ways, walkable communities recreate the small-town sense of connection many neighborhoods have lost.
The Benefits of a Walkable Lifestyle
A community with a walkable lifestyle provides a host of benefits for families.
Health & Wellness
In an age when we sit at our computers, take the car to go anywhere, and sit again for entertainment, cultivating natural ways to include physical activity in our lives builds a healthy lifestyle. For those who don’t like formal exercise, living in a walkable community encompasses movement without an exercise plan.
Walking reduces stress and improves mental well-being. Movement is known to positively affect our mental health, as does engaging with nature. One study showed that exposure to nature alleviated stress within five minutes!
Community Connections
A walkable community, by nature, increases incidental interactions with neighbors. This casual exposure to others decreases feelings of isolation and, often can be the start of lifelong friendships. It fosters a sense of community, which studies have found reduces symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.
A prime aspect of Pecan Square’s community connection is our award-winning lifestyle program. Our lifestyle manager arranges more than 300 events, musical performances, parties, workshops, and happenings each year that bring residents together so they can make friends and build a stronger, more connected community.
Convenience & Efficiency
Like a small town, Pecan Square unfolds around a Town Square where you can find all the daily necessities of life. Get up early for a pre-dawn fitness class on The Lawn. Then, walk your kids to the on-site school, Johnie B. Daniel Elementary.
When you’re ready to work, drop in at the Greeting House, Pecan Square’s coworking space. Feeling hungry? Jack’s Snacks has your crave in a self-service convenience station. Drop by the Post & Parcel to pick up or return your Amazon packages. All of this is within walking distance, reducing reliance on a car and saving on gas and parking.
Family-Friendly Appeal
Kids get more physical activity because the local elementary school is a short walk from home. A safe environment to exercise the first steps in independence can have lasting positive impacts on a child, and added physical activity keeps kids fit.
Family time becomes much easier to carve out. Just gather everyone and set out on the trails throughout the community. You can explore the parks and amenities the community offers together, or attend one of the numerous family-friendly activities that take place each month.
Environmental Benefits
While we all have to focus on our day-to-day lives and activities, it’s so rewarding when we can take small steps each day to help the environment. A walkable community allows us to do that every time we use our feet to get somewhere instead of driving. Less car use helps reduce CO2 emissions and reduces noise pollution, too.
These environmental benefits dovetail with another one of Hillwood’s guiding principles, stewardship, which means we take steps to ensure our communities conserve resources and contribute to a more sustainable society and planet. Stewardship also influences the design of our communities. We make every effort to preserve open spaces and lay less concrete, favoring trails and grasslands.
A Walkable Community in DFW: Pecan Square’s Approach
Everything is bigger in Texas (and in DFW as well) which often means wide open spaces and longer distances to travel, usually by automobile. Amid all this expansiveness, being able to walk to what you need is unusual, but not at Pecan Square.
Take a look at all the amenities you can walk to at our community:
- Work out at the fitness center.
- Drop or pick up an Amazon package at Post & Parcel.
- Bring your computer to the coworking space.
- Print and make copies at the workroom.
- Grab a bite at Jack’s Snacks.
- Enjoy recreation time with your family at one of several pocket parks.
- Play billiards in the Game Room at Jackson Hall.
- Get down to The Barking Lot with your pooch for some playtime with other pets.
- Take on a new pickleball opponent at The Courts.
- Take a dip with friends at the Blue Horizon Pool Complex.
- Head to The Arena to attend a weekend event, play pickup basketball, or share a meal around the outdoor pizza oven at Pioneer Park.
- Venture to The Garden to try out your green thumb.
- Play at one of our multiple playgrounds.
These are just some of the examples of our amenities you can easily reach on foot. Pecan Square is a shining example of a walkable community, with easy pedestrian access to so many fun and useful options.
Visit Pecan Square and Explore Our Walkable Community for Yourself
There’s nothing like first-hand experience of Pecan Square to find out about this special location in Northlake, Texas. We’re a bit partial, but we think it’s the best walkable community Dallas-Fort Worth has.
To learn more about Pecan Square by Hillwood, stop by The Greeting House for a tour. Our builders have available inventory, and many are offering incentives! Browse for your home online, then visit the builders’ models to learn more about special offers.