A transit village is a pedestrian-friendly mixed-use district or neighborhood oriented around the station of a high-quality transit system, such as rail or B.R.T. Often a civic square of public space abuts the train station, functioning as the hub or centerpiece of the surrounding community and encouraging social interaction. While mainly residential in nature, many transit villages offer convenience retail and services to residents heading to and from train stations.
The term "transit villages" was popularized in the 1997 book by Michael Bernick and Robert Cervero, Transit Villages for the 21st Century, whose cover shows a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly community infilling what then was a surface park-and-ride lot of the Pleasant Hill BART station area, and what is now the Contra Costa Centre Transit Village. In their book, the authors distinguished transit villages from transit-oriented development (TOD) as more residential-oriented in land-use composition, with neighborhood retail and services provided in and around the rail station and a prominent civic space immediate to the station.
