Walk Score is a rating of how walkable your neighborhood is, factoring in things like the distance to a grocery store, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, schools, parks, libraries, drug stores, etc.
I’m moving into a house with a score of 82 out of 100, from a house with a score of 66. I used to live in an apartment with a score of 28!
It’s still a little buggy - it counts things like a lumber company as a hardware store, the check cashing place as a grocery (though I think they’ve fixed that), etc. There’s a gigantic park near my new place, but it doesn’t register - rather it counts the Fitness One place as the nearest park. (And Park Ave. for another residence.)
What about you - how walkable a place do you live in?
Evidently they don’t figure in traffic or hills. (I do walk everywhere, but this is widely considered to be crazy.) My last apartment was 89 – no wonder I liked it better.
85 - Very Walkable. I already knew that; I live downtown. I walk to work everyday.
Okay, so I just plugged in my old, non-downtown address from where I used to live in Los Angeles, and got a 97. They need to figure in amount of places where people speak the same language as you do. Sure, I lived right around the corner from two 24-hour Korean restaurants, but nobody ever knew what the hell I was talking about. Well, I still went anyway which can count for something, but only at 3:30am when I desparately needed whatever that chicken stew in the red sauce is called, and had the patience to make with a series of hand gestures and awkard babbling.
The thing is misleading - it lists a lot of places as being withing walking distance. But, they aren’t really accessible by foot. The road we live on has no shoulders (deep ditches) or sidewalks. The yuppie moms come barrelling down through there in their juggernaught SUV’s night and day. Anyone who walks down that road takes their life into their hands.
I live in an urban area with nice sidewalks and almost everything a person would need within six blocks of my house. I’m not sure how you’d get 100 other than living in Manhattan.
The funny thing is, it lists some things I never walk to, some other places I never go to in that category (a “Curves” fitness center and a Catholic high school), and it cataloged a nearby stored called “Who’s On First?” as a “bookstore” (it’s a comic book, baseball card and sports memorabilia shop).
Hahahahaha! I’m sure mine would be zero. The only thing we have within walking distance is the Appalachian Trail.
ETA: Upon actually trying it, it gives me a 14, but it’s counting things that are ludicrously far away as being within walking distance. They probably would be if there was a direct road between us and them, but in reality I’d have to go about 15 miles out of the way to get there. Also, who would walk 7 miles to go see a movie??
I have an 80/100. I didn’t choose to live in this area for the location, I ended up living here because when you’re moving somewhere with a 1% vacancy rate, you take any decent place you can get.
To be honest, if I loved the nightlife, kitschy gift shops and little hole-in-the-wall restaurants, this would be a perfect place. But I’d rather live in suburbia, where people don’t get shot in the leg at local bars, needles aren’t in the back alley, there aren’t any beggars and drunks don’t stumble around at 2am. Plus I still have to drive to get groceries anyway.
I note that it seems to take a while to calculate its score. Those of you getting zeros should maybe wait a bit to see what it comes up with.
My suburban Philadelphia neighborhood scored a 28, though there are some questionable items on the list. The “nearest library” is that of a theological seminary that I don’t believe is open to the public, and 1.4 miles from my house they show a 9 screen AMC theater that simply doesn’t exist.
38, but the thing is screwy. For instance, the second closest restaurant to me is a dentist.
I have pretty much everything I need (except a library) within a mile, and that is highly walkable in my book.
As mentioned, nowhere does it consider how nice walking is. There are tons of people out at all hours in my neighborhood, walking dogs or just walking. I think we got some sort of most walkable city award some time ago.
It was amusing to get exact distances to lots of places I walk my dog past, though.
94, but that’s not surprising since I don’t drive and do walk everywhere. I’m going to bookmark that site so that I can find a place that will work for me in case I ever need to move.
House I grew up in: 3, but it really was effectively 0. I think this counts as the crow flies because it’s showing some businesses under a mile, but my house was at the end of an almost 2 mile penninsula with no businesses on it, only houses.
