…
…
…
Check out this site: walkscore.com (thank you pampered mom!) My old neighborhood ranked an 80, my new one a 63 (though I KNEW that, it was worth the trade for the big backyard). The place where I grew up? a 20! (maybe that’s why this issue is so near and dear to my heart.) And the closest city to my hometown, the one that we used to drive to, to go shopping? It’s Jacksonville, Florida and it’s ranked 40 or 40. Yeesh!
Can’t wait to hear your scores!
xox,
heather
Our address got a 89! It IS very walkable. Park, library, grocery, gas station all within 5 blocks of us. I love it. I don’t look forward to moving to the Bay Area next summer where we’ll have to live 90 minutes away in order to have a home we can afford.
That commute makes me so sad.
Our score is 9.
We moved out of the city to a rural location so we can be more self-sufficient and grow our own food and raise our own animals. Unfortunately, for us, that means being much more reliant on our car than we were when we lived in apartments (our scores then were 71 and 63).
My current house scores a 65 (Bay Area) although I think it’s more walkable than that. The only thing more than half a mile away is the movie theater and who needs that on a daily basis?
The house where I grew up is a 0. The closest anything is 5 miles away.
I live in Des Moines, IA, & my address got a 51. I guess I should walk more!
My town is a 54, not too bad.
lol…I had forgotten that I had given the link – I’m glad you found it as intriguing as I did! Our current neighborhood gets a 40 (which is so definitely true, just under 3miles one way to get to the library). Our last address…a 71! I don’t think we really understood how good we had it at the time, but the contrast is definitely stark.
Lol!
When I was a teen, we lived in a 46 “car dependent” area. Pretty funny considering I walked EVERYWHERE and didn’t get a car until I had to go to college out of town, lol.
I currently live in a 66. I’m a block away from a Super Wal-Mart, lol, and the town is small enough I can walk anywhere in it no problem.
38, and frankly, I can’t believe it’s that high! We live in an apartment complex with no sidewalks, on a road with no sidewalks. lol Car dependent indeed! I dream of a place where we could just walk to the store, or the park, or… anywhere! Maybe someday!
It says it’s a 57, but that’s not taking into account the water that you would have to navigate around to get to a lot of the places it lists. Sure the park is only 1/4 of a mile away, a 1/4 across bayou. To walk there you’d have to get to the nearest bridge, a good two miles away.
We score a 68. What gets me is the major store in easy walking distance that isn’t in their lists – Wal-mart Super Center is about 1/10 of a mile away and it covers clothing, groceries, hardware, a restaurant, book store…you get the idea…It just cracked me up to realize that they didn’t include it.
Got a 74/100! We walk most of the time to the grocery store(s), post office, Blockbuster – and it’s a way for us to stop off and let our son visit some of the neighbours who “met” him before he was born!
98!
Not that I’m surprised. We don’t even own a car; we don’t need one, as you can see.
Yep, I live in NYC — Brooklyn , to be precise.
where we’re planning on moving(the lamplighter neighborhood near USF) only got a 20 (although i think that’s silly since a nice grocer is in an under 2 mi walk, as are coffee shops, libraries, ect) whereas where we are now is a 57, but it’s assuming i want to shop at “abuelas meat market”, lol i’m a herbivore. it’s also assuming i want to eat at my mate’s family’s nasty greasy spoon(nicko’s) and that i want urban clothes. amusing, but still a good tool, so i know where things are in relation!
my hometown is a 6, but i walked everywhere when i lived there, even when i visit its just friendly..sure you took the car for trips to run errands but those trips were for mulitple locations not just 1 place only.
to bad it doesnt do where i live now (Germany) Im sure it would get a score of 80+. I walk everywhere for everything now…
95! but i live in the middle of an australian city …
oh dear! we rate a 3 – living in rural australia, everything is a car drive away. was amused to find that our closest restuarant was a caravan park kiosk that sells hot chips (frys?)- ergggh! great site though!
I dunno I find it weird for a few things. An area bordered by highways & lakes is WALKABLE just because of a certain measurement? What are they measuring? Another area with GREAT bike paths & transit options isn’t considered walkable? And why are all the OLDER parts of towns ok? Sorry circle K is NOT a store I wanna go shopping at!!!!!(wasn’t there an article on this recently in the news) But the house for sale down the street from the new walmart ISN’T? IT IS a good tool so long as your neighborhood is “classically designed” But cul-de-sac neighborhoods not so much. it’s a good tool to have AND makes a point but it’s still only a computer program.
christylee WE live in a village outside of Heidelberg! LOVE Germany, love love love it! I’ve never had my license & people here don’t even BLINK when I say it! lol, awesome public systems (healthcares etc)
Mine is 63, but I think it’s much more walkable than that! We live less than a mile from everything, including the beach.
We got an 82 but if you count that anything outside my walking comfort zone I can hop on a bus to with 4 kids I guess I’m doing okay! It is the reason after all much to my in-laws dismay that when we moved “here” I didn’t move 45 minutes away into the burbs with them but settled into the city with 4 kids and a dog! They think I’m strange for being committed to being a 1 car family but I know that if I had access to the car everyday I’d walk less and take the car out of laziness.
Still a big improvement to the 6 of our old address though we didn’t walk much we also didn’t go many places because our neighborhood had a pool, 2 playgrounds and 3 mi of walking trails so once a week while picking up my produce from the co0op I’d hit the grocery store 1.2 mi away.
65, though it really oughta be higher.
72! and considering we have a decent city bus and I own a bike – I can get almost anywhere (if I have the time and energy) without a car!
0 out of 100 — Car-Dependent
we live in the country
hmmm. it says we are a 51. and our old town (Tucson) is 60. but i think it is way easier to walk here because the weather is nicer. there is no way i would have walked even 1/2 a mile when it was 110 outside. but we could walk for miles when it is 75.
(and have!)
heather in maine
My neighborhood got an 18 and the neighborhood I grew up in got a 20. Gotta love Texas, everything so spread out and stuff, people don’t believe me that we NEED our car, but as you can see, it is true.
We just moved here, so new to everything, our area got a 74. I could believe that. My only problem is the quality and price of what you can walk to, unfortunately, means we often have to go further for stores
Our score is a big fat ZERO.
I hate that we can’t walk anywhere. It’s a good 2.5 miles to the nearest gas station and fast food restaurant, and we wouldn’t really want to walk to those anyway. Even if we did, we’d likely get run down walking on these country backroads. *sigh* Awesome site, though.
This is fun!
Where I grew up? Small town….58. Where I am now? 33.:( Where I’m moving in 31 days? 0. That’s right. NADA.
Yes, I’m moving into the country….
Ah well. It’s worth it for me to be able to pet the cows over my fence.:)
A nice 14! In a car we are about 5 minutes from any kind of shopping we could need, and healthcare, parks, etc. Even a lake. Walking, those are all over a mile away. Our neighborhood has no sidewalks, and people drive ridiculously fast. We stay in the backyard with the kids. I’m wondering how in the world I should teach my kids to ride their bikes? The most walking I ever did in my life was when I lived on my college campus and could walk everywhere I needed to go on campus. That was a great experience.
We got an 83 not too bad I dont drive so its important for me to live somewhere where it is walkable Im going to save this site to check out the next place we move to! Love it thanks for the link
58! No surprise there, though (Baltimore, MD).
mine is 28 – car dependent. my entire county is car dependent and is a suburb of nowhere! there is NO major metropolitan area in our entire area! we are one humongous urban sprawl… (Brevard County, FL)
My address got a 45, and I think that’s waaay too high. The “library” they list is the library at the Jewish Community Center, not the public library. The “grocery” they list is the convenience mart at the gas station. And there isn’t a public school within walking distance, either.
OTOH, we manage with one car just fine because hubby takes the bus to/from work.
28 – although I feel that that’s a raw deal because we’re right up against some glorious mountain hiking trails that my dh uses daily for exercise, while we don’t necessarily need to leave the house daily for the other stuff that they factor in to the score(shopping/errands etc).
My home scores a 55!
Of course, adding in my fibromyalgia means that my own personal “walkscore” is about a 2, but at least I don’t have to drive very far for the supermarket, library, etc. Plus my teens can go to the store or library independently if they want to. I couldn’t do that until I was driving (walk score of 23.)
Plus it’s neat to see EXACTLY how far it is from my house to the library, DD2′s middle school, the pharmacy, etc. I’d estimated that those three were about 1/3 mile away and the library was 1 mile, but it’s cool to see .28 miles for the drugstore and .33 miles for the supermarket and .96 miles for the library.
Seriously? Walmart? You all need to skip that place, walking or not. Google it and see how evil they are and stop shopping there.
My address got a big fat 0, although I don’t think it’s quite that bad. There is a convenience store about 3 miles away that I walk to sometimes (although all I ever buy there is water so I don’t have to carry so much). Every once and a while I’ll bike to the Dollar General, post office, my church, or my kids school, all 4.5 to 5 miles away. It’s all country roads with no sidewalks but there’s so little traffic it really doesn’t matter much. But for real shopping or getting to work? Yeah, car dependent.
Our walk score is 88! I knew I loved this neighborhood.
I scored 26. We didn’t have a vehicle before we moved here, but now we need one (the busses here are a joke too). I hate it.
I have seen this site before. My current neighborhood is a 66. My old neighborhood is a 12.
I got a 55 for my St. Paul, MN neighborhood. The neighborhood itself is lovely and there’s not a lot of traffic, but there are also few sidewalks and the only things you can really reasonably walk to are a coffee shop, the DMV (how very ironic), and a liquor store!
My score is an 11. Very car dependant. We live off a major road with no sidewalks. In two years, though, the road will be 4laned with sidewalks.
Where I grew up was a 0. Out in the country where it was at least a 30 minute drive to any shopping or libraries. But it didn’t matter cause we had a huge yard and low traffic dirt roads to play in.
My new neighbourhood is a 27
We moved here just a month ago and I’m finding the transition difficult- I don’t drive and I’m feeling very confined not being able to walk to the bank, grocery store, hairdressers etc. There are plenty of sidewalks and quiet streets to go for a walk for exercise, but if you need to go -do- anything, it’s way too far especially with a child in tow.
82, not bad at all! And I knew this. Lots of walking in this area and everything you need in walking distance. And we’re working on a brand new park.
If you’re looking for a a new home, there’s lots of homes for sale around here. And several home schooling families around here. Creston Neighborhood, Grand Rapids, MI. Come fill up our houses!!
We got a 31…and it makes sense. We are INCREDIBLY dependent upon a car to get ANYTHING done. At least there are 2 play area parks within walking distance!
88 out of 100, downtown Washington, DC. Very walkable, true. Though the constant violent crime, astronomical taxes and zero vote in Congress make us consider moving every day.
Ugh, my current home in a subdivision in Virginia ranks a 6: “car dependent.” I’m not surprised. I’m always fondly reminiscing about how my husband and I used to walk everywhere from our previous home, an apartment in Glendale, CA. So I entered that address and it gets a 91: “Walker’s Paradise.” There is something in every destination category within a mile! I hope to live in a more walkable neighborhood again someday.
[...] 31, 2009 in exercise, health, outside Today on Mama Is… she shared the Walking Score calculator. I think I had seen this before, but didn’t pay [...]
71!! We live in a small condo in a suburb in Iowa, but picked this location because it’s so close to several parks and schools, the pool, the library, and a bike path (that takes you to the tire place, and the post office, and a restaurant, and and and).
We’re 52… not the greatest, but better tan many!