How Walkable is Your Neighborhood?
By: Diane Tuman, Zillow Content Manager | June 13, 2008
We Americans love our cars, which has created a few problems: we are dependent on gas and oil and another result is that we’ve become an overweight society. Two months ago, Japan took their obesity fears to the extreme by instituting a national law in which companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. Not that the U.S. has to go to that extreme, but there are things we can do to fight obesity and battle rising gas prices. Such as walk.
How walkable is your neighborhood? Walk Score, a Web site that has been out for awhile, just updated its site by using Zillow’s neighborhood boundaries. Walk Score’s mission is to measure the walkability of a neighborhood. Just enter your home’s address in the search field, hit “Go,” and an algorithm goes to work, adding up points for your home’s proximity to stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Seattle gets a 72 (out of 100) in walkability and my home gets a 78 out of 100, which sounds about right since one of my criteria in buying a home was to make sure it was near my daughter’s school, park, and stores. (What a quaint idea — walking your kid to school!) There are many Americans that don’t have a chance in getting high walkable scores since they live in suburbia or rural locations. For example, President Bush’s Crawford Ranch gets a big, fat zero in walkability, but his White House address is highly walkable, scoring 91.
If you are interested in integrating Zillow’s neighborhood boundary files (available via a Creative Commons license), here are a couple other examples of live implementations to give you some ideas. It’s pretty easy… it’s like, walking.
- Stumble it!
- Categories: Real Estate, Zillow
Comments
11 Comments so far
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Los Angeles Loft on June 13, 2008 7:18 pm
I love walking around my neighborhood. There are plenty of trails to explore and local shopping and dining is within a mile. There is much to say about having a home in a walkable neighborhood.
Walk Score and Zillow sitting in a tree | Real Central VA on June 14, 2008 4:48 am
[...] sincere thank you to Zillow for making their neighborhood boundaries open source, and to Walk Score for their site … might “Bike Score” be in the [...]
Laura Vecsey on June 15, 2008 10:46 am
I wonder how many Americans live in homes that score less than 50 on this walkability rating/measure? Would be interesting to see how many have put themselves in a tough spot fuel-wise. Ah, suburbia, the great American hoax.
Pamela Grundy on June 15, 2008 2:25 pm
Great post. I live only 3 miles from work, but there are no sidewalks and the traffic is so fast, it isn’t really even safe for biking let alone walking. We live in a great area and I walk my dog every day, but I feel limited to the subdivisions with sidewalks unless we get in the car and drive somewhere just to take a walk. Very frustrating especially now that gas is over $4 a gallon.
Jonathan Blackwell on June 16, 2008 4:38 pm
I love that site, but it doesn’t deduct points for the crackhead on the corner.
Regardless, I will certainly refer folks to that site in the future.
Diane Tuman on June 16, 2008 9:09 pm
Good one, Jonathan. Maybe Walk Score can implement some kind of editable interface so people can deduct points for ne’er-do-wells and add points for good people of the ‘hood.
i love condos on June 17, 2008 11:47 am
I agree with Jonathan- every neighborhood has its flaws. Overall, this site seems very helpful for those who are moving to a completely new area and do not have time or money to explore all of its nooks and crannies.
Adam on June 18, 2008 12:03 pm
Very cool tool. Small town of Clemson, SC gets a 69 (and we have no traffic). Make sense during 100 degree weather in July/August
Santa Barbara Real Estate Voice on July 4, 2008 10:03 am
I am going to see if this feature works in areas such as Santa Barbara and Montecito CA. A great town to walk in in general. Good feature for clients. Hope it is not just limited to the bigger cities.
Walk Scores Are Now on Zillow | Zillow® Blog on February 24, 2009 12:28 pm
[...] Score, originally launched in July of 2007, helps people determine the “walkability” of an individual home with an algorithm that awards points based on the distance to the closest amenities. What does [...]
Buy To LetMortgages on October 25, 2009 7:21 am
Sounds like a great algorthim for walkscores.