Sometimes Heather and I worry that we are making assumptions about our readers’ lifestyles that aren’t true. We assume everyone lives in a place like we live, where you can walk to a dry cleaner, corner markets, and to some pretty great destinations if you are willing to push a stroller for 15 or 20 minutes.
I’m guessing she thinks my location is better than hers (we live 1.6 miles apart), but this morning as my family and I had breakfast in Heather’s ‘hood, we were saying that they scored a pretty great location. And, according to WalkScore.com, her house is actually more walkable than ours.
Check out the site. It might make you appreciate some close by businesses you never thought to frequent. That’s how I’m feeling right now.
Ok, I’m supposed to be honest. How I’m really feeling right now is guilty because I told Ryan not to go running until Scarlett wakes up so he can give her a bottle so that I can feel like she takes a bottle and go somewhere without her. But oddly, she decided to take her longest nap of the week — two and a half hours. I can’t win. He could have gone on a thirty minute run 5 times already.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
WalkScore is neat, but they don’t calculate by the actual distance. They think a business is half a mile away, but after getting out of my development, it’s well over a mile. I can’t bring a stroller through the woods to get there! I think this would be best for people that live in a city. But it is a great idea.
I just calculated my “walk score” and my score was pretty close to the “worst” end of the spectrum. I live in a quiet, family-friendly neighborhood in the suburbs that has sidewalks and a beautiful view so it’s actually a fantastic place to walk. But there aren’t very many places to walk TO.
I also typed in the address where I grew up and it received a much higher score. Although it’s true that there are more places to walk to, the neighborhood doesn’t have sidewalks and it’s in a not-so-safe part of town.
Conclusion: WalkScore is a fun resource that will tell you what restaurants, shops, and schools are in your area, but that won’t tell you about the walking “atmosphere” - safe versus scary, pretty versus ugly, busy highway versus dirt road, etc.
My score was only 26. It means that my neighborhood is not very walk able. But actually i go by car much more often than on foot. So at drivescore.fizber.com i ve found another service similar to this one. With drive score one can see how close establishments are by car.
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