I'll wait for the smoke to clear before I go back to affordable housing in Wauwatosa. Which I will. But here's something for nearly everyone who likes to play online.
Walk Score touts itself as “helping homebuyers, renters, and real estate agents find houses and apartments in great neighborhoods.”
You type in your address and up pops a “walk score;” a map; and a list of stores, parks, schools, fitness ventures, and more within walking distance of your house.
You can click on each category (coffee shops, say) and the list expands to show everything nearby—and how far it is to walk there. Clicking on each icon gives the name and address of the destination.
My neighborhood in western Tosa gets a dismal walk score of 32/100—not so good. The Tosa Public Library gets a score of 63, much better, but not as good as the Walker’s Point address of my office: 73. With all those Mexican restaurants, I'd give it a 90.
Why does having a walkable neighborhood matter? Well, we know now that
city dwellers in places like New York and Chicago are living longer than suburban and country dwellers, and some say it’s because of walking.
Walking Score adds, “A study in Washington State found that the average resident of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood weighs 7 pounds less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood. Residents of walkable neighborhoods drive less and suffer fewer car accidents, a leading cause of death between the ages of 15 - 45.”
Who knew?!
Just for the heck of it, I scored Lowe’s on Burleigh to get a sense of walkability in the soon-to-be-developed Bermuda—I mean, Burleigh, Triangle. Same as my house: 32.
Wouldn’t it be great if development here factored in the “great neighborhood” characteristic of walkability?
