If you haven’t visited Walk Score yet, maybe you should. The site ranks over 2000 neighborhoods in the 40 largest U.S. cities based on their walkability. Atlanta as a whole placed #22 with 52 (out of 100) points, but individual neighborhoods in the city have higher and lower scores – 51% of Atlantans apparently live in car-dependent neighborhoods.
Walk Score determined that our most walkable neighborhoods are Five Points (which isn’t really residential), Poncey-Highland, and Sweet Auburn. The score is based on proximity of various crucial urban amenities – grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, schools, etc. You can type in your address to see your neighborhood’s score and a map of all the useful things you can walk to within a mile.
While the algorithm Walk Score uses isn’t perfect, and they don’t take issues like safety, quality/quantity of sidewalks, or access to public transit into account when indexing locations, it’s still a good starting point if you’re looking to move somewhere intown where a car isn’t necessary.
Previously: We’re so walkable we don’t even know it
Tags: pedestrians, walk score, walkability, walking
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