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Any success filtering for walkability in the US when buying a home? As far as I can tell, "walkability" scores are borderline useless -- the small town I curren

Any success filtering for walkability in the US when buying a home? As far as I can tell, "walkability" scores are borderline useless -- the small town I currently live in has extremely low "walkability," despite being able to walk or bike to everything I need, whereas the large city I just left has extremely high "walkability" -- despite the fact that walking around town was not pleasant due to high volumes of car traffic. Manually checking or restricting the search is not really a scalable option.

ghostpepper 4y ago
What metric of walkability are you finding that is not reflective of reality? I've had at least some luck (in Canada) with https://www.walkscore.com/ https://www.walkscore.com/
stormbrew 4y ago
I mean, you just can't have a walkability score for an entire large city. There's a lot of variation. You have to look at specific neighborhoods. This is especially true in north America where cities all went through a huge conglomeration effort in the second half of the 20th century and absorbed their suburbs.
- dont__panic 4y ago
  Of course I'm referring to the address I lived at in those places. I'm mostly complaining that Zillow's built-in "walkability" scoring based on addresses is abysmally inaccurate for the places I've lived in.
  - egypturnash 4y ago
    https://www.walkscore.com/ https://www.walkscore.com/ has aligned with my experiences pretty well.
robrenaud 4y ago
Manhattan has a lot of car traffic. Short of the urban core of Philly, DC, Chicago, SF, or my favorite parts of Brooklyn (which also have a lot of car traffic), nothing seems nearly as walkable in the US. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see congestion pricing and fewer cars on the streets in Manhattan. The best walkable suburbs I've visited, Montclair and Red Bank in NJ and Ardmore, PA seem pretty sad, small, and boring in comparison. Fine for a visit, but I wouldn't wan to spend three days in a row there.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  Sometimes, people are looking for small and boring, like some parents who are raising kids and are no longer partying every weekend. (There are also pros and cons to raising children in cities; growing up in NYC I got a free transit pass in middle school and was able to take myself to places like the Met and the Guggenheim pretty effortlessly, and you certainly can't get amenities like those everywhere.) There's nothing wrong with small and boring, the major issue is that generally the overwhelming majority of US housing stock and zoning laws are geared towards picket-fence suburbia, to the detriment of people who don't necessarily want that. Plenty of people certainly want that, but it's probably not anywhere near like 90% of people in the US.
  - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
    Nothing wrong with small and boring, but even boring suburbs should have a grocery store within walking distance of most houses, which they mostly don't in the US.
    - AlwaysRock 4y ago
      Really? What do you call walking distance? Most suburbs I've spent time in will have a grocery store in driving distance (~5 miles away) but that isnt really walking distance if you are trying to carry any significant amount of groceries or trying to make the trip in less than 2 hours.
  - Ar-Curunir 4y ago
novantadue 4y ago
walkscore.com has heatmaps, theyre very accurate for MN
AlwaysRock 4y ago
Filtering by neighborhood and knowing the neighborhoods. Not that helpful if you are moving from somewhere else but pretty easy if you live in the area already.

ghostpepper 4y ago

What metric of walkability are you finding that is not reflective of reality? I've had at least some luck (in Canada) with https://www.walkscore.com/ https://www.walkscore.com/

stormbrew 4y ago

I mean, you just can't have a walkability score for an entire large city. There's a lot of variation. You have to look at specific neighborhoods. This is especially true in north America where cities all went through a huge conglomeration effort in the second half of the 20th century and absorbed their suburbs.

dont__panic 4y ago
Of course I'm referring to the address I lived at in those places. I'm mostly complaining that Zillow's built-in "walkability" scoring based on addresses is abysmally inaccurate for the places I've lived in.
- egypturnash 4y ago
  https://www.walkscore.com/ https://www.walkscore.com/ has aligned with my experiences pretty well.

robrenaud 4y ago

Manhattan has a lot of car traffic. Short of the urban core of Philly, DC, Chicago, SF, or my favorite parts of Brooklyn (which also have a lot of car traffic), nothing seems nearly as walkable in the US. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see congestion pricing and fewer cars on the streets in Manhattan. The best walkable suburbs I've visited, Montclair and Red Bank in NJ and Ardmore, PA seem pretty sad, small, and boring in comparison. Fine for a visit, but I wouldn't wan to spend three days in a row there.

bobthepanda 4y ago
Sometimes, people are looking for small and boring, like some parents who are raising kids and are no longer partying every weekend. (There are also pros and cons to raising children in cities; growing up in NYC I got a free transit pass in middle school and was able to take myself to places like the Met and the Guggenheim pretty effortlessly, and you certainly can't get amenities like those everywhere.) There's nothing wrong with small and boring, the major issue is that generally the overwhelming majority of US housing stock and zoning laws are geared towards picket-fence suburbia, to the detriment of people who don't necessarily want that. Plenty of people certainly want that, but it's probably not anywhere near like 90% of people in the US.
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  Nothing wrong with small and boring, but even boring suburbs should have a grocery store within walking distance of most houses, which they mostly don't in the US.
  - AlwaysRock 4y ago
    Really? What do you call walking distance? Most suburbs I've spent time in will have a grocery store in driving distance (~5 miles away) but that isnt really walking distance if you are trying to carry any significant amount of groceries or trying to make the trip in less than 2 hours.
- Ar-Curunir 4y ago

novantadue 4y ago

walkscore.com has heatmaps, theyre very accurate for MN

AlwaysRock 4y ago

Filtering by neighborhood and knowing the neighborhoods. Not that helpful if you are moving from somewhere else but pretty easy if you live in the area already.