Walkability of Michigan Cities

[wolverine]

You may have seen this, or it may be posted elsewhere on urbanplanet, but this site allows you to calculate the walkability of your neighborhood

It's a nice tool, and I think the ratings are fairly accurate. However, it fails to display more than 8 businesses in each category. For example, in Ann Arbor it just shows 8 restaurants only, when it should over a hundred within close walking distance.

These are my old neighborhoods/streets

Saginaw-Andre

Ann Arbor-Ann

[nofunk]

Ugh. My neighborhood got a 42. I'm not surprised though; I have to drive everywhere.

By the way, here's where you can check your neighborhood: http://www.walkscore.com/index.shtml

[Ka3kab]

I only got a 57 in Traverse City. One little flaw though, some of the buisnesses and schools listed are on the west side of the lake while I reside on the east side of the lake.

[nofunk]

Yeah, the site definitely has some shortcomings.

For instance, while most of the destinations they listed for my neighborhood are on Washtenaw and Huron River Drive, neither road is particularly "walkable."

[Rybak 187]

Where i live i got a score of 2!

[CGunn]

Where i live i got a score of 2!

[ZachariahDaMan]

Mine is 35 haha

[Rybak 187]

WOW, where is that?

[mr.rwilson]

I got a 80

[andrew.w]

As expected, our house in the woods, 7 miles north of Ludington got a 0. The nearest retail establishment of any kind is a grocery store that is 4 miles away.

However, an adress near the center of downtown Ludington received a 78, which is pretty good for a town of 9,000. Pretty much anything you need can be found in the downtown area. However, with only a specialty food store and deli downtown, you might have to drive for a full load of groceries.

There are definitely some issues with the site. Especially the use of 8 businesses in each category. Sometimes that is too little (such as restraunts) and sometimes too much, especially for movie theaters. Who needs more than one or two theaters within walking distance? The eighth nearest for Ludington was almost 45mi away! Also, there appears to be a few inaccuracies in their data collection as both a new condo development with no retail and Ludington High School were listed as clothing stores.

[dtown]

I got a 40. I think thats a little low, though.

[michimaize]

Where i live i got a score of 2!

[tracer1138]

woohoo.... 78!

Downtown Ann Arbor gets a 92 and Kalamazoo, not bad coming in at 82.

Of course, my old neighborhood in Portage got an 8 - ouch - at least when I lived in Kzoo we broke 50.

Portage - worst. city. ever.