TOP 10 Walkable Cities

[LIRefugee]

Originally Posted by Neworleansisprettygood

The whole list is a joke. They list Houston at 14 and New Orleans isn't in the top 40. Probably 70% of the population of New Orleans lives within waling distance of a neighborhood grocery, but maybe 10-20% of Houson does. Even most areas inside the loop in Houson, like Braeswood, are very car-centric.

Which list are you talking about? In the "Top 40" list (which, again, is the walkability scores and most walkable neighborhoods of the top 40 cities by municipal population, not the 40 most walkable cities), number 14 is Cleveland. Houston is down at number 26 with a score of 51. New Orleans is not one of the 40 largest cities by population, so it wouldn't be in the list based on that criteria alone. If it was, it would be tied at #16 with San Diego.

If the list is a joke, it's because it's not making it clear what the "Top 40" refers to, so it makes the entire list look unrealistic. I dislike most "Top XX" lists anyway as they generally lack any real clarity of meaning.

[Neworleansisprettygood]

Originally Posted by LIRefugee

Which list are you talking about? In the "Top 40" list (which, again, is the walkability scores and most walkable neighborhoods of the top 40 cities by municipal population, not the 40 most walkable cities), number 14 is Cleveland. Houston is down at number 26 with a score of 51. New Orleans is not one of the 40 largest cities by population, so it wouldn't be in the list based on that criteria alone. If it was, it would be tied at #16 with San Diego.

If the list is a joke, it's because it's not making it clear what the "Top 40" refers to, so it makes the entire list look unrealistic. I dislike most "Top XX" lists anyway as they generally lack any real clarity of meaning.

I guess I mistook it for metros over a million. Doesn't really make sense to have a "top 40" and just include the 40 biggest citis. Not sure how I got the placing of Houston so wrong.

[LIRefugee]

Originally Posted by Neworleansisprettygood

I guess I mistook it for metros over a million. Doesn't really make sense to have a "top 40" and just include the 40 biggest citis. Not sure how I got the placing of Houston so wrong.

That's why I dislike lists like this, it's misleading to call it a list of Top 40 cities by population but ignore the overall urbanized metro area, which is what is generally thought of as a "city".

That makes for some interesting statistics. The City of London in the UK has a population of a whopping 11,700, and the City of Melbourne in Australia has a total population of 93,105, to share a couple extreme non-US examples.

To give examples in the US, St. Louis is the 58th-largest city anchoring the 18th-largest metro area, and Pittsburgh is the 59th-largest city anchoring the 22nd-largest metro area. A few of the cities in the Top 40 don't even anchor their own metro area, like Mesa or Long Beach.