"Perfect" home location in austin?

[Trainwreck20]

Originally Posted by austin-steve

[...] We would never go to a fraction of the places available to walk to downtown, so I see no reason to pay for that type of "walk score".

That is the problem with a 'walk score' - it is a generalized idea of what someone might want.

For the life of me, I can't think why I would want to be near retail shopping. I am sure others might, but when you look in the walk score metrics there are locations that get 'shopping points' for being near a bridal shop and a mattress store!

For me, probably in order of 'would like':
- Grocery store (like, real store, not a tiny shop that sells a few groceries);
- coffee shop or cafe or some place to loiter/socialize when the mood strikes me;
- restaurants
- Schools

Not ranked high:
- Official Parks. Trails/greenbelts are nice, but I don't think walkscore identifies them, or at least not well.

Not on the list at all (for me, ofc):
- shopping for 'goods' other than what I can get at a grocery store;
- movies


My address gets a '53' walk score and a '64' bike score, but for me personally, it is higher than that. The score includes ~55 pts for groceries and restaurants and <50 for schools, but I walk at least weekly to the grocery store and to a restaurant, and my kids walk to elementary and middle school. Granted, the MS walk is a bit of a hike, but through a nice neighborhood off of the main roads. Daycare was the easiest to walk to, but those days are long gone .