Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Okay, I've done this before, and I'll do it again: Let's rank cities by the total population of neighborhoods which are at a certain level on Walkscore. It's not a perfect measure, because some cities define neighborhoods on a very granular level (Pittsburgh has 90 for example) while others use big neighborhoods that can have walkable sub-components. But it is somewhat objective.
I'm limiting this to cities mentioned in the thread.
It's clear that in terms of walkability Baltimore and Seattle are in a tier of their own, apart from the other cities. How you rank cities after that depends in large part upon how much credit you want to give cities which have large numbers of moderately/semi walkable neighborhoods (like St. Louis, New Orleans, Providence, etc).
Okay, I've done this before, and I'll do it again: Let's rank cities by the total population of neighborhoods which are at a certain level on Walkscore. It's not a perfect measure, because some cities define neighborhoods on a very granular level (Pittsburgh has 90 for example) while others use big neighborhoods that can have walkable sub-components. But it is somewhat objective.
I'm limiting this to cities mentioned in the thread.
It's clear that in terms of walkability Baltimore and Seattle are in a tier of their own, apart from the other cities. How you rank cities after that depends in large part upon how much credit you want to give cities which have large numbers of moderately/semi walkable neighborhoods (like St. Louis, New Orleans, Providence, etc).
Are those for city proper only? Because Providence being only 18 sq miles when the rest are at least 50 leaves inner city neighborhoods out.
Are those for city proper only? Because Providence being only 18 sq miles when the rest are at least 50 leaves inner city neighborhoods out.
Yeah, city proper only. I don't think it matters that much however, except maybe on the 70%+ measure, when considering most of these cities. Providence is probably underestimated a bit due to not including Central Falls and the semi-walkable parts of Pawtucket, but that basically defines the walkable core of the metro, and wouldn't be enough to surpass Baltimore.
Walkscore doesn't even track scores at all for most municipalities with less than 20,000 people, which means in highly fractured yet urban areas you'll never get an accurate count.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays25
Is that based on 2010 numbers or 2018?
Appears to be 2010 numbers in all cases. Thus it probably underestimates 90% in all of the cities, but may over or under estimate for those in the 89%-70% range, since some of those neighborhoods are gentrifying, while others are ghettos still emptying out of population.
Yeah, city proper only. I don't think it matters that much however, except maybe on the 70%+ measure, when considering most of these cities. Providence is probably underestimated a bit due to not including Central Falls and the semi-walkable parts of Pawtucket, but that basically defines the walkable core of the metro, and wouldn't be enough to surpass Baltimore.
Walkscore doesn't even track scores at all for most municipalities with less than 20,000 people, which means in highly fractured yet urban areas you'll never get an accurate count.
Appears to be 2010 numbers in all cases. Thus it probably underestimates 90% in all of the cities, but may over or under estimate for those in the 89%-70% range, since some of those neighborhoods are gentrifying, while others are ghettos still emptying out of population.
Providence is probably in the 190-200 range including those two towns in the 70+ range.
You're probably underestimating New Orleans too. Most of the population lives in an urban neighborhood. Its urban outside of the downtown core as well. New Orleans has more higher ranked neighborhoods than Cleveland as well.
I don't remember who said this but New Orleans isn't urban for a southern city, its urban for an American city.
I took a quick google street tour through New Orleans- I was surprised with the amount of Victorian era buildings and traditional neighborhoods (the kind that would be utterly illegal to build today) I saw. The city definitely has a high level of traditional urban form that I neglected.
Last edited by Taggerung; 08-23-2019 at 02:40 PM..
A lot of the cities mentioned do not qualify to be on this thread though. Seattle is way over 3 million metro population.
Providence, New Orleans, Louisville, Richmond, and Memphis are all well under 2 million. And Milwaukee is under 2 million also, even though I personally mentioned it earlier
For the 2-3 million metros, i still stand by this list:
1. Baltimore
2. Pittsburgh
3. Cleveland
4. St Louis/Cincinnati
If we're considering just 'built form.'
Just out of curiosity, what is it about the built environment of Cleveland that would have you rank it above St. Louis or Cincinnati or others such as Portland.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
