Family friendly, laidback, walkable/uber access to doctors for health concerns - which town/neighborhood?
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I think Pelham would fit the bill as well, no? From what I know from my Pelham friends, the kids all walk to school and each other's houses. The things you can walk to (ie. shops, restaurants, activities, etc) will obviously depend on where exactly your house is located. But I think Pelham would be a good place for the OP to look.
For sure, I’m not as familiar with the East side towns (Pelham, Mamaroneck, etc). Rye seems fairly walkable from a cursory point of view, but there are many factors to consider like how practical are the businesses you will have walking access to (are they things you will need frequently like grocery stores, transit stations, parks, schools, etc or are they specialty boutique clothing shops, real estate agencies or insurance agencies?) and factors like how concentrated the businesses are in the main village vs spread out a longer stretch of higher speed roadway (a layout that caters better to drivers than pedestrians). Finally, where the housing is located in relation to the businesses is important too as many towns have strict zoning that puts the bulk of housing far away from the business district (again probably based on the assumption that everyone drives).
In my mind there’s the concept of occasional walkability (i.e it would be nice if I could get from A to B in my town on foot) and then there’s the idea of whether I can realistically and safely live in this town with occasional or no access to a personal vehicle? Two very separate ideas.
It’s such a subjective thing but I listed out those points above just to highlight some things I take into consideration when assessing a town’s practical walkability.
"Walkability" is similar to "down to earth", in terms of requests in this forum. Both will have 100 different definitions if you asked 100 different people, and both are extremely hard to define. All (or maybe nearly all) suburban NY communities will be both walkable and not walkable, depending on your definition of such, and exactly where you will be living. Where I live, for instance, you can have a SFH that is 100% walkable to everything - supermarket, pharmacy, barber, restaurants/bars, coffee shops, delis, retail, train, bus, etc, or you can have a SFH that is not walkable to any of these things. Most places in suburban NY are similar.
For sure, I’m not as familiar with the East side towns (Pelham, Mamaroneck, etc). Rye seems fairly walkable from a cursory point of view, but there are many factors to consider like how practical are the businesses you will have walking access to (are they things you will need frequently like grocery stores, transit stations, parks, schools, etc or are they specialty boutique clothing shops, real estate agencies or insurance agencies?) and factors like how concentrated the businesses are in the main village vs spread out a longer stretch of higher speed roadway (a layout that caters better to drivers than pedestrians). Finally, where the housing is located in relation to the businesses is important too as many towns have strict zoning that puts the bulk of housing far away from the business district (again probably based on the assumption that everyone drives).
In my mind there’s the concept of occasional walkability (i.e it would be nice if I could get from A to B in my town on foot) and then there’s the idea of whether I can realistically and safely live in this town with occasional or no access to a personal vehicle? Two very separate ideas.
It’s such a subjective thing but I listed out those points above just to highlight some things I take into consideration when assessing a town’s practical walkability.
In terms of the bolded, that is the key. Meaning, do you have sidewalks where you can safely walk to services/shops/stores without having to dodge vehicles while on the side of the road or are the traffic lights in sync in order for you to cross the street safely. So, that plays a part in the walkability aspect.
Like 987ABC mentioned, you can literally have communities where sections offer this and then other parts don't. So, infrastructure has to be considered when it comes to walkability.
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