How walkable is it where you live?

“Anything’s within walking distance, if you have enough time.” (Steven Wright)

But what if you don’t have all the time in the world to get to something? That’s where the “walkability” of your neighborhood comes in. I met the lady who wrote the book on “walkability”, which is a measurement of how convenient it is to walk to things from where you live. Out of her work a Web site was born that has the http://www.Walkscore.com. The book focused upon what makes a neighborhood walkable – the places that you can reasonably walk to and the things you can do once you get there. Included in important places that you might be able to walk to are stores, libraries, parks, restaurants and more.

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There are urban areas like Chicago and Boston and New York where you would see a very high walkscore, since they have very dense neighborhoods that have most of the things one needs integrated into the fabric of the neighborhood. Once you get out to the suburbs you often lose that ability to walk to the store or the restaurant.

I live in Milford, Michigan which has a very high walkscore of 77 (out of 100) when I type in my address. I used to live in Orchard Lake in a typical bedroom community and when I put in that address the score is 9, which means that it is almost a totally car-dependent neighborhood. Go to walkscore.com and type in your address. What score do you get? If you’d like to be in a more walkable place, call me and I’ll find you a home in Milford, where you can walk to almost anything you need.