Article: US cities ranked for walkability

[MetroMPG]

"(The author) calls rail transit a key factor in the success of walkable places. Roughly two-thirds of the 157 places he counted are served by rail, he said."

From CNN...

ARLINGTON, Virginia (AP) -- Caitlin Jones and her fiance, Evan Oxfeld, grew up in suburbs where getting anywhere worth going required a car. When the couple started looking for their first home together, they wanted something different: walkability.

"For me at least, that was the thing I missed most about college -- just being able to walk everywhere," Oxfeld said as he and Jones strolled through Arlington's Ballston neighborhood, where they are moving into a condo.

Young professionals like Jones and Oxfeld, both 24, are driving a national trend toward more walkable communities, says the author of a report to be released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution.

The report ranks the Washington region first among the country's major metropolitan areas in the number of "walkable places" per capita, thanks to changes in just the past 15 years.

Christopher B. Leinberger, a real estate developer and visiting fellow at Brookings, set out to quantify the walkability trend by counting the number of "regional-serving walkable urban places" in each of the 30 biggest metropolitan areas in the country.

Read more: Metropolitan areas ranked for walkability

[DifferentPointofView]

Yep, that's the US for ya alright, and we wonder why we're so overweight

[Lazarus]

OK so 2 cities in Texas are 21 and 22 on the most walkable cities but are listed at number 2 and number 6 on the fattest cities. So I guess we are in to big a hurry to walk.

[igo]

Pittsburgh was #9. I remember this getting some press a few weeks ago. Pittsburgh is funny because there are plenty of places that are very walkable and there are other places that are totally dangerous.

[AndrewJ]

that's the most BS walkability list I've ever seen. I mean St. Louis at #16 and (more ridiculously) Kansas City at #22, that's just stupid! Those are two of the most Suburban cities I've ever been in (just short of Dallas in 1st place) and walking in any meaningful sense is impossible!

[DifferentPointofView]

Do Villages count? cause I live in one, and you can walk everywhere.

[trebuchet03]

Orlando!?!

We're not in California - so I don't know what that person was smoking

Places may be nearby - but I sure as hell don't want to walk through there. Did that once - F'ing scary....

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by DifferentPointofView

Do Villages count? cause I live in one, and you can walk everywhere.

I think the study actually treats districts within cities as villages, in a sense. I don't think a city's inclusion on the list means the whole area gets its blessing - the cities are there because they contains one or more of those "walkable", fully self-contained "villages".

I lived in Toronto for a couple of years in a fantastic, walkable district. I used to tell people it was like living in a small town in the middle of the city.

I also had a car at that time, but I left it parked Mon-Fri, and only used it on weekends. In fact for a long time, I parked several km from where I lived, because I didn't have a spot at the house. Didn't matter though, as I only needed to get to it once a week.