Walkable neighborhoods offer surprising benefits to our health, the environment, and our communities.There are a lot of interesting little tidbits in this week's NYTimes magazine. It focuses on bold steps we can take to make our carbon footprint smaller. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20Act-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin There's a particularly compelling piece on choosing neighbors to live in with a high walk score -- that is, neighbors that you can live in with out a car.
Why Walking Matters*:
Better health: A study in Washington State found that the average resident of a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood weighs 7 pounds less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood1. Residents of walkable neighborhoods drive less and suffer fewer car accidents, a leading cause of death between the ages of 15 - 45.
Reduction in greenhouse gas: Cars are a leading cause of global warming. Your feet are zero pollution transportation machines. More transportation options: Compact neighborhoods tend to have higher population density, which leads to more public transportation options and bicycle infrastructure. Not only is taking the bus cheaper than driving, but riding a bus is ten times safer than driving a car2!
Increased social capital: Walking increases social capital by promoting face-to-face interaction with your neighbors. Studies have shown that for each 10 minutes a person spends in a daily car commute, time spent in community activities falls by 10 percent3.
Stronger local businesses: Dense, walkable neighborhoods provide local businesses with the foot traffic they need to thrive. It's easier for pedestrians to shop at many stores on one trip, since they don't need to drive between destinations.
I compared the walk score of my previous house in Walden, NY to my current house in JP, MA-- it's 11 to 60. In Walden if you were without a car you were *@#! out of luck. A good walk score should be >70 (hey, I'm getting better!).
4 comments:
Very, very interesting...
When I lived in London, I walked everywhere & lost about 20 pounds, even though I had beer for dinner at least twice a week (as in, that was my whole dinner...nice dark, heavy, English beers...yumm...)
We get a walk score of 80. When we're not too pooped, we do actually walk everywhere. The downfall of where we live, so to speak, is that everything is downhill from us (which means walking UP some monstrous hills coming home...not so fun if you lose your mind at the new Trader Joe's!). But we do love that we are within walking distance to 2 major commercial areas, including 2 movie theatres, lots of restaurants & coffee shops, and other fun things.
Kath when did you live in london...i lived there for one semester as an undergrad..and with all the walking and bad food I too lost a lot of weight...anyhoo, this topic is related to one of my dissertation papers and the research I do at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute....I won't bore you with All the details..but I wonder how much the notion of a "walkable" neighborhood differs depending on where in the country you live; that is, for those of us from the south and midwest the notion of walking to run errands is a very new concept...so perhaps when we select a neighborhood to live in "walkability" may not be at the top of the list. So, the big question in this area of research is do people more likely to walk choose neighborhoods that are more walkable than those less likely to walk? Of course, this leaves out the fact that many of us have very limited "choices" when it comes to where we want to live....
you're right, gem. this approach is highly influenced by regional norms. in the northeast (and elsewhere) walking is a fact of life. and if you're lucky you live in a neighborhood that's walkable AND safe.
when i lived in NYC, i walked everywhere (the neighborhood ranked in the 90s). but crack was sold on the corners so it wasn't really safe to walk around because you had to navigate past competing drug dealers and drug addicts. our parks were drug and rat infested. our supermarkets sold expensive poor quality food. i had to drive to good neighborhoods for essential services.
there is a disclaimer on the walkscore sight that speaks to this disconnect (high walkscore in unwalkable neighborhoods).
My walk score is 22… I was rather upset with it. And I was surprised to know that there is another score called drive score to evaluate my house. I found the way to calculate it online at Fizber site (http://drivescore.fizber.com/). I’ve got much better results – 83.
Post a Comment