Most "Walkable" City? (ranking, downtown, districts, metro)
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I have seen this article shared a few times and just want to point out it's anti-intellectual nonsense. The "author" (click-bait producer) took the one graph in the attached report and repurposed it as a "10 most walkable cities" list.
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Does Pittsburgh become more "walkable" because 51% of area offices are downtown vs. 39% of Philadelphia? No, and frankly, it has nothing to do with actual "built walkable environments" which is what the term walkability actually means.
Thanks for clarifying this. Makes sense, as Conde Nast isn't exactly an academic-type company.
For future reference, folks, any website that ends in ".com" likely is going to have some kind of industry-related bias (unless less it's a media outlet reporting on a scientific study), so take it with a grain of salt.
This link below: Has had its main list of cities posted in this thread, but the whole list PDF has an arsenal of charts that are given for cities. In it might show why some cities ranked lower despite being very urban. A chart on Multi-residential rental housing type 1 of a city shows some like Philadelphia that ranks high as urban row-housing just might be hurt for one aspect in its % of multi-residential rentals being lower? Also sometimes too much criteria is crushed for list and regions used bring a city lower.
Most of these lists are similar. Always SF and NYC with a Boston and Chicago, Philadelphia and DC sharing spots that alternate. Some improvements as Conde' Nast lists seem to infer (at least the 2017 list with no subscribe firewall) cities that have "improved" the most in its list. That brings in others such as Miami and LA to Seattle etc. Some might see these cities over theirs is unwelcome and not really overall accurate. Just seems wording of criteria generally is an ingredient that is at play. Most of these list are the usual cities always there and merely a couple get switched between the other different lists. Miami is added more in the new list more and more.
Top city first
New York
San Francisco
Boston
Miami
Philadelphia
Chicago
DC
Seattle
Oakland
Long Beach
Newark
Jersey City
Baltimore
Los Angeles
Honolulu
This link uses WalkScore for its list of cities with their score and top 3 walkable neighborhoods.
San Francisco (Walkscore: 89)
New York City (Walkscore: 88)
Boston (Walkscore: 83)
Miami (Walkscore: 77)
Chicago (Walkscore: 77)
DC (Walkscore: 77)
Oakland (Walkscore: 75)
Philadelphia (Walkscore: 75)
Seattle (Walkscore: 74)
Long Beach (Walkscore: 73)
Perhaps Walkscore is the fundamental culprit of a city not higher? Some may feel narrowest streets overall is key to walkablitiy, especially the term true urban? It just seems many criteria do not claim it makes a top Walkabiltiy score again if a city has a higher % as multi-residential housing.
To me I would add a "Aesthetics" criteria or "Green" bonus points to Walkbalibity as I myself see streets lined with some green to soaring trees add to any walkable experience that does not count at least in list of criteria? Do we all add it at times for "Beauty"? Generally in life we do.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CamThomas
Curious why NYC doesn't have 100% ?
Poll allows for multiple options set by the OP, so most people likely selecting a group of cities. If NYC's the standard then obviously the entire list would take a back seat. However it's interesting to think of the line up after that and how it would go. I think reasonable to say that Boston, DC, SF are closest in line after NYC, very closely followed by Philadelphia and Chicago. When you get past that grouping of cities it gets a lot more subjective, would Seattle, Portland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Newark/JC, Cleveland, be considered more walkable cities than LA, or Miami? I'd say the first group personally.
Poll allows for multiple options set by the OP, so most people likely selecting a group of cities. If NYC's the standard then obviously the entire list would take a back seat. However it's interesting to think of the line up after that and how it would go. I think reasonable to say that Boston, DC, SF are closest in line after NYC, very closely followed by Philadelphia and Chicago. When you get past that grouping of cities it gets a lot more subjective, would Seattle, Portland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Newark/JC, Cleveland, be considered more walkable cities than LA, or Miami? I'd say the first group personally.
I think in terms of absolute contiguous area of good "walkability", it's probably Chicago, SF, Philadelphia, Boston, and DC. It's only by proportion of the main city that I'd put Chicago and Philadelphia lower since they are physically larger cities; Jersey City as in much of Hudson County and small parts of adjacent Bergen County would also be in that tier close to where Boston and DC are. By absolute contiguous area of good "walkability", I think LA is about there in the next pack you mentioned while Pittsburgh and Cleveland are not and would probably form one with Miami instead.
This link below: Has had its main list of cities posted in this thread, but the whole list PDF has an arsenal of charts that are given for cities. In it might show why some cities ranked lower despite being very urban. A chart on Multi-residential rental housing type 1 of a city shows some like Philadelphia that ranks high as urban row-housing just might be hurt for one aspect in its % of multi-residential rentals being lower? Also sometimes too much criteria is crushed for list and regions used bring a city lower.
Most of these lists are similar. Always SF and NYC with a Boston and Chicago, Philadelphia and DC sharing spots that alternate. Some improvements as Conde' Nast lists seem to infer (at least the 2017 list with no subscribe firewall) cities that have "improved" the most in its list. That brings in others such as Miami and LA to Seattle etc. Some might see these cities over theirs is unwelcome and not really overall accurate. Just seems wording of criteria generally is an ingredient that is at play. Most of these list are the usual cities always there and merely a couple get switched between the other different lists. Miami is added more in the new list more and more.
Top city first
New York
San Francisco
Boston
Miami
Philadelphia
Chicago
DC
Seattle
Oakland
Long Beach
Newark
Jersey City
Baltimore
Los Angeles
Honolulu
This link uses WalkScore for its list of cities with their score and top 3 walkable neighborhoods.
San Francisco (Walkscore: 89)
New York City (Walkscore: 88)
Boston (Walkscore: 83)
Miami (Walkscore: 77)
Chicago (Walkscore: 77)
DC (Walkscore: 77)
Oakland (Walkscore: 75)
Philadelphia (Walkscore: 75)
Seattle (Walkscore: 74)
Long Beach (Walkscore: 73)
Perhaps Walkscore is the fundamental culprit of a city not higher? Some may feel narrowest streets overall is key to walkablitiy, especially the term true urban? It just seems many criteria do not claim it makes a top Walkabiltiy score again if a city has a higher % as multi-residential housing.
To me I would add a "Aesthetics" criteria or "Green" bonus points to Walkbalibity as I myself see streets lined with some green to soaring trees add to any walkable experience that does not count at least in list of criteria? Do we all add it at times for "Beauty"? Generally in life we do.
A fundamental error with using walkscore for comparisons is that it's a composite score over the entire legal boundaries of a municipality, so while it will yield technically "accurate" scores in regards to how its rubric decides the walkscore, it also yields a score that's very difficult to compare among cities since they vary so much in to the extent the area's most urban neighborhoods are outside of the municipal legal boundaries and how much suburban development is within the municipal legal boundaries.
For example, if Staten Island actually went through with its sometimes threatened secession from the five boroughs, New York City's composite score will go substantially down since a significant chunk of the lowest walkscore neighborhoods then exits the equation and meanwhile the much more walkable other areas are given larger weights since the denominator has shrunk. This occurs despite there being no actual structural or infrastructure changes to the city.
I think walkscore is probably best used by assembling contiguous smaller areas, such as neighborhoods, that are above at or above a certain threshold (like 90) and then doing population counts regardless of whether it is technically within municipal boundaries. I started doing so within this topic, but stopped since walkscore wasn't updating its numbers for the 2020 census.
A fundamental error with using walkscore for comparisons is that it's a composite score over the entire legal boundaries of a municipality, so while it will yield technically "accurate" scores in regards to how its rubric decides the walkscore, it also yields a score that's very difficult to compare among cities since they vary so much in to the extent the area's most urban neighborhoods are outside of the municipal legal boundaries and how much suburban development is within the municipal legal boundaries.
For example, if Staten Island actually went through with its sometimes threatened secession from the five boroughs, New York City's composite score will go substantially down since a significant chunk of the lowest walkscore neighborhoods then exits the equation and meanwhile the much more walkable other areas are given larger weights since the denominator has shrunk. This occurs despite there being no actual structural or infrastructure changes to the city.
I think walkscore is probably best used by assembling contiguous smaller areas, such as neighborhoods, that are above at or above a certain threshold (like 90) and then doing population counts regardless of whether it is technically within municipal boundaries. I started doing so within this topic, but stopped since walkscore wasn't updating its numbers for the 2020 census.
Yeah I agree, but it does show the walk score of the boundaries of where you will be living. Sure, Soho in Manhattan and The North End in Boston will have walk scores of 100... but like, good swaths of both Boston and New York have terrible sprawly neighborhoods. You have to account for both.
When we mention neighborhoods, sure, that would work. But on a city level, it is pretty accurate.
Yeah I agree, but it does show the walk score of the boundaries of where you will be living. Sure, Soho in Manhattan and The North End in Boston will have walk scores of 100... but like, good swaths of both Boston and New York have terrible sprawly neighborhoods. You have to account for both.
When we mention neighborhoods, sure, that would work. But on a city level, it is pretty accurate.
Yea, I think on that technical definition of a city level as in municipal boundaries, it does as stated. However, those boundaries are quite different from place to place and encompass very different things and in some places, those boundaries are for the most part meaningless in terms of how walkable an area actually is.
I think from just looking at the top ten, you can see some of the issues with a ranking based on municipal boundaries and how that works out to it being technically correct in terms of accounting for the city boundaries, but not very good in terms of actually talking about comparing how walkable the larger area really is. After all, walking has a specific scale to it while municipal boundaries can scale from less than a square mile to thousands of square miles. In the top ten list, it's scaling between a few dozens of square miles to a few hundred square miles and that's a pretty large spread.
So with the top ten list:
San Francisco (Walkscore: 89)
New York City (Walkscore: 88)
Boston (Walkscore: 83)
Miami (Walkscore: 77)
Chicago (Walkscore: 77)
DC (Walkscore: 77)
Oakland (Walkscore: 75)
Philadelphia (Walkscore: 75)
Seattle (Walkscore: 74)
Long Beach (Walkscore: 73)
I think what are some issues with the list actual issues with the list are that New York City being slightly below San Francisco is completely unreasonable. SF is at ~47 square miles while New York City is at about 300 square miles. Take a 47 square mile contiguous chunk of New York City and its walkscore would be more around 97 or so and would make sense as in actually experiencing the city, it is very obviously a much more walkable area and over a far larger area.
Miami being tied with Chicago and over Philadelphia is a wild one, and Miami arguably shouldn't make top ten if the top ten also includes secondary parts of larger metropolitan areas. The high rankin has much more to do with Miami's very small city boundaries while Chicago and Philadelphia's are several times larger and thus have a lot of more suburban parts bringing down the municipal level average despite there being a much more walkable and larger expanse in Chicago and Philadelphia than there is in Miami.
Los Angeles which is not on the list is massive and its contiguous walkable areas are certainly more so and larger than that of Miami, Oakland, or Long Beach, but Los Angeles's municipal boundaries includes what are essentially a lot of suburbs (especially in the San Fernando Valley which makes up a very large chunk of the municipal area) while excluding rather urban parts such as West Hollywood, the flats part of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. Now it may be hard to do comparisons among very different regions, but Long Beach is adjacent to Los Angeles and part of the same metropolitan area and there are certainly several more "chunks" of the LA metropolitan area especially ones that include Los Angeles city proper that are much more walkable than Long Beach.
Not on the list due to the balkanization of municipal borders, but with a very reasonable case for top ten is Jersey City and the many dense, but small contiguous municipalities that make up the highly urbanized and very walkable Bergen Neck peninsula.
Yea, I think on that technical definition of a city level as in municipal boundaries, it does as stated. However, those boundaries are quite different from place to place and encompass very different things and in some places, those boundaries are for the most part meaningless in terms of how walkable an area actually is.
I think from just looking at the top ten, you can see some of the issues with a ranking based on municipal boundaries and how that works out to it being technically correct in terms of accounting for the city boundaries, but not very good in terms of actually talking about comparing how walkable the larger area really is. After all, walking has a specific scale to it while municipal boundaries can scale from less than a square mile to thousands of square miles. In the top ten list, it's scaling between a few dozens of square miles to a few hundred square miles and that's a pretty large spread.
So with the top ten list:
San Francisco (Walkscore: 89)
New York City (Walkscore: 88)
Boston (Walkscore: 83)
Miami (Walkscore: 77)
Chicago (Walkscore: 77)
DC (Walkscore: 77)
Oakland (Walkscore: 75)
Philadelphia (Walkscore: 75)
Seattle (Walkscore: 74)
Long Beach (Walkscore: 73)
I think what are some issues with the list actual issues with the list are that New York City being slightly below San Francisco is completely unreasonable. SF is at ~47 square miles while New York City is at about 300 square miles. Take a 47 square mile contiguous chunk of New York City and its walkscore would be more around 97 or so and would make sense as in actually experiencing the city, it is very obviously a much more walkable area and over a far larger area.
Miami being tied with Chicago and over Philadelphia is a wild one, and Miami arguably shouldn't make top ten if the top ten also includes secondary parts of larger metropolitan areas. The high rankin has much more to do with Miami's very small city boundaries while Chicago and Philadelphia's are several times larger and thus have a lot of more suburban parts bringing down the municipal level average despite there being a much more walkable and larger expanse in Chicago and Philadelphia than there is in Miami.
Los Angeles which is not on the list is massive and its contiguous walkable areas are certainly more so and larger than that of Miami, Oakland, or Long Beach, but Los Angeles's municipal boundaries includes what are essentially a lot of suburbs (especially in the San Fernando Valley which makes up a very large chunk of the municipal area) while excluding rather urban parts such as West Hollywood, the flats part of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. Now it may be hard to do comparisons among very different regions, but Long Beach is adjacent to Los Angeles and part of the same metropolitan area and there are certainly several more "chunks" of the LA metropolitan area especially ones that include Los Angeles city proper that are much more walkable than Long Beach.
Not on the list due to the balkanization of municipal borders, but with a very reasonable case for top ten is Jersey City and the many dense, but small contiguous municipalities that make up the highly urbanized and very walkable Bergen Neck peninsula.
But NYC is so build up if we only look at Manhattan, North Brooklyn and LIC... we leave off where the real New Yorkers live. NYC functions out radially and there is a large percent of NYC residents whose daily life revolved around the car as gentrification keeps pushing them farther out.
On Miami, I actually visited in December and in the three years I have been gone... it went from typical sunbelt, to extremely walkable in most places I went. I think for the city proper, I would give it like a 73.. but its kinda accurate.
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