Erik Moe Art & Design

WalkScore is a tool that evaluates locations based on how walkable they are. The tool has been around for a year or more, but is getting a lot more attention these days as gasoline costs force people to think more about their built environment. Since I’ve avoided car ownership all these years, I’ve always made walkability a big priority in my housing choices. The resulting WalkScores for most places I’ve lived are pretty high, and I was curious what my cumulative WalkScore would be. To calculate the statistic, I started with my first apartment* and looked up the WalkScore for any place I lived for at least a month.


MAIN STREET, RIVER FALLS, WI == 85
SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS ============= 58
DOWNTOWN SAINT PAUL =========== 95
MACALESTER, SAINT PAUL ======== 78
UPTOWN MINNEAPOLIS ============ 91
UNIVERSITY CITY, PHILADELPHIA = 94
WEST PHILADELPHIA ============= 83
UNIVERSITY CITY, PHILADELPHIA = 94
ITALIAN MARKET, PHILADELPHIA == 94
CENTER CITY PHILADELPHIA ====== 97
POWELTON VILLAGE PHILADELPHIA = 86
ANDERSONVILLE, CHICAGO ======== 91
ECKINGTON, WASHINGTON, DC ===== 63


I then weighted the WalkScores for each based on the number of months I resided there to come up with the cumulative number of 87.39.

Obviously there are a lot of elements WalkScore doesn’t capture. Chicago’s Andersonville was a great place to live, but in the winter I’d probably drop the WalkScore a bit. As near as I can tell the site gives you as many points for having a grocery store like this across the street as it does for an upscale organic Co-Op. Also, neighborhoods change over time: Downtown St. Paul (probably) has more amenities now then it did when I briefly lived there in the mid 1990s. Likewise Eckington will see a lot of change over the next few years that will probably raise it significantly above its current score of 63.

Still, any tool that helps people put more thought into how dependent they are on cars to get around is a useful one.

*I chose to start with housing after I left college dormitories since WalkScore’s algorithms don’t seem able to find on-campus amenities. Dorm life is usually pretty walkable, though.