Walking Locally

I'm continuing with my  pedestrian theme from last week's post. I found an interesting website over the weekend. It is called walkscore.com
You enter your address and get a walk-ability score of the area based on what's nearby. The maximum score is 100. The components of the score include: Restaurants, Entertainment, Arts & Community, Health, Shopping and Errands.

Here is the walkabilty results for my address:

I think this is pretty accurate. I can easily get "emergency" groceries (milk, bread, eggs, toilet paper) at Walgreens, not listed, on my bike, but otherwise we are somewhat car dependent. I do occasionally walk downtown, my youngest daughter and I like to do that, and then ride home on the Cambus. 

While reading the above, I was interested in was a claim from the 1926 real estate brochure for U-Heights that I have that says U-Heights is just as close to downtown Iowa City as Summit Street, or Manville Heights. (The exclusive neighborhoods of the era) That is certainly true, but how do their current walkability scores compare? 

Here is Summit Street:

Here is Manville Heights:

No surprise that Summit scores highest, and that neither neighborhood is highly walkable, but both neighborhoods outscore U-Heights.

For real fun I put in our prior home where we lived until we moved to U-Heights:

Having lived in a walker's paradise prior to U-Heights, I can say that is really the one thing I've missed since moving. 

As shown, I speak from experience when I say that a few more amenities within walking distance would make for a great improvement in our community's quality of life!