Most Walkable Cities in U.S. (2011 Voting in Progress)

I love writing on walkable cities. Have you noticed? I’m not the only one, though. There are huge communities and organizations of people working on that one particular issue. There’s also a great website, Walk Score, that ranks cities on their walkability (which I’m frustrated to find out is still not a word according to my Google Chrome spell checker).

Anyway, Walk Score has put the following cities (pop. 100,000-10,000,000) at the top of the list on this issue (with the scores below on a 0-100 scale):

1. Cambridge, MA — 88.8
2. New York, NY — 85.3
3. Jersey City, NJ — 85.2
4. San Francisco, CA — 84.9
5. Berkeley, CA — 81.6
6. Boston, MA — 79.2
7. Paterson, NJ — 75
8. Chicago, IL — 74.3
9. Philadelphia, PA — 74.1
10. Newark, NJ — 74

You can view the full list via the link above and can also view by population, state, or city name. More on what the scores mean and the methodology.

You can also cast your vote for what you think are the most walkable cities using Facebook “like” buttons over on the Walk Score site.

Based on people’s “likes” on there, the top 10 cities are currently:

1. Seattle
2. San Francisco
3. Chicago
4. New York
5. San Diego
6. Boston
7. Portland
8. Los Angeles
9. Washington D.C.
10. Minneapolis

The links above provide much more detail on the walkability of those cities, including walkability scores for each neighborhood! Check out yours if you’re curious and see if you agree.

What do you think? Do these rankings match up with your experiences — they seem to match up pretty well with mine, but I haven’t been to all of those cities.

More walkability storeis on EcoLocalizer:

1. Walkable & Livable Communities Institute {Green NGO Highlighted}
2. 11 Most Walk-Friendly U.S. Cities
3. 10 Most Walkable Cities in World? [SLIDESHOW]
4. 7- to 14-Year-Olds Get Chance to Design Their “Dream Streets” in UK

Photo via Bikoy