My home has a walk score of 29. I walk:
- 15 mins to Walmart, drug store, shoe store outlet, my Toyota dealer, pet store, dollar store, liquor outlet, large hardware
- 5 min to community college and K-8 public school
- 3 mins to transit that is twice daily. I must check out this service to understand it better.
The biggest challenges are groceries, library and bulk barn which do require a car. I can walk to them but have no desire to carry the parcels home.
As Cicero said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
Very walkable neighborhood here. Three blocks to a supermarket (with an ATM) and a liquor store and two restaurants (neither are fast-food). Within half a mile from a library/community center, more restaurants (including a very nice pâtisserie) and two independent coffee shops, a microbrewery, barber shops/beauty salons, and a medical clinic (used to be mine; isn't anymore). Within a mile from downtown St. Paul, so fine arts/entertainment, more restaurants, drug stores, a head shop (keep St. Paul weird!), bigger libraries, parks (well, bigger parks that have music programs in summer, etc.). If I walk three blocks I can look over the Mississippi River. There are three bus lines with four blocks, including two that connect to the light rail that goes to Minneapolis and/or the airport. The only thing we should have that we don't is a hardware store. We used to have one but the owner retired and cashed out and now it's a Hampton Inn and a bunch of boring restaurants.
Before I bought this house (before DW and I married) I lived up on one of the main streets of St. Paul. It had one of about everything but a used-car lot (we do have one of those in this neighborhood). I wanted to make sure I had similar walkability here. That's one reason why, when DW starts in about wanting to move to the outer suburbs, where our kids/grandkids live, I'm the one covering my ears and singing "LALALA..." Been there, done that (lived where you needed a car to get anywhere); absolutely don't want to do it again.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
Ok I'm a couple blocks from a hardware store too. Ok, ok, so it's walk-able in much of everything you actually need or something, but it's not exciting, it's boring. So I hardly realize that it is pretty walkable as it's boring. But the real distance is in driving to work and to see people really, not the piddling stuff which even then is a few miles, which I combine errands anyway half the time, and amounts to not much.
Trees don't grow on money
Steve, it somehow seems counter-intuitive to worry about a used car lot being "walkable"...And it would be great if our neighborhood had a brewpub, but alas, life is never perfect.
And I agree with dado that the walkability site is imperfect. In our neighborhood it counts the little bodega on the corner as a grocery store. I suppose if one considers a bag of chips, a candy bar, a bottle of alcohol and a lotto ticket as groceries it could be considered a grocery store...
Oh, agreed. But there was so much along that street that I had to think about what it didn't have -- and that was a place to buy cars (there were several places to fix them).Originally Posted by jp1
Steve, it somehow seems counter-intuitive to worry about a used car lot being "walkable"...
While I'm happy to walk to many places near me, having a supermarket very close was an absolute must for me. And we have one. It's gotten much better over the years as the neighborhood has seen more younger professionals ($$) move in and demand more international and organic groceries. Yeah, a bodega would not cut it for me.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
Mine is 9
Agreed about grocery stores. Safeway is literally across the street from us. We no longer buy lots of stuff just to have it on hand. If we're making dinner and need something we just run across the street and get it and are home in 10-15 minutes. And our freezer is always almost empty since we can pick up any meat we need from either the safeway or the butcher a block away the day we intend to eat it. The luxury of that is amazing.
I'm in the middle of no where, by choice when we originally bought. We had lived in a condo complex for 10 years that went downhill. The market dropped out inn our area and selling prices were 1/2 to 2/3 of what we all paid. As a result, many units were rented out, and some owners were not at all picky about tenants. So I wanted some buffer space between me and any potential neighbors.
The only thing that will be walkable will be the farm brewery set to open in the spring. That would be about 45 minute walk.
I think walkability has a lot to do with where you want to go and how far you are willing to walk. A lot of people aren't willing to walk much of anywhere.
Herbgeek: Since you have recently retired and we are both in the same part of the country, how do you feel about "the middle of no where" as a location for aging in place? Or do you not intend to stay where you are for the long-term? DH is always showing me real estate listings for western MA where homes are so much cheaper than where we currently live. As much as I love the more rural New England areas for vacation, I feel like moving to one of them for my older years would not be a great plan for this non-driving introvert.
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