Photo Courtesy of creativecommons.org Ric E Ette
In a world where each gallon of gas costs over $4, people are interested in buying properties in convenient locations. They want to be able to take trains or buses or other forms of public transportation, and wonder of wonders, they want to be able to walk places.
Technology being what it is, someone created a website called WalkScorewhere they can actually find out how an area ranks in its “walkability”. Their argument is unassailable.
Picture a walkable neighborhood. You lose weight each time you walk to the grocery store. You stumble home from last call without waiting for a cab. You spend less money on your car—or you don’t own a car. When you shop, you support your local economy. You talk to your neighbors.
Recently, WalkScore decided to rank 2,508 neighborhoods in the top 40 cities in the United States. And there, at #5 was Philadelphia ! Philadelphia ranks at 74 for walkability, which is defined as “Very Walkable: It’s possible to get by without owning a car. ” Imagine a place where you can go to the store, the library, school, or recreation without owning a car!
Of course there are some areas where a car just makes sense, but many of the areas of the city are so easily walkable that a family can certainly get by with one car. Imagine what that savings would mean. Having that car payment available to use for your mortgage payment, or saving a tank of gas a week , perhaps as much as $300 per month to help with your housing expense,
Its sure nice to be at the top of this list. Makes me want to go out and walk over to buy a newspaper