Seattle: More Walkable Than Portland?
Posted July 22 at 11:44 am by Mike Seely
Walkscore.com ranks Seattle as the sixth most walkable city in the country, well behind top dog San Fran, but ahead of utopian Portland. How could this be? Because Walkscore's methodology doesn't take topography and public transit into account, which is kind of like ranking the prominence of skyscrapers without taking height into account.
Topics: Neighborhoods
Comments
It's true that topography is a blind spot, but Seattleites like to wax Utopian about Portland while conveniently forgetting that, when they visit, they tend to hang out in just a couple of neighborhoods down there. Outside of the Pearl District and a few other areas (most of which aren't contiguous), Portland is fairly sprawling, making it difficult to walk to amenities like grocery stores, etc. Consider that its population density is less than 5,000 per square mile, whereas Seattle's is over 7,000.
Posted July 22 at 12:22 pm by DamonGreat point, but I think the main reason Seattleites don't venture far outside the Pearl & Northwest is that they just don't know the town that well, as with most cities that one doesn't reside in.
Posted July 22 at 12:24 pm by SeelyTo be fair, it looks from the map like a good number of PDX's walkable neighborhoods are contiguous, though still less than Seattle, and with fewer of them overall than Seattle:
http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/Portland
Posted July 22 at 12:32 pm by Damonhttp://www.walkscore.com/rankings/Seattle
Referenced this post here http://www.djc.com/blogs/BuildingGreen/. I know how Walkscore makes its calculations, but based on my experience... sometimes it just doesn't make any sense at all.
Posted July 23 at 4:36 pm by Katie