Walkscore.com has been a popular Web destination for the past year, allowing users to type in a street address and instantly see the 0-to-100-point walkability score of a current or future home. This week, the site re-launched with new rankings, guides and maps that allow users to compare cities and neighborhoods within them.

Portland outscores most cities because we boast so many walkable neighborhoods, led by the Pearl, Old Town/Chinatown, downtown, Northwest and the Lloyd district. They aren’t necessarily the prettiest, most affordable or most peaceful pockets of Portland. A high Walk Score doesn’t mean litter-free and scenic. It doesn’t guarantee pedestrian-friendly design, low crime or streets flat enough to comfortably tote groceries from the store.

Advertisement

A neighborhood with a high Walk Score is one where, if you choose, you can ditch the car for many errands, to take the kids to a park or to dine out — saving gas, burning calories and strengthening ties to your community as well.

Walk Score’s color-coded maps aren’t subtle. Front Seat, the “civic software” company that created the site, was inspired to quantify walkability by Sightline Institute, a sustainability think tank. The organizations, both in Seattle, promote walkable communities as one solution for our fatter, lonelier, warmer world.

Not incidentally, Walk Score’s Portland map colors the most walkable areas a perky lime green, representing a dense mix of restaurants, stores, parks and other amenities within a mile or so walk.

Travel away from the city core and green lightens to cautionary yellow (in North Portland, between the Willamette River and Interstate 5, or along Cully Boulevard in Northeast Portland), where feet aren’t as likely to get you where you need to go.

Wander farther — into Linnton, just southeast of Sauvie Island; toward Powell Butte in outer Southeast Portland; or west of Southwest Capitol Highway — and mellow yellow burns into an angry red, the color of the walkability boondocks. (Don’t skip over the “walking oases,” pools of green surrounded by red, including the area around Cathedral Park near the St. Johns Bridge.)

High gas prices appear to be driving many visits to the Walk Score site, said Mike Mathieu, 39, founder of Front Seat, a for-profit company with a mission “to connect people to the places we live and resources we consume.” But he considers walkability a shorthand for benefits that go beyond gas savings: a lighter environmental impact, less congestion, healthier lifestyles less prone to obesity, a better chance to know the neighbors.

“If you’re thinking about environmental issues, health issues, the cost of gas . . . one of the biggest decisions you can make is where you’re going to live,” Mathieu said.

Walk Score makes it easy for house- and apartment-hunters to find walkable neighborhoods — if they want them.

Get online with PDXgreen all week at blog.oregonlive.com/pdxgreen. Shelby Wood: 503-221-5368 or shelbywood@news.oregonian.com

REALonomics.net advocates that the industry open up the property information portals to consumers and upgrade its approach to how it is interacting with the consumer by implementing more social networking such as www.CityBlogUSA.com, a community blogging network for every city in the USA.

Visit www.REALonomics.net.

You can join the CityBlogUSA phenomena by blogging about your favorite cities or home town…it’s absolutely FREE.

CityBlogUSA is dedicated to resident blogging in every city in the USA! And now you can become an author or a contributor and begin to tell the world all about your favorite city or home town. After all, who knows more about a city than the people who live there?

Businesses, real estate professionals and others can become Sponsors and advertise directly in the the cities of their choice, targeting their advertisement to the people who want and need their product or service.

CityBlogUSA is great! We’re the talk of the town!

You can jump to any State and city right here in this blog!