Quality, Quantity and the Walk Score

This isn't really a photo post, but more about the difference between the places I have lived previously. My friends Divya and Gautam are trying to sell their place in Capitol Hill. I was reading the website that D put together for their place and found the demographics and "Walk Score" very interesting. Walk Score is the ability to walk easily to the places you need to go most often (grocery, drug store, bars, theaters, coffee shops, parks, etc.). As far as I can tell, it maps the closest item that fulfills each criteria and then your Walk Score is how far those things are from your address. It is a quantity measurement.

The place I moved from in Franklin, Indiana had a walk score of 18. Some of the closest items were in Indy, which is double digit miles away. It is tough to walk anywhere in Franklin. And actually, if they factored in that you can't safely walk to several of those places because of lack of sidewalks and crossing highways, it would probably be quite a bit lower. It's not just low quantity either. There are not very many cool restaurants, bars, coffee shops, parks, etc. in Franklin. The cream of the crop in Franklin is the Willard (which I love). Also of note are Ritters Frozen Custard, Jeff Street (it's one of the only worthwhile bars), the buffet at Franklin College (because it's cheap, but not good) and Applebee's half-priced appetizers (which are both cheap and good). It was nice being close to Franklin College because it is a nice campus and we could easily access their football field. Without the college, Franklin would be mostly uninhabitable because you'd lose most of the fine establishments I mentioned above.

To be fair, Franklin is my most recent place of residence, but isn't really the best comparable. I also lived in Broad Ripple in Indianapolis, which is much more walkable. Outside of living in downtown Indy (I always wanted to live on Mass Ave), it is probably the most walkable place in Indianapolis (and all of Indiana if you discount college campuses). There is a close-by mall (Glendale), grocery (Marsh or ghetto Kroger), several great eateries (Broad Ripple Brew Pub, Bazbeaux Pizza, Yats, BW3 [side note: all of which I try to visit every trip home]), music venues (Vogue, Birdy's, Patio) and some wonderful local ale establishments (Stone Mug, Alley Cat, Old Pros Table, Average Joe's). The score there was 78, which I thought seemed a tad high. B.Ripple has a fair amount of quantity (but some of it is quite a hike) and a good-to-great amount of quality.

This brings me to the place I currently live, Capitol Hill in Seattle. Cap Hill has a Walk Score of 95. This area has not only the quantity of places you can walk to, but amazing quality. Capitol Hill has the best coffee shops in Seattle (and therefore, conceivably the country) (Victrola, Vivace, Top Pot Doughnuts), several of the best venues for music in the Pacific Northwest (Neumos, Chop Suey, Paramount), several of the best bars in Seattle (Lindas, Cha Cha, Capitol Club, Summit Public House, Faire) and I'd imagine the best sandwich shops in the city (Baguette Box, Honey Hole, Saley). We also have a new public park and easy walking access to downtown (which has even more stuff!).

I really enjoy living in an urban area that promotes walking and having great stuff nearby. I loved Broad Ripple, but it is not quite concentrated enough for me. Several of those places are a couple to several miles away. You couldn't survive without a car. Although I know you can get much of the quantity or quality elsewhere, the combo of quality and quantity of Seattle is really hard to beat. Would it be too much to ask for a Qdoba and Arby's in Capitol Hill? =)