{"id":4213,"date":"2009-12-25T02:57:35","date_gmt":"2009-12-25T07:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/?p=4213"},"modified":"2014-03-26T06:25:19","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T11:25:19","slug":"huntsvilles-walkable-neighborhoods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/2009\/12\/25\/huntsvilles-walkable-neighborhoods\/","title":{"rendered":"Huntsville’s Walkable Neighborhoods"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of you in all probability have found Walkscore on the web, a niche site where you are able to enter street addresses and it will rate a neighborhood’s walkability to businesses, parks, and schools. And remember just because your favorite neighborhood has sidewalks doesn’t mean it will be a highly rated walkable<\/strong> neighborhood. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Huntsville doesn’t fare very well on this website, with a citywide walable score of 38. If Huntsville were one of the nation’s 40 largest cities, we would be the 39th most walkable, behind Nashville and in front of bottom- ranked Jacksonville. Other cities in the area don’t fare much better; Decatur is the best in the region with an average score of 40.\u00a0Athens and Madison came in at 37 and 28 respectively.<\/p>\n

I decided out of curiosity to take the “walkscores<\/strong>” a step further. I divided Huntsville up into 14 sections\/neighborhoods of various sizes and put them against 16 other communities in the region, everywhere from Mooresville (population 65) to Decatur (population 56,000). I selected up to twelve addresses in each neighborhood at random and took the average. The result: unscientific lists of the ten most and least walkable communities in the region.<\/p>\n

Most Walkable <\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Downtown Huntsville <\/strong>– No surprises here; most of the CBD and Historic District are very walkable. However, the most walkable address I found in the region was in #2. Most walkable:<\/strong> Lincoln Street. Least walkable:<\/strong> Searcy Homes, which still had a fairly high score of 69; coming redevelopment will probably raise this. Average score<\/strong>: 74.7<\/li>\n
  2. Fayetteville<\/strong>— a fine Courthouse Square and downtown make this Southern Tennessee city the place to beat. Most walkable:<\/strong> the large historic district, which is where I found the only “walker’s paradise” (score of 95) in the region. Least walkable: <\/strong>its suburban fringes, which will only grow as Huntsville continues its march northward across the state line. Average score:<\/strong> 72.6<\/li>\n
  3. North Downtown– <\/strong>surprisingly, this largely industrial area (which includes up-and-coming Lincoln Mill) beat out established urban neighborhoods such as Five Points and Merrimack (#11). Most walkable: <\/strong>Lincoln Mill. Least walkable: <\/strong>the University\/Parkway interchange, the convergence of Huntsville’s two “Berlin Walls” (as said by a local bicyclist). Average score: <\/strong>71<\/li>\n
  4. West Downtown\/Lowe Mill<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. Terry Heights<\/strong><\/li>\n
  6. Athens<\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. Ardmore<\/strong><\/li>\n
  8. Arab<\/strong><\/li>\n
  9. Medical District\/Blossomwood<\/strong><\/li>\n
  10. Five Points<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Least Walkable<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The Coves (Hampton, Big)<\/strong>— Hampton Cove is the only place where I found a walkscore of 0– actually, half of the addresses I used had the lowest score possible. Most walkable<\/strong>: the closest you live to 431 and Sutton, the better (but not by much). Least walkable:<\/strong> Everywhere else. Average score:<\/strong> 5.6<\/li>\n
    2. Zierdt Road\/Triana– <\/strong>this sprawlicious area eked out of the bottom spot because I decided to include the town of Triana in the average. Most walkable: <\/strong>Triana. Least walkable: <\/strong>Beadle Lane. Average score: <\/strong>8.5<\/li>\n
    3. Mooresville<\/strong>— this cool 6-block historic town would seem like the perfect walkable community. But being sandwiched between 565, the Tennessee River, and farmland, there really isn’t much to walk to. Average score:<\/strong> 9<\/li>\n
    4. Hazel Green <\/strong><\/li>\n
    5. Harvest\u00a0 <\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n
    6. Northeast Madison County<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n
    7. Monrovia<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n
    8. Meridianville<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n
    9. Southeast Huntsville<\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n
    10. New Hope<\/strong>
      \n<\/strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Thanks to James over at the Huntsville Development <\/a>blog for this effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Many of you in all probability have found Walkscore on the web, a niche site where you are able to enter street addresses and it will rate a neighborhood’s walkability to businesses, parks, and schools. And remember just because your favorite neighborhood has sidewalks doesn’t mean it will be a highly rated walkable neighborhood. \ud83d\ude42 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athomeshuntsville.com\/realestate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}