Close - interactive map for walkable cities

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Is this a glitch or a feature? What tracts get highlighted depends on if those tracts meet all of the criteria you selected.

If you have more things selected, by definition fewer tracts will meet the criteria and be considered walkable (hence more grey).

You know Houston. It says there are no parks in Houston at all. No Hermann Park. No Buffalo Bayou Park. No Memorial Park. No Discovery Green. No Macgregor Park. No Levy Park.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

You know Houston. It says there are no parks in Houston at all.

Clearly the data is incomplete.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

You know Houston. It says there are no parks in Houston at all. No Hermann Park. No Buffalo Bayou Park. No Memorial Park. No Discovery Green. No Macgregor Park. No Levy Park.

Clearly there’s missing data in some cities, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create a reasonable map for Houston (like I said… what you select depends on the city):

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by tech12

It's definitely glitched, when you have too many categories, or certain categories selected. The amenities still show up in the greyed-out areas, as markers, but the heat map doesn't load in.

edit:there are plenty of missing markers as well (for all the parks near me in Oakland, for example)

edit #2 maybe you're right. I was thinking it was also measuring proximity to other census tracts with the relevant amenities, but maybe it's just the amenities within a specific tract.

No, I do think it measures amenities in nearby tracts, too, or at least it should.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by jbermingham123

Also, FWIW, I think Houston's data is wrong. In my very limited experience there, there are certain pockets (for example, around Rice University), where it is quite walkable with lots of amenities

You're right. If you filter out everything but parks... it says there are no parks.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by homebucket

I wonder if there's some missing data here as the map for Berkeley and Oakland, and to a lesser extent Alameda, doesn't seem right.

Yes the East Bay should at least look like Orange county. There is some data missing.

[tech12]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

No, I do think it measures amenities in nearby tracts, too, or at least it should.

Yeah, I looked again, and it appears to.

I'm still not sure how the map works, but I adjusted criteria to include only the most basic amenities for people on foot (convenience stores, public transit stops, cafes, and restaurants), and left out amenities that serve larger numbers of people, which are inherently smaller in number, where people often travel a bit farther to get to them (schools, supermarkets, parks, stuff like that...though parks are largely missing from the map anyways).

Here's most of the Bay Area, and a little bit of the Central Valley:

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Clearly there’s missing data in some cities, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create a reasonable map for Houston (like I said… what you select depends on the city):

I'm not trusting any site that suggests that no one in Houston lives within 30 minutes walking distance to a park. It's nonsense.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by tech12

Yeah, I looked again, and it appears to.

I'm still not sure how the map works, but I adjusted criteria to include only the most basic amenities for people on foot (convenience stores, public transit stops, cafes, and restaurants), and left out amenities that serve larger numbers of people, which are inherently smaller in number, where people often travel a bit farther to get to them (schools, supermarkets, parks, stuff like that...though parks are largely missing from the map anyways).

Here's most of the Bay Area, and a little bit of the Central Valley:

I did a Los Angeles map using your same criteria:

[bilbao58]

Walking distance to public transit stops:

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

If these maps are actually to the same scale, and if the data is accurate, Chicago blows everyone else away (sans NYC), Southside gaps included. The scale of the Northside/inner burbs would be on another level.

But I don't trust the scales here.

Theyre not. LA looks to be 40 miles from west to east and Chicago is around 20-25 miles across.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by craigs

I did a Los Angeles map using your same criteria:

This looks accurate to me. Im glad its picked up little villages like Pacific Palisades, which suprisingly has a good amount of people walking around for that kindd of wealthy area.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Toasty Joe

@NatMakesMaps posted about this new website Close.city he launched that lets you see how walkable a city is for your needs: grocery stores, public transit, restaurants, gyms, parks, coffee shops, etc. I took some screenshots of our major cities with the above parameters to see how they fare, and felt it would spark some interesting discussion. You can change the filters, check out different cities, or just play around: https://close.city/

Note it's only US for now (and weirdly no data for DC), and the images are roughly around the same scale, but there doesn't appear to be a way to view / control that. Hopefully future updates address that -- and make it easier to compare cities


Houston

The reason Houston looks like this is because the data source left out ALL parks in the city. With parks filtered out, the map looks similar to Austin and Dallas. With parks added, it looks like the above.

I sent a quick email to @NatMakesMaps and here was his response:



Maybe Toasty Joe will considered editing the original post when the corrected map is available? Naaaaahhhh! Probably not.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

The reason Houston looks like this is because the data source left out ALL parks in the city. With parks filtered out, the map looks similar to Austin and Dallas. With parks added, it looks like the above.

I sent a quick email to @NatMakesMaps and here was his response:


Maybe Toasty Joe will considered editing the original post when the corrected map is available? Naaaaahhhh! Probably not.

I think thats why in Miami's map the walkability magically ends at the Miami-Dade/Broward County border. They are missing data for Broward County. Miami's walkability should continue up the coast.

[Nomad9]

This is a neat tool.

One thing this (and similar tools) don’t really account for, however, is the on-the-ground feel. A relatively “walkable” part of my suburban neighborhood in a smaller Midwest city, which has pretty consistent sidewalk coverage, cross walks (sometimes with broad stopping points in the median of big stroads), and greenways, is a *very* different experience than an equivalent area in my former southeastern town even though the walking distance may be about the same.

In the former, you definitely feel the auto-orientation of the neighborhood but it’s pleasant enough and you don’t feel endangered most of the time. In the latter, it’s unpleasant at best (what sidewalks?!) and dangerous at worst.

[Doady]

Travel times are based on actual routes (streets, pedestrian walkways), or are they "as the crow flies"?

A true walkable city has a high density of services and amenities, but that means a high density of streets and intersections as well. Fewer streets and intersections means increased physical barriers which will increase the walking distance even if the amount of stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. remains the same.

[Coastal Elitist]

FYI, if you want to standardize the width and height of the map for each city, then you can do so by zooming in all the way and then tapping the minus button at the top left a certain number of times. You can then validate the scale by checking the z value in the URL. For example, the z value in the following URL is 12.

https://close.city/?x=-122.33&y=47.62&z=12&r=0&l=11111

[muertecaza]

Using 'public transit stops' probably flatters Phoenix too much. While there are ostensibly bus stops in the highlighted areas, no one would ever call many of them walkable, especially given that a lot of the busses only have frequency of every 30 minutes.

Limiting to only subway/light rail stops comes closer to the truth, although it omits parts of downtown Scottsdale that you might argue are walkable.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by muertecaza

Looks like a line of strong thunderstorms.

[Toasty Joe]

Originally Posted by Coastal Elitist

FYI, if you want to standardize the width and height of the map for each city, then you can do so by zooming in all the way and then tapping the minus button at the top left a certain number of times. You can then validate the scale by checking the z value in the URL. For example, the z value in the following URL is 12.

https://close.city/?x=-122.33&y=47.62&z=12&r=0&l=11111

Thank you! I can refresh the maps with the same scale and updated data when it comes out. There's likely more city-specific irregularities, so it may take a few iterations before we can compare most cities against more than a few criteria. If we want to standardize parameters (e.g., supermarkets, restaurants, bars), let me know. Otherwise we can just keep what I have.