Walk Score

=Introduction= When buying a house it is useful to know what facilities are available within walking distance. Walk Score both details these available facilities and also provides a overall score for any property based on the range of facilities available.

=Product= Walk Score is a website that uses data and mapping from Google Maps to establish what facilities are available within walking distance from any location. This can both be used to establish what services are available locally, but also to give an overall score allowing comparison between different locations.

The main limitations at present are from the completeness and accuracy of the data and the system can provide misleading results.

Walkscore tries to filter out some bad results manually and business owners can update their own listings, however Google does not provide a way for people to update the business listings in their neighborhood.

Could be used for a number of purposes:

For existing homes - to highlight the things you could walk to, make you realise how short a distance it actually is the supermarket!

For those moving house - it aims to affect your decision making. Guess you would only use it if motivated to reduce your car travel and hence it should have an impact. Those who are not motivated to reduce car travel probably wouldn't find value in the site.

Urban planning - A walkscore can be used to establish if an area is suitable for low-car use and to identify areas where additional faciltities are required.

=People= "Walk Score is a project of Front Seat Management which was founded by Mike Mathieu to promote environmental living. Mike was formerly a General Manager of MSN.com at Microsoft and founder a directory business that he sold in 2006.

=History= Walk Score launched in July of 2007 covering the United States and Canada. Support for more countries is promised. It has been well received in the USA.