Photo: toddandd via Flickr.
Chicago is the most walkable of Great Lakes cities with a population of at least 75,000.
This is according to a ranking system by the website Walk Score. The top 10 Great Lakes contenders among cities of that size, with their national rank in parentheses, are:
Chicago, Ill. (11)
Minneapolis, Minn. (24)
Cicero, Ill. (36)
Pittsburgh, Pa. (50)
Rochester, N.Y. (59)
Syracuse, N.Y. (62)
St. Paul, Minn. (72)
Milwaukee, Wis. (82)
Buffalo, N.Y. (87)
Erie, Pa. (88)
Also on the site, you can search for your home or business address, get your neighborhood’s individual walk score and see how you match up to surrounding areas. You can search by state and find your state’s most walkable cities. Click on a city and find the most walkable neighborhoods.
A walk score is a number between 0 and 100. A community scoring 0 is extremely car-dependent and 100 is a walker’s paradise. It is determined by calculating distance to nearby amenities, such as parks, restaurants, and fitness facilities.
As for the smaller cities, here are the top 10 in the Great Lakes:
Oak Park, Ill. (16)
Evanston, Ill. (22)
Ithaca, N.Y. (38)
Elmwood Park, Ill. (43)
Hamtramck, Mich. (54)
Lakewood, Ohio (61)
Berwyn, Ill. (77)
Melrose Park, Ill. (79)
Skokie, Ill. (81)
Blue Island, Ill. (90)
I won’t lie, I spent way too much time playing around on this website. And I have no idea why. So take a few minutes to check it out. Then, tell us: what did Walk Score get wrong? What is your vote for most walkable Great Lakes city?