The view of Boston (#6) from Cambridge (#1).
Boston is a great walking city and I’m proud to call it home. My hometown is ranked #6 on the list of most walkable cities in the United States and Cambridge, MA, right across the Charles River, is #1. Yay! Want to see how your city fared? Here’s the list of the top 25:
- Cambridge, MA
- New York, NY
- Jersey City, NJ
- San Francisco, CA
- Berkeley, CA
- Boston, MA
- Paterson, NJ
- Chicago, IL
- Philadelphia, PA
- Newark, NJ
- Seattle, WA
- Burbank, CA
- Hartford, CT
- Providence, RI
- Miami, FL
- Elizabeth, NJ
- Yonkers, NY
- Costa Mesa, CA
- Torrance, CA
- Minneapolis, MN
- East Los Angeles, CA
- Glendale, CA
- Oakland, CA
- Pasadena, CA
- Arlington, VA
Prevention Magazine compiled the list and their article on most walkable cities has some interesting factoids. For instance, New Jersey has four cities on the list and car crazy California has nine! Do you notice anything else? There seems to be a correlation between obesity rates and walking culture. I’m not noticing any representatives on the list from Southern cities, which is where the nation’s obesity rates are highest. (The one exception is Miami which does have a beach body culture and a very international flair.)
Of course, moving just 30 minutes a day, even something as simple as an easy walk, has been shown to keep weight down. If you have a lifestyle that promotes walking, you’re a lot more likely to get those 30 minutes in a day and have a leaner citizenry. I walk back and forth to my studio multiple times a week; it’s a quick 10-minute walk and often includes running errands on foot on my way home.
I was discussing my walking commute with an acquaintance the other day and he commented on how nice that must be. I replied, “I like my life small, but I like to travel big.” Thinking about it more, that’s so true. The price of gas keeps going up and up, but being able to walk to everything I need really keeps our costs down. So I can save up for big trips, like our family vacation to Costa Rica last year. That was absolutely worth it!
How about you? Do you walk as much as you can to run errands? Do you have the luxury of walking to work? I’d love to hear it.
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San Francisco is my favorite city for walking. (Well, Paris has it beat, but among U.S. cities anyway.) Those hills are magnificent. No wonder so many people who live there look great.
yes, the walking cities have lower rates of obesity than non-walking cities. And I went from the waterfront up Russian Hill once and deeply regretted it ;-)
Great to see Costa Mesa make the list!