Why are westside, Arlington, etc. considered to be suburbs when they are just as

[Tacachale]

This part of the reason the "rankings" are even worse than the scores themselves, as they rank only the 50 biggest cities by their city limit population. Therefore Tampa, St. Pete and Orlando are off the list but Arlington, Texas is on it.

IMO the walkscores can be good for finding walkable neighborhoods within a city, but it's pretty useless for comparison.

[finehoe]

Miami is a 35.6 square mile built out city (similar to pre-1968 Jacksonville).  It's not consolidated like we are today so its walkscore numbers are going to be significantly higher.

If you type "Miami-Dade County" into their 'get your walk score' box, you get a score of 75.
If you type "Duval County" you get 43.

Something else seems to be going on.

That said, if you search at the zip code level, it seems pretty accurate.

[Tacachale]

^It's totally screwy. That's even higher than the City of Miami's score of 73. And Duval County's 43 score is significantly higher than the Jacksonville score of 32.6. The Beaches scores don't seem to be enough to account for that.

Also, I just typed in Jacksonville and it came back with a score of 94!

http://www.walkscore.com/score/Jacksonville-Florida

You couldn't make this stuff up.

[BrooklynSouth]

Miami is a 35.6 square mile built out city (similar to pre-1968 Jacksonville).  It's not consolidated like we are today so its walkscore numbers are going to be significantly higher.

If you type "Miami-Dade County" into their 'get your walk score' box, you get a score of 75.
If you type "Duval County" you get 43.

Something else seems to be going on.

That said, if you search at the zip code level, it seems pretty accurate.

The Park Lane building next to Memorial Park has a WalkScore of 91 because of the Margaret Street/5 Points area. I call the pre-consolidation parts of Jacksonville "Pre-Con Jax". 

[simms3]

Walk Score is based on density and amenities within or in proximity to a specified cell.  It's a formula and it's not perfect, but I'll be damned the output is basically in line with how urban a city is or isn't with a few exceptions.  I swear by it.  Somehow these kinds of things just work out, even if they're completely unperfect or "shouldn't work".  It isn't some Forbes or Men's Health ranking.

[simms3]

And speaking of which Zip Car has rankings now, too.  I trust Zip Car, but not as much as Walk Score.  Zip Car ranks other things and isn't quite as scientific, but it uses trends it picks up on from its own customers, and that to me is pretty good information.  Does Zip Car have a presence in Jacksonville?

[thelakelander]

^It's totally screwy. That's even higher than the City of Miami's score of 73. And Duval County's 43 score is significantly higher than the Jacksonville score of 32.6. The Beaches scores don't seem to be enough to account for that.

Also, I just typed in Jacksonville and it came back with a score of 94!

http://www.walkscore.com/score/Jacksonville-Florida

You couldn't make this stuff up.

I believe, if you're typing in the word "Miami" or "Duval County" you're not getting an average.  It's giving you the walkscore of a specific location.  But yeah, the walkscore methodology has holes all through it.

Walk Score is based on density and amenities within or in proximity to a specified cell.  It's a formula and it's not perfect, but I'll be damned the output is basically in line with how urban a city is or isn't with a few exceptions.  I swear by it.  Somehow these kinds of things just work out, even if they're completely unperfect or "shouldn't work".  It isn't some Forbes or Men's Health ranking.

It's not in line when comparing consolidated cities with cities that aren't consolidated.  In that case, it penalizes consolidated cities by including their rural/suburban numbers while a chunk of suburban areas just outside a smaller built out city isn't included in that city's overall number.  However, that's what happens anytime you live and die by "imaginary" municipal limits.  I like it for finding walkable neighborhoods in various cities but I'd never use the overall city walkscore numbers to compare to any other place.  There are too many flaws in it on that level.

[thelakelander]

And speaking of which Zip Car has rankings now, too.  I trust Zip Car, but not as much as Walk Score.  Zip Car ranks other things and isn't quite as scientific, but it uses trends it picks up on from its own customers, and that to me is pretty good information.  Does Zip Car have a presence in Jacksonville?

Nope.  Zip Car only has a Florida presence in Gainesville, Miami, Orlando and Tallahassee.

[finehoe]

And speaking of which Zip Car has rankings now, too. 

Of what?  Walkability?

[simms3]

Again Lakelander my point is that while the methodology is screwy as with any formula based methodology, the output is good, and that's what matters.  When you start getting into ranking #30 and up of "most walkable cities" they all start looking the same - equally dismal.  The top 10 are pretty solid, the 11-20 are also pretty solid, and 21-30 I would still agree as being above and beyond the rest and ranked mostly appropriately.  Of the cities I have been to I might even rank them the same way based on the parts I have seen and explored...so I go by it.

[Tacachale]

^If you like that, I've got a ouija board and a home phrenology kit to sell you. They'll give you the results you were expecting every time.

[thelakelander]

Simms3, I guess I'm saying the output isn't good if it's being used to compare the urbanity of cities in general.  It's okay if you're trying to pinpoint the most walkable neighborhoods within cities. 

For example, from my numerous visits to these cities, Detroit (22) is significantly more walkable than Atlanta (20) and Houston (23).  Louisville (41) is significantly more walkable than Raleigh (36).   Louisville ranks so low because of its recent consolidation.  If it didn't consolidate with Jefferson County in the last 10 years, it would be more walkable but being a second tier city, it wouldn't crack the top 50.  However, it's a historically fairly dense urban city.  How Houston and Detroit come in near the same number, I have no idea.  I guess Detroit's getting hit on the number of vacancies that have occurred since 1950 but even today, it's still denser than both Atlanta and Houston in terms of population.  Unfortunately, walkscore only ranks the top 50 cities based on municipal population.  A few of these places (like Jax) shouldn't be in this list at all if cities just below the cut like New Orleans were included.