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Figuring Out Where To Live Using Math
An anonymous reader writes: Dave Munson was thinking about moving, and had a couple broad requirements for a new home: it must be affordable, and its neighborhood must be walkable. Price is easy to chart, but how do you compare the walkability of hundreds of cities? Simple: use math. A website called Walk Score provides rough walkability ratings, but doesn't tell you much about affordability. Munson downloaded the data that went into a city's Walk Score, weighted the relevant variables, and mapped the top results. Then he looked for overlap with the map of areas in his price range. He says, "Capitol Hill, Seattle led the pack. To be honest, I was expecting something a smaller, affordable Midwest town or something, but it the highest scoring areas were usually just outside of major downtowns. Other top areas included Cambridge and Somerville outside of Boston, and the South End in Boston; Columbia Heights, Washington, DC; The Mission District, Lower Haight, and Russian Hill, San Francisco; Midtown, Atlanta; Greenwood, Dyker Heights, Kensington, and Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn; Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia, where we used to live; Lake View, Chicago; and Five Points, Denver."
If Midtown Atlanta made the top 10 list for walkability you need to check your math.
are you fricken serious? ...
Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia, where we used to live
try to walk there unarmed or after dark
Cities Suck .. you take your life in your hands for what? a Museum you will never visit? .. Close Proximity to clubs with glory holes? come on man .. serious? .. i mean sure maybe you don't want to live in a one redlight town where you have to drive 30 miles to get to the walmart which is the only store around.. but living in the city is for losers .. the prices are higher.. you can't live a free life because you are always watching for some lunatic.. its just bad news .. unless you are hooked on crack then i guess nothing matters.. and living near UPENN is just asking to die young...
Do you really think you can live there when you are past 60?.. not in any rustbelt city.. heck not in LA not in any city .. you will be easy pray.. .. fricken idiot.. you need to go back to school because your math sucks.
and how are you going to let your kids play outside? please
And most of the areas listed in the article are too expensive for mere mortals
And the way to buy a home is to ask how are the schools? Good school districts will keep value long after walk ability and other fads wear out. Problem with cities is too much rentals. Too easy for people to flee once their lifestyle changes
how do you get Cambridge, the mission district and Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn in the same list?
i know people there and drive there once a month or so. it sucks. the schools suck. parts are close to the subway but large parts are a 30 minute walk. the stores within walking distance suck as well. unless you speak russian or chinese you won't fit in.
with amazon prime it's cheaper to live in a car dependent area, drive to work, buy from amazon and drive grocery shopping once a week
I just checked the first couple of locations and crime seems TERRIBLE in those areas.. Finding 'cheap' places to live near supposed high income earning doesn't make for GOOD places to live.
Does this "app" also give an indication of the number of insane, crazy, drug-addled, pan handling and just plain creepy people you will encounter on your walk?
Yeah, uh, no. In Midwest towns there's an expectation that you have a vehicle because rarely does the town you live in have all you need. Further, the cost of sidewalks is shifted mostly (if not entirely) on the property owner including things like snow removal (not that many people actually follow that)--because taxpayers don't want to have to pay for the miles and miles of sidewalk*. The biggest thing, though, is that as to the first point, the inverse is true in downtown areas--it's more expected you don't have a vehicle because everyone have a vehicle would be an unworkable traffic issue even with shifting start/stop times for work to reduce congestion. Hence it's cheaper and more reasonable to fund sidewalks which can hold many more people during rush hour and don't require a bulky parking space to house a vehicle for 8 hrs/day.
*They also don't like to pay for roads, hence the horrible state of roads as well. But at least the highways are used enough that people tolerate the cost of their repair.
It may be affordable and walkable, but would you actually want to walk there?
I've always been weary when I took the RTD to the light rail station there at night and the crime statistics tend to bear this caution. Not to say it might not be some sort of up-and-coming neighborhood (don't live in Denver now so my information is a few years old), but historically, that's been fits-and-starts for that area with little progress since the '90s even though downtown was getting all the ball-park redevelopment...
On the other hand Capitol Hill in Seattle doesn't seem nearly as bad. It isn't the greatest neighborhood and although I don't generally wander around that area at night when I travel to Seattle (although I did occasionally drive by there because I know someone who used to have a restaurant there). I wonder how much crime got factored into this so-called walkability "math"... I'm a bit suspect of this WalkScore anyhow as it yields very unexpected ratings for the last few places that I lived...
should be a sign to avoid the place at all costs - cities BLOW. The correct place is to live far out in the burbs or way out in the country. Why would you live in a place that has high taxes on those who work, like a wage tax, and and then have to deal with strong unions (aka people who don't actually work but feel they are owed something).
How about looking for good non-union schools in a school district that has a good football program, and non existent music and art programs because that stuff is for sissies. It should also be a very strong conservative area which should survive any influx of moronic democrats.
You know how you're not supposed to notice that there are a lot of people with 23 pairs of chromosomes in certain high crime areas?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I'd like to live in the Sierra Nevadas in Spain, can someone explain to me why there are entire cities in the foothills that are not only completely deserted, they have never been occupied (or why the highest road in Europe still doesn't go anywhere?)?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Five points is NOT a place I would look to live, even today... downtown Denver is booming all over but not as much there at all. Closer to Union Station is where all the action (and walkability) is at.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have attempted to use Walkscore for this very task: moving to an area, sight unseen. I have found it incredibly lacking. It computes "nearby" locations using either as-the-crow-flies distance or an automobile driving map; I'm not sure which. While this might be acceptable in a gridded downtown area, which has ample sidewalks and pedestrian signals, it does not work everywhere.
Here in the deep South, we tend to place multi-lane, high-speed highways everywhere and anywhere we can. These roadways are nearly impossible to cross on foot. The result is that many places listed in Walkscore will not be reachable without exposing yourself to considerable danger.
In a perfect world, everything you needed to know about housing would be on the internet. Unfortunately, not everyone lists their rentals on Zillow et. al., and I've had a hard time dealing with realtors over the phone. Other factors like noise, crime, and general ambiance are very difficult to judge. If you have access to just one person who knows the area quite well, suddenly these things become much easier.
While data fusion techniques might help, any results need to be very rigorously cross-checked, by hand, using Street View, aerial photography, online comments, and as many other sources as you can find.
At our school, we don't earn a degree when we graduate—we earn pi/180 radians
I swear I read Where to live using meth.
Every European city >> every U.S. city. Especially if mass transit factors into walkability.
You could extend this to every global city, with possible exceptions of SF and Manhattan if you are a multi-millionaire or rent protected.
To findout where best/safest to live, look at sheriff crime database(online in many cities), it plots where and the type of crime(down to traffic stops and 'suspicious cars'). Then you can look at the sex offender database, you'll see a definite clustering in bad areas. Then if you want to be even less conspicuous, find an area with similar racial/ethnic background and you likely don't be targeted specifically.
It's worked for me a couple of times.
Only time I actually leave town is to go to another town to see somebody or the sticks to shoot bunnies.
New relationship, eh?
Once your comfortable, you won't even get out of bed to shoot bunnies. Not even when your lady's petting the bunny.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Body temperature is 99F degrees, so 85 is nice and cool... You don't even need to sweat.
I am sorry but that is simply a retarded statement, anyone who has ever lived in a place with high humidity is laughing at you.
At that temperature walking four blocks means I'll need a shower when I get to where I'm going - too bad for everyone else at the store.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The comment that started this chain did not mention humidity, so that is where the opprobrium should lie. Those of us who are aware that Atlanta has very high humidity understand that is the real issue.
I live in a place without any humidity to speak of, I still wouldn't want to carry multiple bags of groceries four blocks in 85+ degree heat with the sun out.
But yes, by far the worst aspect of the exact situation is humidity.
I wouldn't think anyone would state categorically that 85 degrees was not hot without at least a caveat about humidity though... I still think he just has no idea what that is like.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm well aware of the humidity in Atlanta. That's why I mentioned sweat. 85F is still moderate.
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Not even "math" so much as arithmetic. Not that it isn't a rational approach, minus said flaws in the source data.
Someone had to do it.
Great :) Now can you please figure out using math who to live with?:)
The topography of the zoning and building layout matter. Consider two neighborhoods which are 2-mile squares in shape. One neighborhood has a commercial district in a single corner, the other neighborhood has two such districts at opposite corners of its square. The second neighborhood may score twice as walkable, but what matters to the home's individual walkableness is how close it sits to one of those districts, since you presumably want to walk to the store and to an office in a corner that has a commercial district.
Choose a place you would like to walk, shop and work, then find a home located within a walking distance from those places, and you may have MANY good options, more than your zone-based averaging will reveal.
Actually, the areas with the most relaxed gun laws in the US, *are* the safest. And those areas where they put the most restrictions on guns, have the highest crime rates. It has been a pretty undeniable trend wherever it can be observed. And when the courts force certain cities or states to relax their gun restrictions, crime falls, dramatically.
Also, countries with higher gun ownership rates than the US, have lower crime than many nations where guns are completely banned. In the UK, you're more likely to be stabbed than shot, but that doesn't make it a nice safe place.
But which is the cause, and which is the effect? (Yes, even when one comes after another there can be non-obvious cause and effect. Think about it for a moment.)
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I came here to write something like this, but the parent nailed it. I have no mod points, someone please mod him up.
No way 85 is lovely weather even with humidity, still goof for a stroll, now when it cracks 110, that's hot. You can even tell whether or not it is humid at 110, a cold drink of what ever description is delightful and a short stroll at that temperature really does make you appreciate of air conditioning. Of course when it comes to grocery shopping and walk ability you have completely the wrong idea, no weekly shopping trip, instead daily shopping trips, buying today what you will be cooking and eating today and tomorrow and regularly replacing what you have run out of. In fact near enough and far enough become desirable, near enough to walk, far enough to achieve exercise (that is subject to dwelling style house versus apartment).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I am not sure about that. Oh wait...
Since he was looking affordable to him and basing that on residents income small towns in the midwest aren't likely to hit the radar. Those places are cheap because the locals don't make much money and therefore can't afford to pay much.
As for walkability, traffic might be low in a place like that but things are actually more spread out. The denser the population the more walkable somewhere becomes. The reason is simple, in a dense city there are enough people to support a walgreens and mcdonalds every few blocks, there are automatic walk lights and bike lanes, etc.
In a small town there will be only one mcdonalds and one walgreens for the whole town and those might be on opposite ends of town and fry's is likely in a different larger town 30-40min away. There likely are no bike lanes because small towns don't have the budget to be trendy and most people don't ride a bike 3 miles to go to McDonalds.
Hell city suburbs are ridiculously dense and walkable compare with small towns and yet they aren't particularly walkable unless you live in the "downtown" of your burb.
The comment that started this chain did not mention humidity, so that is where the opprobrium should lie
No -- the "opprobrium should lie" with idiot meterologists who teach us to quote temperature numbers as if they had a good correlation with comfort level for humans.
Temperatures are useful in some laboratory situations, but they're pretty useless alone for humans. At a minimum, we generally want to take the humidity into account, since the amount of moisture in the air will determine: (1) how fast sweat will evaporate from our bodies, and (2) how much heat is directly transferred to/from our bodies by convection. What matters for human perception of heat is the rate of heat transfer with the environment, not some absolute number that doesn't quantify that well. (Think about why the coin on your desk feels "cold" even though it's the same temperature as the wood -- we perceive heat transfer; our bodies aren't built to measure temp.)
We already have a single number that quantifies that: dewpoint. (One could also cite temperature and relative humidity, but it takes quite a bit of experience with those two numbers to glean the same information that one immediately gets from citing dewpoint.)
Temperature is almost meaningless to me in a weather forecast, particularly above 60 degrees F (15 C) or so. It's not even in the top 3 numbers I want to know. Dewpoint is the most useful. If I want to further correct for convection effects, knowing average windspeed would probably be next. Radiative heat from the sun is another factor, so the third thing I'd want to know is the average brightness/cloud cover. MAYBE after that I might actually care about the details of actual temperature and relative humidity... but except at extremes, the dewpoint already tells me a lot of information about comfort.
What the OP really should have said in this thread was that carrying groceries in downtown Atlanta when dewpoints are above 75 F (about 25 C) will generally be really uncomfortable. Anyone who has ever gone out early in the morning in a humid climate thinking "I'll get some of the yardwork done before the temperature rises too much" and comes in 30 minutes later covered in sweat even though the temperature is only 70-75 degrees F knows what I'm talking about.
But our weather forecasters have misled us into thinking that the rise in temperature over the course of the day actually was tellilng us something useful about when it would be best to work outside. Instead, I should have looked at the dewpoint forecast, and if that was relatively stable, rising temperatures would probably not matter as much. I would look to see if it would be breezier at some point of the day or if the midday sun would be beating down on me later -- those are often bigger considerations to think about than temperature.
This kind of problem is solved by something called a suitability analysis.... and its been in textbooks teaching GIS since at least 2005.
it isn't going to expose value that millions of people haven't been able to find on their own via trial and error.
But it might make such errors less likely to have catastrophic consequences. Having an SO who moves every two years can't be good for your own resume, for instance, and it disrupts a child's socialization with peers.
My personal criteria for home location is pretty much Climate, and Volcanic Activity. YMMV.
OTOH, in the part of San Francisco I'm in right now, my elderly neighbors are safe on the streets 24/7, I guess the shmoogs don't want to hike up the hill or something. One evening I noticed a neighbor had left the car windows open with four sacks of groceries in the back seat, all still there at 0800 the next morning. Looked like two hundred dollars' worth, at least.
We are under-supplied with dirtbags here, that's all. The phenomenal prices help.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Internet bandwidth is an important consideration, IMO. I'm going to hook onto the fiber right from the farm in Oregon.
Ha-Ha!
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
It's an interesting optimization problem, and undoubtedly Walk Score is using moderately sophisticated algorithms, but Munson didn't use any math beyond basic arithmetic.
You can't carry useful quantities of groceries, much less anything else, on a bike unless you're anorexic hipster douche who just likes to be seen biking around in public every other day.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
"it must be affordable, and its neighborhood must be walkable."
"Other top areas included... The Mission District, Lower Haight, and Russian Hill, San Francisco; "
The median 1 bedroom apartment in SF (in the Mission) is now over $3,000 per month.
http://sf.curbed.com/archives/...
It's walkable, but I wouldn't consider that to be affordable.
When I was 300 lbs. I could carry your average American male adult four blocks. Two with some rigging. Unsurprisingly I didn't care to and would get quite sweaty even in winter. Did you have a point besides being a midget or a stick-man who lacks reading comprehension?
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
You think its expensive now? Just wait until the light rail project is completed, gentrification kicks into high gear and they run all the freaks out of that part of town.
And walkable? Try walking and you'll get run over by the bicycle activists.
Have gnu, will travel.
A strange definition of affordable; given those locations, clearly it was a low factor in the equation...
I do, actually. Only a couple miles inland.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Where I live we shop for the week at least. Why the hell would you shop ever damn day? That's a horrible waste of time.
"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
Really, really not worth a read or a reply.
I picked where to live over 30 years ago using math, Venn Diagrams and weighted analysis. Decades later I'm very happy where I am. Works for those of us of the mathematical, logical, engineering bend. Emoties could learn a lot from math.
Top Gear series 20 episode 3. They converted a ghost town into a grand prix circuit. After having a drag race on an abandoned 12,000 foot runway. And taking the aforementioned road to nowhere - actually, to 30 feet from the summit of a mountain. All during a race from Gibraltar to Madrid in three supercars.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
The tropics usually have wind though. It's much more comfortable at 85 degrees in Aruba than it is Atlanta.
I have lived in Cambridge, MA for 8 years and I can attest that the city is eminently walkable...and very unaffordable.
I do not recall where I learned this at but it seems to be generally true: The human body generates as much heat as it loses when the air temperature is 70F or 21C. For some people, it is a bit higher, for others, it is a bit lower, but those numbers are roughly true for everyone.
At 85F, your body needs to work to cool itself. How much it needs to cool itself depends on the energy density of the surrounding air. This is largely dominated by humidity. The more water that is in the air, the greater the energy density., the more your body needs to work to get rid of the excess heat... and right now, it is 113F at 95% humidity and I am DYING (not literally). 113F is not good, but it is quite tolerable when there is no humidity (7% average).
In other words, I am restating what you said but with more information. I agree completely with what you said.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
I, also, am priced out of neighborhood. Not a race issue.
You, OTOH, serve to demonstrate the risks inherent to inbreeding.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I'll meet that challenge:
I live in Tampa, today the high will be 94, I will be outside working in and out of the sun. Depending on the level of output required I might (OMG~!!!) sweat. But, because I keep the house AC at 80 (I have AC in the "common" area of the house where our guests spend time: I have a small B&B), I don't get uncomfortable in heat and humidity.
I hired a guy to come and help me load (and take to the dump) some roofing I had ripped off yesterday. Halfway through the loading (say about 4pm) he had to stop, fire up his truck and sit in the AC for ten minutes before he could go on. This is the state of the nation.
It is not the heat, or the humidity: it is your personal habits, your laziness, your lifestyle that abjures contact with the natural atmosphere in preference to your "comfort." I often point out that when I was young, in the 50s and 60s, my family lived in tidewater VA where the summer humidity was "stinkin'." We had a single fan in the cieling above the stairs to the bedrooms. That was it. I am sorry that your abusive parents treated you like a fragile flower and you didn't build up the immunity to heat that is a built-in possibility for you. Sue them!
(My kids often complain now about having air conditioning set too low: they "escape" to the outside, just as I have done most of my adult life. I hate AC, and especially the closed windows and doors that go along with it.)
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.