Ever hear of walkscore.com?  It's a website that will help you figure out how many services you need - from dry-cleaning to drugstore to supermarket to Church and more - and tells you how close by they are, within walking distance.  And with the surge in gas prices, adopting a walking style of transportation can obviously not only help you burn calories - it can save you on gas spending as well.  Walkscore rates the walkability of cities and gives you the additional "walk from your home to various locations" information. 

So which cities rank as the most walkable cities???San Francisco, New York and Boston came in at the top.  Who ranked as least walkable??? Charlotte, Nashville and Jacksonville.  Within the desirable cities there were even "select neighborhoods."  San Francisco's Chinatown and Financial District, New York's Tribeca and Little Italy and Boston's South End and Back Bay-Beacon Hill all scored way up there. 

A neighborhood below 50 is "car-dependent" which obviously means you can't really replace car trips with walking trips to most services AND it also may not be a safe neighborhood for leisure walking.  Long Beach and Los Angeles California and Portland Oregon ranked in the middle of the bunch, above 60.  A lot of people are now factoring this information into their real estate choices for a primary home.  It's almost like some people want to push a reset button and trade one lifestyle for another.  Knowing this information about your home or neighborhood could be quite an effective selling tool in this sluggish market.  But mostly - it's about walking to burn calories instead of driving to burn gas bucks.  You choose!!