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Comment by kyeb | Hacker News Reader

I'd be super interested to see an analysis using exactly the same methodology as this performed on various other cities (SF, NYC, LA, maybe some European cities like Amsterdam or Cologne) for comparison. I would bet Seattle is near the top for the US in walkability (probably behind NYC only)

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I can’t imagine Seattle being more dense than San Francisco, though I can imagine it’s in the top 5

Seattle isn't remotely dense. Maybe a neighborhood here & there, but it's largely single family homes for most of the city.

Seattle doesn't make the top 133 for densest census designated places in the US*

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

Seattle is a weird hybrid that probably could be a model for what is realistic in the US. There a tons of walkable neighborhoods all over the city to provide daily necessities but you really do need a car to make that trip across town or even from one neighborhood to the next in some cases.

Yea, the hills and water really mess up public transit routes in Seattle, making it a lot harder to get around by bus in any sort of efficient timeline, especially around the Queen Anne and Beacon Hill areas.

it makes the top 10 according to this: https://www.walkscore.com/cities-and-neighborhoods/

honestly surprised that SF is more walkable than NYC with this criteria

I'm guessing because NYC is not just Manhattan.

I feel Boston is similarly handicapped in ratings by West Roxbury (limited transit and bike hostile residents).

Discussions of urban density often require nuance because density/walkability/access to transit/etc. is very dependent on where political boundaries are drawn--often for fairly arbitrary historical reasons.

ADDED: For that matter, the other Boston neighborhoods out that way are not especially conducive to living without a car either although they're dense enough in spots to walking to some things.

SF top neighborhood: Tenderloin.

...starts to question list.

Based solely on the metrics of the site, walkability, bikeability, proximity to transit, based entire on map data… sure! The reality on the ground of course suggests walkability is… not great. Better than having a car there though.

SF is a much smaller city. Areas in NYC not connected to the subway tend not to be particularly walkable like Staten Island.

I think that’s because of where the city is defined. SF is just SF- it doesn’t extend that far south and doesn’t even include the east bay. NYC on the other hand includes big areas like east Queens and Staten Island that are effectively just suburbs.

I’ve lived in both and if you’re sort of near the core then NYC is much, much more walkable than SF.

Depending on the boundary of the city, it might not be an apple-to-apple comparison.

I wonder if NYC will rank higher if Staten Island is excluded. Not that I have anything against it, just that judging from the heat map it is less walkable than the rest.

It's similar in Canada too. Toronto is the megacity (1998 amalgamation) including some suburbs; Vancouver does not include Richmond; Montreal has weird holes like Westmount.

SF is walkable if elevation is not a problem for you. Some slopes are so steep that it's like hiking up a trail.

At least it isn't like San Jose or Newark, where sidewalks just aren't there along some roads, in residential area, or suddenly cut short in the middle of a block where you have to walk back to the previous crossing for an alternative route. And there are _so many_ dead ends without warning. So many.

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