Some of you already know this, but at the end of this week I'll have to close down The Naked City for a year, while I take part in a fellowship program for midcareer journalists at Harvard, called a Nieman Fellowship.
It's a wonderful opportunity for me and my family: I can take any courses I want to at Harvard. But I'm not allowed to do any professional work. (Throw me into that briar patch!) That means no Naked City. Sorry, folks. Maybe you can convince Ed Williams to start a blog or something. (And for you conspiracy theorists, I applied for the fellowship last winter, long before I had ever heard of Lizardking or Edd Hauser ... )
My last posting will be tomorrow or Friday. Until then, here's a cool link my buddy Joe Sovacool showed me. This site rates the "Walk Score" of your neighborhood.
Example: "90-100 = Walkers' Paradise: Most errands can be accomplished on foot and many people get by without owning a car." Or, "0-25 = Driving Only: Virtually no neighborhood destinations within walking range. You can walk from your house to your car!" My neighborhood rated a 35.
Warning: The site is slow, and earlier today it was having a spasm. Seems to work better on Firefox than IE. It isn't up-to-date. Told me I was only half a mile from Providence Hardware -- which closed in 2003. And I don't think it measures threatening dogs or places where poison ivy is growing too close to the sidewalk. Still, it's fun. Check out your own area's walk score.
The site's principles are based in part on those of Dan Burden, a consultant who's been to Charlotte several times to try to infuse the city DOT with info on pedestrian and bicycling needs.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
What's your own 'Walk Score'?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
55 comments:
My Walk Score is 85... not surprising, since I live Uptown. The only things I really have to leave Uptown for are work (but not for long, as I am changing jobs soon) and if I want to go to the movies or to SouthPark. I moved Uptown from Lake Norman specifically because I wanted to be able to walk to things.
Good luck with your Harvard program, Mary.
Williams is far too mild to be much fun here (Creative Loafing gave him an especially dubious honor on that front last week).
I'd rather see Mary Schulken start one. Her melodramatic musings would be sure to keep the threads active.
And yes, good luck at Harvard. Don't believe it all!
Good luck to you Mary.
Mary - best of luck to you for your year of study at Harvard. That sounds like a great opportunity. We will be awaiting your return and I look forward to hearing what you have learned during your time away. Enjoy Boston, it is a great city and very walkable!
My 4th Ward townhome rated an 80, which seems a little low. I noticed it did not include 4th Ward Park, which I can see from my front door, but it did include the Dunkin' Donuts that just opened this year. Strange.
Congratulations Mary. Best of luck up there. Boston is one of the best cities in the world. Hope you like it.
That is so awesome, Mary! What an honor. Will your family accompany you? Congrats! I'll miss the Naked City!
My neighborhood in Waxhaw got an 11 and the neighborhood in West Charlotte I grew up in got an 8!
Wow!
Good luck Mary. Sounds like a great opportunity
Sorry, but something about "heat" and "kitchen" came to mind anyway...
Still, best wishes. I'll miss the fiery discourses your blog sparked.
Congratulations on the Nieman and best wishes for what will surely be an enjoyable sojourn in Beantown.
Mary,
Thanks for the forum and best of luck.
What a cool thing get to do at this point in your life--good for you!
Pete
15... Near Providence Plantation
It's amazing that some of these places score so low... I put in the most suburban addresses I knew and still came up with over 20.
See you on the flip side Mary! Best of luck up north.
UD
I live near the center of Dilworth and my score was a 68. Dilworth is very walkable (the grid street system, mature sidewalks, street trees and lots of destinatiions) all helps. A few shortcomings are that there is not a library within walking distance although a short bus trip on Bus 19 accomplishes that. While some people may enjoy living in a neighborhood where you drive to every destination, I cannot imagine not being able to walk to the grocery store, eateries, 3 parks, coffee shops, the YMCA. If a person had the choice to live in a comparable house in a walkable neighborhood versus an unwalkable neighborhood for a year...and then could choose which one they wanted to stay in after the year, I wonder what percent would choose the walkable neighborhood. Maybe I am crazy, but I bet it would be pretty high. Having the choice to walk to my daily destinations provides me an opportunity to better take in my surroundings and interact with my "community" on a daily basis.
Tried the walk score--it listed restaurants and stores that I had never heard of. When I clicked on them and they were placed on the map we learned that there was a "chinese restaurant" located in the house around the corner, a "margarita man" establishment in the home next door to my son's girlfriend, and a "slushy store" one block over--all in the thick of our long established residential area. What gives?
^ What an unnecessarily ugly post. Get a life.
Mary, be careful leaving your job for a educational sabatical like this during a period of turmoil in the newspaper industry. McClatchy is in worse shape than most newspaper companies and is likely going to have to restructure all of their papers within the next year. 20% layoffs have been common at other newspapers.
Out of sight, out of mind. It becomes much easier to fire the person that is not in the office. If they can do without you for a year while you are at Harvard, what makes you think you won't be on the chopping block when it comes time to fire 1 in 5 workers at the Charlotte Observer?
From a career standpoint, you should be very careful in your industry right now.
My Stonehaven neighborhood scored a whopping 9! And places Walk Score says are 1.8 miles away are really 3+ miles. And identifying the Circle K as a shopping destination is a bit of a stretch.
Best of luck to you. You will LOVE Boston. I'll miss the Naked City and its contentious commenters
The middle of Scaleybark ranks a 34. I think it would rate higher if you were closer to one of the ends.
It's amazing how people not in the newspaper industry seem to know so much about it. Mary, knock 'em dead up in Beantown. Boston is an incredible city, Cambridge especially.
Danimal
Kudzoo was planted around outhouses many years ago before CHARMIN was invented. Also, I had an emergency on a long lonely highway and ' lets just say elephant ears do fine also. Id like to see elephant ears planted all along the tracks.
^ She censored your post because you're not capable of expressing yourself like an adult. You'll not be missed, believe me.
Hey, only one Nieman fellowship per newspaper. Jim Morrill will have to give his back to Harvard Yard.
Well, I reckon it's not like that anymore, but back in the 19th Century, Harvard gave Andrew Jackson of Tennessee an honorary degree, then sometime later offered one to another Tennessean, David Crockett, whereupon Congressman Crockett replied: No thanks. Old Hickory already got a Harvard degree, and one should be enough for Tennessee.
Now is that a "tall tale" or not? It just might be a true story. And Mecklenburg County's own Jimmy Polk had a nice tour of Boston and New England when he was President in the 1840s, so I hope the Nieman Fellowship folks will hang on to some of those 19th Century newspaper accounts of Southerners taking the "grand tour" of the Northeast.
And don't forget the Bancrofts, Mary, that family that has been in the news about the acquisition of the Wall Street Journey. There was a great historian from Harvard, George Bancroft, who also served in President Polk's cabinet, so don't let any of those Harvard profs holler: "Jimmy Who?" if you should happen to mention James Knox Polk.
After all, President Polk showed his respect for the Great Northeast in the search for a vice presidential running mate at the historic 1844 Democratic convention in Baltimore when Polk became the first "darkhorse" candidate to capture a major party nomination. The first choice for the second spot on the ticket was the Governor of New York at the time, Silas Wright, but he declined the offer, so they went instead with George Dallas of Pennsylvania, and George did a fine job as "Veep," with both Dallas, N.C., in Gaston County and Dallas, Texas, being named for him.
And who knows, the Naked City blog may have to open up a Harvard bureau because Harvard is the only place this Charlottean ever lost a violin in all my trips back and forth across the country and to South America and Europe. The violin was made by Charlotte's own renowned luthier John Sipe, and somebody got a hold of it when I was camped out at Harvard for one of theose summer bluegrass sessions that Click and Clack have saluted on "Car Talk" with their bluegrass music theme.
The fiddle was one of John Sipe's "Presidential Series" violins and was to be donated to the Harvard Music Department for safekeeping until a suitable host orchestra could be selected in New York State, so you just never know if it'll show up at a music seminar somewhere around there.
Remember, half the cafes and restaurants around Cambridge don't have rest rooms, so "plan out your menu," as they say. And their campus newspaper is The Daily Crimson and not The Daily Clemsonian.
Finally, please put in a plea with the Harvard journalism experts not to block out the South's own journalism history with respect to the news coverage of the campaign and presidency of John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Just show them one picture from the 1960 campaign, the one showing JFK standing on top of a car in West Virginia speaking to a local campaign rally for the West Virginia primary.
Now that was some "car talk!" So they should try to have everything JFK accomplished in the South be simply re-interpreted and revised from the Boston point of view like they keep trying to do with so many of the current presidential campaigns.
Make sure there's time to go over to Boston College to see how our ACC football and basketball teams are faring when they visit Beantown.
Good luck and we'll see you in a year or so.
Oops--
In the above comment, third from the last paragraph, "not" got left out--i.e., they should not try to have everything JFK accomplished, etc.
Hey, do Nieman Fellows have to go without backup editors for a year like free-lance writers do all the time?
Gosh, I hope the Observer can find another uptown cheerleader on it's staff with a random-wheel-o-urbanist-catch-phrases on their desk and a thesaurus.
Here is my prediction.
Mary will never return to the Charlotte Observer as a full time employee.
She will be one of those terminated when the layoffs at all McClatchey newspapers are announced. The newspaper industry is in big trouble with declining circulation and falling ad revenue from real estate, classifieds and autos.
Much of this revenue will not return even if the economy recovers. Classifieds are going online (craigslist, google, monster, yahoo) and real estate research is done online more and more.
McClatchey is in even worse shape than most media companies because it is 100% newspapers. Others are typically diversified into TV or other media.
Mary Newsom is making a huge mistake taking a year off right now. Being away from work for a year makes her clearly the most expendable. When the layoffs are announced later this year, ff they are going to cut anyone it will likely be Mary.
Newspapers need to adapt, not disappear. Obviously everyone on this blog is logging on daily to read Mary's comments and participate in her discussions. That vouches for the continued sustainability of news"papers" in online form. The demand for news and community discussion is always going to be there.
Hey, Anon., thanks to the comparison with Goober. I can also do a pretty good Howard the Clerk and Floyd the Barber.
But being rated as Goobernatorial is indeed quite a compliment.
And don't forget about Ernest T. Bass, who at least for a moment or two earned the respect of Boston for the good people of Mayberry. When they got him all dressed up for the party at Mrs. Wiley's, and he said politely, "No coffee, tea or punch for me," then Mrs. Wiley took Andy aside and told him she had determined that Mr. Bass couldn't possibly be around from around Mayberry.
"Definitely Back Bay Boston," she concluded.
Thanks to Ernest T.'s example of cultural savoir-faire, Mary Newsom may just get the red carpet treatment along with some complimentary New England chowder and Sam Adams beer when she arrives in Greater Beantown.
This blog is sort of fun to engage in. But it has a revenue generation potential of about $0 per year.
The 25 regular readers and naysayers will not support Mary's salary when the real estate, classifieds and auto ads are not generating enough money in the print version of the newspaper.
Got an 89 !
I just love living uptown !
I've been uptown for 5 years and have lost 10 lbs. just by walking everywhere. No change in diet. In fact, I eat out more and drink a bit more beer at the pubs.
Walking....good stuff.
Crime, crime, CRIME... ??
Like I've said, been uptown 5 years and never an incident. Not even a close call. What are you Burban Babies crying about ?
If I lived in the Burbs I'd be more afraid of my wacko Columbine type teenaged neighbor than I would be of walking Tryon St.
This is an URBAN blog. Get it ? If you don't like it go find a blog that talks all about the greatness of Burbia.
What a bunch of Trollers.
>>Like I've said, been uptown 5 years and never an incident>>
Mayor McCrory???
Is that you??
You're right, the 5 times in twenty years that some kid went wacko is way more dangerous than the 6 thousand gangstas at the bus station.
If you want to live your life locked up in the 8th floor of your tiny condo peering out the window at dumpsters and rusting bridges, knock yourself out.
I'll take the grass and trees and a giant gate at the front entrance to keep the rest of humanity from sharing my oxygen.
My walk score was -20.
Apparently when I ran some dumba$$ on a bike over with my Hummer H2 on the way to WalMart to get some more Starbucks, this lowered my score.
BTW, I REALLY doubt the Observer pays Newsom anything.
Her print writing has virutally disappeared and only the blog remains. Who doesn't have a blog.
The Observer is nothing but 1) Opinions 2) Advertisements 3) News2Use
I amazed anyone still reads hard copies of day-old news.
Rusting bridges. You kill me.
Try soon to be on the 26 floor of The Avenue with a nice sweet view of the B of A, City Club, IJL, TradeMark, Carilon, Panther's Stadium, Bobcat's arena, soon The Vue and all the new Novare projects surrounding the new 5 acre city park and ball field.
Basking in the sun atop my 10th floor amenities deck with a jr. olympic pool, WiFi, internet cafe, pool tables, gaming center, business center, gym, in building movie theater and concierge.
Not to mention my very tiny 1,300 plus sq. ft.
Very roomy for an uptown condo. Did I mention the 14 floor to ceiling windows in my unit that let in that incredible view ?
Oh yeah, life just sucks uptown.
Uptown is about as "gangsta" as Ballantyne Country Club.
Sometimes I wonder if these whiners have ever BEEN uptown to realize just how safe and clean and new everything really is there.
With the current mortgage/credit crisis, I would expect much of the development in the suburbs AND uptown to come to a halt.
The boom times are over. The credit crunch is looking ugly and it can take years for the imbalances to work out of the system.
This is not just a Charlotte issue. This is quickly becoming a national and international issue for credit markets.
Does anyone really believe that the condo/suburb building boom is going to continue with no impact? From my real estate contacts I am hearing that fully 50% of the market of buyers had dried up because of the lack of credit available. 70+ mortgage companies have gone BK this year.
Countrywide, with 20% market share of mortgages nationally, might declare bankruptcy.
Do you really think Bank of America and Wachovia are continuing their hiring spree right now? I can guarantee you that meeting are happening right now to get ready for the downturn. Layoffs are coming in the banking industry.
Charlotte banks have been a major employer for mortgage servicing and origination. There are dozens of companies locally that are involved in this business. They are currently planning bankruptcy or slowdown.
This market has turned.
We can expect many of these developments announced in "The Next Big Thing" to be delayed or cancelled over the next 6 months. Financing development for more condos and houses is going to tough.
I hardly think that lenders are going to stop giving credit to buyers of luxury condos. The media hype fails to distinguish between *high-risk* lenders, who have been given entirely too much room to finance homes for people with bad credit and little income, versus the well-employed who continue to have no problem gaining funds from intelligent lenders.
If anything, uptown progress will continue while low-quality, come-one-come-all suburban subdivisions face a funding crisis. Suburban areas like University City, which feed off of high-risk buyers, will feel the brunt of this collapse.
Amen to the above poster.
That's exactly what is happening. High risks are going away.
Bank of America laying off. Countrywide going bankrupt ?
Who are you, Karl Rove ?
Doom and Gloom, Doom and Gloom.
Typical response from a chicken little burbanite.
You really think there is no impact on development from a credit crunch? Much of the market has recently been made up of investors speculating. That has been the case just about everywhere in the USA.
There will be an impact in Charlotte also.
^ Again, the entire purpose of the lending industry is to make as much money as possible. Lenders make the most money from the safest borrowers, and from the largest loans. So a lender who refuses to make large loans to dependable borrowers is basically throwing money out the window for no good reason (or, more accurately, handing easy money to the competition).
It's not like we're in the middle of a depression and there's no money to be had. The subprime crisis is strictly a matter of correcting for years of bad business practices; while it will undoubtedly have a ripple effect across the entire economy (as does any industry's failure), it's not going to be the Doomsday situation that the media wants it to be. After all, a lack of hysteria doesn't sell papers or generate ratings.
It's comparable to the widespread failure of hedge funds. If you're not stupid enough to invest blindly in hedge funds in the first place, you have nothing to worry about.
The problems with subprime and Alt A (between prime and subprime) mortgages are going to impact everyone.
Many of those $300,000 to $500,000 mortgages were in the middle Alt A category. That is a moderate risk mortgage that has disappeared from the market in the past two months. My experience has been that subprime and Alt A comprise about 25% of my business here in Charlotte. Condos, homes, etc. They all use them.
Wealthy business people often use the Alt A mortgages because of issues with documenting self-employment income.
We are already seeing the beginning of the slowdown in Charlotte. Homes are sitting on the market longer. More inventory from builders and exisiting homes. Plenty of forclosures on the market.
If this continues for a few months, prices will decline here as they are doing in other markets.
The key is financing. The financial markets needs to start purchasing subprime and Alt A mortgages again. That will bring back 25% to 50% of the potential buyers. Otherwise they cannot get financing to even look for a home or condo.
^ Again, it all goes back to risk. If a person doesn't have the income to afford a $500,000 condo, (s)he has no business trying to take out a loan for one. Time to look at the $300,000 condos. And if (s)he can't afford that, take a look at the $200,000 ones. Or the $150,000 bargains on the fringes. Or just rent.
The bottom line is that people who can afford luxury are not going to have a hard time getting loans. People who can't afford it, but want it anyway, are going to be denied instead of allowed to go belly-up down the road. People really need to get out of this mentality that, because they work 40 hours, they are entitled to own a home that will double in value in the next 10 years. No other generation has had such a disconnect between expectation and reality, and a lot of the economic fluctuations we're seeing have to do with people expecting something for nothing.
Ok, time to zap the troll.
>>Uptown is about as "gangsta" as Ballantyne Country Club.>>
Uh...yeah
Those riots on the 4th of July must have been a right wing conspiracy.
Apparently you have never even been near the bus station.
If I want 'views' other other concrete slabs, I'll get a poster of uptown and hang it on the wall of my 5,000 sq foot house in Union County.
BTW, I already have those views from my job.
Why would I pay $300 a month in condo fees when I get it for free?
But again, if staring out a sealed window from the 23rd floor of your TINY (yes, 1,300 sq feet is tiny) at other man-made structures is your thing, it's your money.
Post a Comment