I learned about Walk Score from Tim Lauer. You type in an address and it then gives a “walkability” score to it. In other words, how close is it to schools, stores, etc. so you don’t have to use an automobile.
It also lists the different services, stores, etc. in the immediate vicinity.
This will be a great tool for my students to use in their annual project of comparing their neighborhoods with others.
I’ve placed the link along with the other online tools my students use to evaluate neighborhoods. It’s on my Examples of Student Work page under Student Neighborhood Maps.
I believe that walk score is cool, but nowadays more and more people prefer to drive cars. Homes are often located in an area where some establishments are easier to get to by car than on foot. I’ve recently found a type of service on http://drivescore.fizber.com/ which is called Drive Score. It shows a map of what establishments are in your neighborhood and calculates a Drive Score based on the number of places within a convenient driving distance.