Recently, Detroit, Michigan was ranked number 18 for walkability throughout the city. One thing i did notice about the time i spent in Seattle and Portland is that it was very walkable. It isn’t too huge and their public transportation made it easier to move around.

In Seattle, it felt very comfortable to walk from one place to another. In fact i’ve never seen so many people on the streets in such a while. In Detroit thats seldom rare to find that many people around town unless there is an event down at hart plaza or other sports venues like Ford field or Tiger Stadium in the Fox Town District. With the shopping district especially there was convenient monorail transportation to take me to my hotel.

Number 18 for Detroit? That’s very surprising that Detroit is even on the list. I find it hard to believe because Detroit is a large city and Detroit is the only major city without Mass Transportation. According to wikipedia Detroit is the ninth largest metropolitan city in the US. Detroit would be around number 5 if Windsor counted as the US actually. The study actually does not consider the size of the total city but only considers areas where they are walkable. That might explain why Detroit is up there.

CNN reports, the study done by the think tank Brooking’s Institute,Washington as the top city of walkability with 20 areas within their metropolitan area.

Another recent report a couple weeks ago also stated that Detroit is at the top for crime. So I don’t know how many people would be willing to walk around all parts of Detroit.