This is way cool.  Walk Score, the Google-based freeware that allows you to pick a spot (such as your home or office) and find out how it compares to others with regard to its proximity to walkable destinations, has now produced a map, below, showing where Seattle's most walkable neighborhoods are located.  They are the ones in green. 

If you go to Walk Score's site and click on a particular spot on the map, you will see the rankings of 77 Seattle neighborhoods, learn why each was rated as it was, and see all sorts of other good stuff.  As the site says, "Use this interactive map to find the hot spots of walkability in Seattle.  We sampled the Walk Score of 11,538 locations in Seattle so you can explore the nooks and crannies of Seattle's most walkable neighborhoods.  The top 10 neighborhoods in Seattle have Walk Scores above 90, which makes them walkers' paradises."

It would be interesting to compare the Walk Score map with a Cool Spots (a more sophisticated and expensive model to run) analysis of Seattle.  My guess is that there would be great congruence between the two exercises.  If other cities were mapped in the same way, I would also expect a lot of congruence with the fuel-efficient neighborhoods highlighted in Wednesday's post on this blog.

Great stuff, and apparently Walk Score is soon going to rank the walkability of 40 US cities.