Top 10 Most Walkable Cities in America

New York and San Francisco are the most walkable cities in America, according to Walkscore.com.

The site ranks the two metros as the best of the top 50 largest U.S. cities, with each scoring above 80 on a scale of 1 to 100. Scores are calculated, block by block, on how close homes are to schools, restaurants, grocery stores and other amenities, CEO Josh Herst said.

Data is taken from outside sources such as Google, Open Streetmap, Yellow Pages and other information banks to help propel accurate calculations. Additionally, users living in the communities being rated by walkscore.com can interact and help the data team by providing information about restaurants, grocery stores and businesses opening and closing in their areas.

“Nobody knows your neighborhood better than you do,” Herst said. “We are very fortunate to have a very active customer base.”

Proximity to public transportation and accessibility is not a factor in a walk score because not all cities have equal bus or train systems with accessible data, he said. A separate website, transitscore.com, ranks larger cities touting efficient public transit systems.

“We didn’t want to unfairly penalize addresses for public transit data simple because we couldn’t access it,” he said.

The 50 largest cities and their rankings were done in 2011, but hyperlocal addresses are done more frequently, "updated every few months," said Herst. Any address in the U.S. can be plugged into the website and a recent walkscore will be assessed for that particular location.