Scene from Belmont Boulevard. The 3 mile stretch of sidewalks, bike paths and pedestrian friendly roadway.Prevention Magazine named Nashville the 7th most walkable city in Tennessee and it didn't even make the top 100 in the United States. Memphis on the other hand, is the most walkable city in Tennessee and is #73 in the United States.
I have a problem with this ranking, as some would assume I would. The ranking is based on pollution levels, number of people who walk for exercise, crime rates and sidewalk availability. I agree that Nashville lacks sidewalks in the residential areas. Moving to Nashville from Detroit many years ago, that is one of the first things my Mom noticed (I know, the little things surprise her).
However, have you been downtown recently? Have you encountered any pollution? Probably not. Have you seen a lot of people walking on sidewalks? Probably. Did you know that you can walk from the residential ares of East Nash, to Germantown, to Downtown, to SoBro, to the Gulch, to Demumbreun and to Vandy (that new 20th and Grand residential building), all using sidewalks?
I have a friend that walked back to my condo at 2:30am from Demumbreun because he didn't have money for a cab, and that is about 2.5 miles... and he used sidewalks!
In case you were wondering, Cambridge, Massachusetts is the #1 most walkable city in the U.S.
All this being said, I think that Nashville is already making progress to increase the walkability of the city, but this should be a wake up call to Mayor Karl Dean.
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