Is your home walkable?

I ran across an interesting website the other day. It's called WalkScore, and it provides a rating on how walkable a city or town is. It looks at what things are nearby, how the streets are laid out and then provides a score that ranks your town/neighborhood on a scale of 0-100.

While not perfect, this could be an interesting tool if you are in the market for a new home and wanted to be able to walk or bike your neighborhood. Benefits of being in a walkable place include:

• less time in a car (which includes less air pollution and less money for gas)


• improved fitness, and


• less stress (probably)

Checking out my address, WalkScore comes back with a 26 - ouch! But probably realistic - there are a few things within walking distance (park, schools, golf course) but few shops and restaurants, so it would be tough to get much shopping done. And even though it's not taken into account by WalkScore, I know there are places that you don't want to walk to around here just from a safety standpoint - I try not to cross the state highway on foot if I don't have to.

So take a look and see where your hometown ends up - you might be surprised at how walkable (or not) your home is. And if it is walkable, then get out and enjoy!

Air Quality Awareness Week

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is celebrating Ar Quality Awareness week from May 2 to May 6, 2011. You can find information at their website here and learn about the major health impacts of air pollution and find ways that you can help improve air quality where you live.

Poor air quality can impact anyone, but is especially harmful for children, the elderly, and anyone with respiratory problems (such as asthma) or heart disease. If you or anyone in your family falls into this category, you can check the daily air quality forecast at EPA's AirNow website.

Meanwhile, identify a few ways that you can help improve air quality and take action. As summer approaches, with its hot and dry weather, air quality typically gets worse (especially for folks in cities). So help clean up the air where you live today!