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Philadelphia's walkability is one of its great strengths and the city continues to build on its pedestrian friendliness with more improvements, like those along the Delaware River Waterfront and the new Race Street Pier. (Photo by R. Kennedy for GPTMC)

In its first national ranking since 2008, Walk Score has just released its new rankings of America’s most walkable cities and neighborhoods for 2011.

And thanks to its eminently walkable, easy-to-follow street grid, Philadelphia came in at #5, behind only New York, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. And ahead of cities like Seattle, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Denver, San Diego, and Los Angeles.

Walk Score rated the walkability of 2,500 cities and 10,000 neighborhoods across America — Walk Score’s walkability ranking is the only national, quantitative ranking of walkability in the United States. Cities and neighborhoods are ranked on a scale of 0-100, with locations receiving a score of 90-100 deemed a “Walkers’ Paradise.”

Philadelphia earned an overall score of 74, the third highest score of a city with more than a million people, behind only New York and Chicago.

Leading the way for Philadelphia were the neighborhoods of Center City East and Center City West, which both pulled in Walk Scores of 97, classifying Center City as a “Walkers’ Paradise.” So congrats to Rittenhouse Square, Fitler Square, Graduate Hospital, Washington Square West, Midtown Village, Old City, Society Hill, etc; we always knew you were extremely walkable and know we have proof.

Other Philly neighborhoods that earned a score of 90 or above include University City, Bella Vista, Hawthorne, Queen Village, Pennsport, Girard Estates, and Cedar Park. You can see a full list of the ratings for all the Philadelphia neighborhoods on WalkScore, complete with a heat map of Philadelphia visualizing the areas with higher and lower walkability. (An image of the heat map is also appended below.)

Meanwhile, Walk Score is also holding a public vote of the most walkable cities by allowing people to cast their vote for their favorite walkable city via Facebook. Go to their rankings page to vote and click “Like” next to Philadelphia to vote for Philly.

Walkable neighborhoods are important for a number of reasons, not the least of which is walkable neighborhoods leading to happier people. Other benefits of walkability include:

• Homes in walkable neighborhoods, on average, are worth more than those in less walkable neighborhoods.
• Homes with easy access to public transit and nearby amenities save more energy and money than an Energy Star home in a conventional suburban development.
• The average resident of a walkable neighborhood weighs eight pounds less than someone who lives in a sprawling neighborhood.

Even on an extremely hot day like today, it’s nice to be able to pause and appreciate being able to walk pretty much everywhere in and around Center City and several other parts of Philadelphia.

Walk Score 2011 Ranking of Most Walkable Cities [Walk Score]
Vote: Your Ranking Of The Most Walkable Cities [Walk Score]

This heat map is a visualization of the relative walkability scores of the different neighborhoods in Philadelphia, where green equates to very walkable and red means less walkable. Click here to explore Philly’s walkability on an interactive map.

(Image courtesy Walk Score)