This page is now out of date. Please update our site address as neighborhoods.org. Thanks!
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WalkableNeighborhoods.com is one year old today! What an exciting year it has been in many ways. I have “virtually” met dozens of people from all walks of life and career fields through this site. I really appreciate everyone’s comments and feedback. We are trying our best to incorporate as many suggestions as we have time for. I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on the past year and also what the future year will (hopefully) bring.
The Year That Was
This site has gone in a much different direction than I anticipated. First of all, I had no idea how much time and effort goes into constructing decent article postings that are worth the time to read. I figured that I would be posting a lot more frequently. The reality is that it does take a lot of time to research a topic, prepare article photos, edit the layout, and address all of the little things behind the scenes of posting an article. Had I known this, I probably would not have created the site (just kidding). The most difficult part has been balancing article writing with all of the commitments with this site, other job commitments, and of course, personal life.
With all of the previous paragraph said, this is actually the 96th article posted to the website!
One very unexpected positive idea that came out of the website is the buying/selling homes in walkable neighborhoods program. Our Director of Real Estate, Dan Troxel, has been instrumental with getting this program going. We were astounded at some of the early requests from the program, and we keep refining it on a near daily basis to better serve individuals. We are excited by the coverage we have received, and we feel that what we are doing is going to revolutionize the real estate industry. It will take a lot of work, but we are up to the task!
There are many more things that I could say about the past year, but that would be either too boring or too egotistical-sounding. So, I will instead focus on the future.
The Year That Will Be
Here are a few things that we are planning to do that you might see from us over the course of the next year:
- More frequent article posting and more columnists joining the site. I plan to be more aggressive in hiring columnists to join on. I want this site to become a one-stop source for everything walkable-related. If you are interested in joining our staff, please let me know. More details will follow in the upcoming months.
- A list of walkable neighborhoods located around the U.S. (and perhaps other parts of the world). Many people come to this site looking for them. It seems logical, but not an easy task. We will be calling walkability professionals from around the country to help us compose this list. If you have any you would like to nominate, please let us know along with a little blurb about why it should be listed.
- Expansion of the homes program. We plan on expanding our network of Realtors and selling individual homes that are located in walkable neighborhoods with listings right on this site.
- An enhanced photo gallery. Photos searchable not only by location, but also by type of facility, land use, and dozens of other categories. If you have not checked out our photo gallery yet, you might want to give it a look. We have almost 3,000 photos in the gallery taken from all over the U.S. and Australia. I have several hundred more to upload as well. Not many photo galleries are categorized the way that this gallery is – it is very useful for finding photos in specific locations.
- More vlogging – that is, posting videos on a blog. YouTube is such a beautiful website that it inspired me to get a new camera with better video capabilities (Thank you for helping to create YouTube, Jawed!).
- More features and possible events. We have some big ideas. Ideas that we are hoping will shape the world.
Enough said on topics for the upcoming year.
Statistics
If you have continued to read this far, I am sorry to disappoint you in that I will not be posting our average hits per day or per month. That is because there are three different ways I can track visitors to the website. One method suggests that we get a couple thousand visitors per month. Another suggests that we get over 100,000. The third is somewhere in the middle. So, you choose. The point is, people are visiting the website and the more we get the word out, the more we feel that we can implement change. There are still some other stats that I will provide:
Most Viewed Articles:
1. Mecca in the Cornfields? Champaign, IL Transforming into a Walkable City
2. The Sacramento Farmers Market
3. What is a Walkable Neighborhood?
4. Big-Box Debate: Wal-Mart vs. Target
5. Wal-Mart Embracing New Urbanism?
6. Walkable Communities A Top Priority in Housing Boom
7. Sister and Brother Become Sustainable Developers By Accident
8. Eric Fredericks
9. Video: Busiest Pedestrian Crossing in the World
10. More Urban Living Lofts Planned for Revitalizing Detroit
Top Non-Search Engine Referring Sites:
Money
digg
A Daily Dose of Architecture
Top Search Phrases (sorted alphabetically within the search):
farmers market sacramento
neighborhoods walkable
neighborhood walkable
target walmart
walkable
new urbanism
communities walkable
eric fredericks
best live place
target vs. walmart
Photo Gallery Stats:
2877 files in 62 albums and 32 categories with 3 comments viewed 24230 times.
We plan on sticking around for several more years, as long as you keep visiting. Thank you for your support!
Popularity: 1% [?]
The pedestrian crosswalk dude with his top hat distinguishes former east Berlin so you can always tell what part of the city you are in. I had a hard time capturing pictures of him without causing my own traffic in the crosswalk, so this is a picture I took of a postcard I bought (I told you they have tons of products!).
Bill are discussing. 
Alfred 8:43 am on July 27, 2009 Permalink
That site seems pretty dead now. You should keep updating.