New index examines livability

AARP has launched a , which is the most comprehensive attempt at measuring quality of life in neighborhoods throughout the US. You can put in any address or zip code in the US and get (like Walk Score), a number from 0 to 100. The index is quick and easy to use.

The index was unveiled in mid-April—it received 100,000 page views in the first week—and demonstrated to me at the Congress for the New Urbanism April 30 by Chris Kochtitzky of the Centers for Disease Control. The first thing that I wanted was my own Livability score, which is 63. Kochtitzky explained that the best US neighborhoods have scores in the mid-to-upper 70s—so 63 is good. The worst performing places tend to have scores in the 40s. 

The livability range across neighborhoods is much narrower than, say, —where addresses really can get a zero or 100. The narrower range has to do with two factors. With multiple aspects of livability, no place can either be perfect or utterly fail. The second factor has to do with the reliability of the data—some of which is too coarse to be helpful at the neighborhood level.

The strength of the Livability Index is that it measures a wide range of factors in categories of housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, and engagement, and opportunity. A score is given for each broad category, and you can explore the 40 factors that are measured for each location--such as high school graduation rate, crime rate, access to parks, rental costs, obesity rate, etcetera.

All factors in the Index are based on real data and will be useful to public officials, citizens, and specialists of various kinds. Having said that, the usefulness of the index is limited because of the varying scales of the underlying data--some of which is reported by neighborhood while other data is countywide or from some larger area.

All of the addresses in Philadelphia, for example, have a similar Livability Index. The higher transit service, access to amenities, and availability of jobs downtown is offset by the very low rents, housing costs, and subsidized housing available in poor neighborhoods. But the crime, high school graduation rate, and health data are citywide numbers. So the crime in Fairhill, in the Philadelphia "Badlands," is the same as in peaceful Roxborough, according to the Index—even though actual violent crime is 20 times higher in Fairhill.

So the Index has problems that real estate agents, for example, will immediately recognize. Do the Badlands really deserve a slightly higher livability score than Center City? There's a reason why they are called the Badlands. Nevertheless, this Index also points out many assets of poor neighborhoods that are not widely recognized: Fairhill has a tremendous access to jobs and destinations by walking or transit. The combination of very low housing costs and subsidized housing, plus the option of not owning a car, makes cost of living very low for the neighborhood's largely Hispanic population. 

The Index is useful in many ways. "The Livability Index helps users better understand their communities and make decisions about future needs," reports the AARP. For example, it will help county executives to compare housing in their jurisdiction against national benchmarks and take appropriate policy steps. The Index will become more useful as more data becomes available at the neighborhood level. Until that time, be aware of the limitations. 

The Livability Index is a signature initiative of the  to measure the quality of life in American communities across multiple dimensions: , , neighborhood characteristics, environment, health, opportunity, and civic and social engagement.

Robert Steuteville is editor and executive director of Better Cities & Towns.