Via City Observatory, here’s a chart showing the so-called “walkability premium” for different US cities, defined as the correlation between increasing “walk score” and housing prices. Minneapolis and Saint Paul are at the very bottom (along with New York, weirdly).

This is a strange list. Here’s how Joe Cortright describes walkability and home value in the original post:

A key feature of urbanism is walkability, and there’s a strong correlation between walkability—as measured by Walk Score—and increases in home values. Compelling evidence marshalled by Spencer Raskoff and Stan Humphries in their book Zillow Talk illustrates this trend. Over the past 14 years, the most walkable homes—those rated as “walker’s paradises” and “very walkable”—have consistently outperformed houses in lower-scoring, “somewhat walkable” and “car-dependent” neighborhoods. Although all types of homes saw value declines when the housing bubble burst, houses in walkable neighborhoods have recovered most, and fastest.

But what explains the lack of connection in the Twin Ctieis between housing value and walkability?

Alex Cecchini began a discussion of the topic on Twitter:

What do you think?