Looking
for a new home? Concerned about maintaining a healthy lifestyle for you and
your loved ones? Here are a few factors that will help you choose the right
neighborhood for your search.
Parks
and Recreation
It’s
no secret that being healthy is about staying active. That’s a lot easier when
you can take advantage of local parks for outdoor activities and organized
recreation opportunities like sports leagues and fitness classes. Living near
open space and forested areas will also help you protect your family from air
pollution as a result of traffic congestion.
Local
Ordinances and Neighborhood Associations
Some
towns and cities do more than others to protect the local environment and
promote the health of their citizens, with ordinances about noise pollution,
zoning, and While some neighborhood associations exist largely to enforce
arbitrary standards about the superficial appearance of homes, others have more
substantive standards about sustainable landscaping and other environmental
factors.
Walkability
and Bikeability
Whether
you’re eight or eighty years old, walking and biking are great ways to stay
healthy. Residents of walkable neighborhoods tend to weigh up to 10 pounds less
than those in less walkable neighborhoods. Walk Score offers a neighborhood’s
walkability and bikeability score using the proximity of shops and services as
well as features like sidewalks, bike lanes, and crosswalks.
Water
Quality and Other Concerns
Unless
you’re willing to spend hundreds of dollars every year on filtration systems,
you’ll want to make sure the neighborhood you choose has a high quality public
water supply and is free of other chemical and industrial contaminants. The
Environmental Protection Agency’s website aggregates data on water quality, air
quality, known and threatened releases of hazardous substances, and former
industrial sites (or “brownfields”), allowing you to search by zip code.
