StreetAdvisor Blog

The StreetAdvisor guide to the neighborhoods of Los Angeles

Los Angeles (City Rank in California #63, Overall Score 62.02) is an amazing city, or rather a collection of cities in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Los Angeles is receiving lots of street and neighborhood reviews in StreetAdvisor, and the scores and ranks for the neighborhoods are filling out. These are the top five neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

The top neighborhood is Beverly Crest, Los Angeles, California (Neighborhood Rank in Los Angeles #1, Overall Score 81.87).

The second is Rancho Park, Los Angeles, California (Neighborhood Rank in Los Angeles #2, Overall Score 78.91).

Third is Century City, Los Angeles, California (Neighborhood Rank in Los Angeles #3, Overall Score 78.70).

Forth is Elysian Park, Los Angeles, California (Neighborhood Rank in Los Angeles #4, Overall Score 76.50).

Fifth is Sawtelle, Los Angeles, California (Neighborhood Rank in Los Angeles #5, Overall Score 75.15).

If living in LA proper is not your scene, perhaps you prefer somewhere by the water or in the suburbs. The rankings of the cities in the LA area vary considerably.

Pasadena, California (City Rank in California #4, Overall Score 84.32) ranks much better than most LA neighborhoods. Glendale, California (City Rank in California #23, Overall Score 75.86) also ranks well and so does Santa Monica, California (City Rank in California #34,Overall Score 73.36).

What do you think of these rankings? Where does your neighborhood rate? Log in to StreetAdvisor.com today to find out!

The StreetAdvisor guide to Manhattan neighborhoods

With so many streets in New York City already reviewed by StreetAdvisor community members, it is not surprising to discover that almost all of the 43 neighborhoods in Manhattan not only have a score but also a rank.

In fact, even most of the smaller neighborhoods already have both a score and a rank. For example, look at the Meatpacking District, New York, New York (Neighborhood Rank in New York #1, Overall Score 87.75).

The scores and ranks for Manhattan neighborhoods continue to rise and fall as new street and neighborhood reviews are submitted. Here’s sample of some recent developments.

Larger neighborhoods like Chelsea, New York, New York (Neighborhood Rank in New York #21, Overall Score 67.28) feature many street and neighborhood reviews.

Kips Bay, New York, New York (Neighborhood Rank in New York #18 Overall Score 68.32) is rising in the rankings and Midtown, New York, New York (Neighborhood Rank in New York #5, Overall Score 77.94) scores highly.

The most northern neighborhood in Manhattan, Inwood, New York, New York, has the lowest score and rank (Neighborhood Rank in New York #42, Overall Score 38.09).

The Upper East Side, New York, New York (Neighborhood Rank in New York #12 Overall Score 74.07) scores slightly better than the Upper West Side, New York, New York (Neighborhood Rank in New York #15 Overall Score 70.77).

If you think the score or rank for a street or neighborhood is not accurate, write a review and explain why. Give your review a more realistic score.

To make it easy to find all the neighborhoods, we've made a complete list of Manhattan neighborhoods using StreetAdvisor's new Local Lists feature.

You get to influence the score and rank of every street and neighborhood by sharing your opinions about places on StreetAdvisor. Log in to StreetAdvisor.com today and start finding out more about your favorite places.

Vote for StreetAdvisor in the 2009 Webware 100 Awards

StreetAdvisor.com has been selected as one of the finalists in the 2009 Webware 100 Awards in the new location-based services category.

300 finalists were selected by the Webware editors from more than 5,000 qualifying Web 2.0 services nominated by Webware readers and company representatives. 

Voting for the Webware 100 is open now and closes on April 30. We’d like you to vote for us!

Follow this link to vote for StreetAdvisor in the 2009 Webware 100 Awards.

StreetView is live on StreetAdvisor in the UK

StreetAdvisor has added Google's StreetView to its UK site StreetAdvisor.co.uk. You can now see what the streets of London really look like, such as here at Shoreditch High Street, Hackney, Greater London (Street Rank in Hackney #1, Overall Score 90.00).

Visitor ajr67 has this to say about Shoreditch High Street:

Depending on what magazines you read, Shoreditch has been one of the major centres of young London in recent years and there is no doubt that it’s become one of the major bohemian hangouts in London in the past five years.

For more great local reviews and opinions, visit StreetAdvisor.co.uk today and add your local knowledge to the growing StreetAdvisor community.

The StreetAdvisor community is your community

StreetAdvisor has introduced some impressive new content and features in 2009. To start with, we have added information on over 12,000 neighborhoods to the site - thousands more neighborhoods than featured in other sites.

Over 2000 of these neighborhoods already feature street or neighborhood reviews, so you can see exactly how your neighbors regard the area. From the scores of these reviews we calculate rankings, which rank streets, neighborhoods and cities near you.

You don't have to live in a big city to view or share information about your street, neighborhood and city - everyone is invited and people from all around the country are participating (except Montana and Wyoming - why don't you call?).

To demonstrate how the thousands of user generated reviews published on StreetAdvisor reflect the US population, consider how similar these two maps are. The one above displays a blue dot for every city with a score in the US. The one below shows population density in the US - the darker the blue the more dense the population.

Source: 2000 US Census data from Search Marketing Communications

Comparing the maps shows that the areas of high population density reflect a high density of StreetAdvisor reviews. This means that the StreetAdvisor community is broadly representative of the whole community.

What does this mean for you? Well it means that if you live in a big city StreetAdvisor will most likely already have a score and rank for your neighborhood and street.

If you live outside a big city, we may have a score (if not a rank) for that city and we'll have reviews of streets in the surrounding area to recommend to you.

We've also included demographic data for every state and about 500 of the biggest cities and towns across the US.

There's something for everyone on StreetAdvisor - the place to talk about places. Find your place today and write a review, post a forum topic and find out more about your local area.

StreetAdvisor ranks the best and worst cities and suburbs in Australia

The number of reviews of Australian streets and cities posted at StreetAdvisor.com.au continues to grow. We now have scores for over 1,000 suburbs and cities based on thousands of individual street and city reviews. It's been a while since we published a best and worst comparison so it's time to reveal the hottest and not so hot locations around Australia.

This time, however, we're going to use StreetAdvisor's new ranking feature. A city gets a rank when its score is calculated from three or more reviews. This provides a more accurate and reliable score for a city than the result of a single review. Of the places that have multiple reviews to allow us to calculate a ranking, these are the best and worst places to live in Australia.

Each blue dot is a city that has been reviewed in StreetAdvisor

Western Australia

Hot

Broome, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #1, Overall Score 90.00)

Perth, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #2, Overall Score 88.58)

Dalkeith, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #3, Overall Score 82.81)

Not so hot

Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #27, Overall Score 36.90)

Ardross, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #25, Overall Score 54.00)

Leeming, Western Australia, Australia (City Rank in Western Australia #24, Overall Score 56.58)

South Australia

Hot

Hallett Cove, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #1, Overall Score 90.07)

Morphett Vale, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #2, Overall Score 75.12)

Fairview Park, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #3, Overall Score 67.94)

Not so hot

Prospect, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #4, Overall Score 59.12)

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #5, Overall Score 54.51)

Salisbury, South Australia, Australia (City Rank in South Australia #6, Overall Score 52.09)

Victoria

Hot

Somerville, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #1, Overall Score 87.97)

Bundoora, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #2, Overall Score 87.35)

Warrandyte, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #3, Overall Score 86.79)

Not so hot

Epping, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #138, Overall Score 52.86)

Brunswick West, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #139, Overall Score 48.76)

Broadmeadows, Victoria, Australia (City Rank in Victoria #140, Overall Score 30.99)

Queensland

Hot

Noosa Heads, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #1, Overall Score 95.00)

Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #2, Overall Score 94.51)

Milton, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #3,Overall Score 88.20)

Not so hot

Ascot, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #26, Overall Score 58.83)

Kearneys Spring, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #27, Overall Score 58.55)

Harristown, Queensland, Australia (City Rank in Queensland #28, Overall Score 54.00)

New South Wales

Hot

Balmain, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #1, Overall Score 89.38)

Manly, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #2, Overall Score 88.27)

Como, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #3, Overall Score 84.34)

Not so hot

Smithtown, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #42, Overall Score 36.60)

Ryde, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #43, Overall Score 20.26)

Kinchela, New South Wales, Australia (City Rank in New South Wales #44, Overall Score 18.90)

Tasmania

Best and worst

Hobart, Tasmania, Australia (City Rank in Tasmania #1, Overall Score 88.20)

Launceston, Tasmania, Australia (City Rank in Tasmania #2, Overall Score 61.75)

Ravenswood, Tasmania, Australia (City Rank in Tasmania #4, Overall Score 43.80)

Northern Territory

Best and worst

Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia (City Rank in Northern Territory #1, Overall Score 78.00)

Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia (City Rank in Northern Territory #2, Overall Score 71.10)

Jabiru, Northern Territory, Australia (City Rank in Northern Territory #4, Overall Score 53.40)

Have your say

These scores and ranking will change over time as new reviews are submitted to StreetAdvisor.com.au. How does your suburb rank? Do you agree or disagree with these scores and ranks? Visit StreetAdvisor.com.au today and have your say!

StreetAdvisor has all the statistics on your town

StreetAdvisor has been working hard to develop cool new features, such as mashing in Flickr and Panoramio photos to our street, neighborhood and city pages. We have also been developing some great new content, such as including over 12,000 neighborhoods throughout the US into the site. We have used all scores generated by street and city reviews in the site to generate rankings, so you can see how your street and neighborhood rate against other places.

The latest content set we have added is demographic data for every state and about 500 of the biggest cities and towns across the US. We've got an amazing amount of data! It comes from 2000 and 2007 Census Bureau data, 2005 and 2007 FBI crime data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and various local government websites.

For example, look at Dallas, Texas (City Rank in Texas #12, Overall Score 63.78). Click on the new Demographics tab for Dallas, Texas and you will find a page of data all about Dallas. The population is 1,240,499, 74.2% were born in their state of residence and 69.9% of people have a high school education.

Compare this information to that for the much smaller town of Tyler, Texas, where the Demographics tab shows that the population is 96,451 and 83.5% of people have a high school education.

In Tyler, Texas 12% of residents are foreign born, whereas in Mobile, Alabama only 3.3% of the population is foreign born. There's a lot of information to explore and consider. We think this information may make a big difference in your decision-making about where to live. The next time your lease is up and you decide to shift neighborhoods, or you get an amazing job in a new city and have to move somewhere you don't know, you'll find this demographic data incredibly helpful.

StreetAdvisor adds photos from Flickr and Panoramio to your street

One of the principles of the online world is to focus on what you do best and link to the rest. At StreetAdvisor, we focus on reviews of streets and cities written by the people who live, work and relax in those areas.

New Farm, Queensland, Australia

We have an existing photo upload function where community members can add photos to streets, and StreetAdvisor.com already features thousands of photos, but we're not the expert in online photos - sites like Flickr and Panoramio are. So we've mashed their extensive photo archives into StreetAdvisor maps on every street and city page.

Phoenix, Arizona, USA

On every street and city page you'll now find separate Photos and Videos tabs. In the Photos tab you'll find an interactive map you can scroll, zoom and click on. When you click on an image thumbnail in the map the page loads the image in the main window, complete with a link to the original source.

Covent Garden, London, UK

StreetAdvisor is all about helping you to discover news and information about places near you or important to you. We have many more exciting developments to release in 2009, but the inclusion of thousands of photos is a great place to start.

So now you have more choices about how to share your photos in StreetAdvisor. You can continue to upload them to your favorite streets, or you can upload them to your favorite photo site knowing they will appear on StreetAdvisor maps for you to browse.

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

New and returning visitors and community members will find a lot of new photos and reviews at StreetAdvisor.com, so take a look at what the site offers today, write a review or ask a question of your neighbors via a forum topic post, and learn more about the streets around you.

StreetAdvisor is jumping into 2009!

The team at StreetAdvisor have been hard at work over the holiday season planning some fantastic new functions and services to add to the site in 2009. We're not quite ready to unveil anything just yet, but we promise you'll be interested in what we have scheduled.

In the meantime, StreetAdvisor co-founder and co-CEO Adam Spencer went skydiving and he posted some great photos and a video of his experience on StreetAdvisor.

Here he is high over Kettels Road, Kirwans Bridge, Victoria, and this is what he has to say:

"I went for a skydive on the weekend at Skydive Nagambie about 2 hours drive from Melbourne, and I had to share the video with everyone. It was one of the very best experiences I have ever had in my life, and I HIGHLY recommend it... I'm smiling just thinking about it :-) ENJOY!"

As you can see, StreetAdvisor is a great place to share your holiday season stories and photos. Where have you been that excited you? Tell us all about it by writing a review or starting a forum topic at StreetAdvisor.com today.

StreetAdvisor and Realestate.com.au rollout begins in South Australia

The partnership between StreetAdvisor and and Realestate.com.au to provide street and suburb reviews on Australia’s leading real estate site has begun its rollout in South Australia.

StreetAdvisor’s unique scorecards will be featured throughout realestate.com.au adding a touch of genuine local flavour to property listings.

So how will it look? Here's one example. This listing for Third Avenue Glenelg East features a scorecard that looks like this:

Users can click through to StreetAdvisor to write a review, read further reviews or explore streets with StreetView level mapping. With the initial launch being only for select properties in South Australia, a national rollout is planned for early 2009.

So if you have some local knowledge about real estate, you can now add it to StreetAdvisor knowing that your reviews will help thousands of Australian choose the best place to live.