Cool Website Gives You Greenest Home Address
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California 
on 12. 4.08
There is a very cool website that has the ability to take into account all the things you do on a regular basis, and then pinpoints the best spot for you to live so that you are central to everything you most enjoy, effectively minimizing your carbon footprint.
Called OptimalHomeLocation.com, the website gives you options for entering in places your family commutes to often, including offices, schools, daycare, the gym, friend’s houses and so on. Based on what you enter, it figures out a central location.
That doesn’t mean it’s a prime location. I entered in a few points for places I go, and it put me smack in the middle of a park. Then again…that is the perfect place for a TreeHugger.
Thankfully, it allows you to enter cross streets so you don’t have to look up exact addresses. It also pops up the average property tax, home and condo value, and other helpful facts for finding a place to live. You can also compare daily commutes for different addresses if you’re trying to narrow down your selection of potential homes.
This kind of tool is awesome for helping to minimize carbon footprints. While it might not send you to the best piece of property, it certainly sends you to the most efficient location. You can do the footwork from there. Handy dandy!
Via EcoGeek
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I must have chosen well, because the location it came up for my family is only a few blocks away from where we live. I like the site *we* chose better... further away from a busy street, larger lot (for gardening and the kids), and more interesting houses ('50s era vs. '70s).
I really hate being in a car, and I am averse to car-commuting. Before we bought this house, we bought a map of our small city and marked all the "important" sites on it... the schools we were interested in, the parts of town where we'd most likely be working (even as jobs changed), our favorite grocery stores, etc. This neighborhood has worked out well for us. We can do a very large percentage of our day-to-day stuff on foot/by bike, and if we have to drive, trips are generally short. It has also allowed us to have only one car, which I think is pretty unusual for an American family (kind of sad that it's unusual...).
IT's ok... my optimal place is out in lake ontario... better get on building me one of those floating hover homes...
Great idea! A simple tool that gets people thinking. I think it would be even more powerful with a place to put in what type of vehicle each commuter uses. Then the program could consider relative efficiencies and optimize based on dollars rather than miles.
Great idea! A simple tool that gets people thinking. I think it would be even more powerful with a place to put in what type of vehicle each commuter uses. Then the program could consider relative efficiencies and optimize based on dollars rather than miles.
We live in an optimal place already since we are able to take the bus wherever we want around town and live 1 mile from the bus to work, as well as 1/2 a mile from hiking trails. The problem is this website doesn't take into account public transportation. It placed us in a less optimal area, because I would have to have a car to drive around instead of taking public transportation.
It doesn't seem to take proximity to public transportation into account. I don't care about the car commute. We don't drive. We just need to be near a metro station so we can get to school & work.
It doesn't seem to take proximity to public transportation into account. I don't care about the car commute. We don't drive. We just need to be near a metro station so we can get to school & work.
Dear Tree-huggers,
First of all, you have a beautifully designed interesting site.
Second, thank you for reviewing the Optimal Home Location app.
To respond to the comments above:
- we will be adding public commute information as it will become available for more areas from Google;
- vehicle comparison is another great idea;
- crime rates is also on our list;
And a third, here is a link to the Optimal Home Location story:
http://lovelifemath.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-real-estate-math.html
Thanks for the feedback!
Maria