As most dog owners living in New York City know, there is certainly no shortage of pet-designated areas, in fact, quite often it seems that there are more four-legged friends populating the sidewalks and parks than humans.
However, according to a recent study conducted by LawnStarter, a lawn care app that publishes an assortment of city rankings, supported by their “wealth of public data,” claimed the LawnStarted data team, New York City was named the 7th best city for dog walking, out of the 170 cities they surveyed.
Their newest study, “2022’s Best Cities to Walk Your Dogs” was released on Jan. 11 in celebration of National Walk Your Dog Month, the several weeks dedicated to celebrating ways to keep your dog healthy and active during the cold winter season— and for pure audience entertainment.
Although New York City has gained the title of “Concrete Jungle”, there is certainly an abundance of greenery and trails for the tail-wagging inhabitants of the city, however, apparently that is not enough to be ranked the number 1 best city for dog walking.
The LawnStarter data team first began designing the study by comparing several factors: “walkability, canine-friendly trail access, dog walking services, and safety,” according to the team. Following the accumulation of all the existing coverage and research on the subject, they searched for the most reliable sources and “collected, cleaned, and organized the data in preparation for analysis.” The final step in the process was creating a point system out of 100, that features a spectrum of scores and weights.
Once the data evaluation was complete, the city that earned the moniker of “Best City to Walk Your Dog,” according to LawnStarter, in 1st place was Portland, OR with a total score of 70.26, trailed by San Francisco, CA in 2nd place with a score of 67.38, and Oakland, CA in 3rd, with a score of 65.10.
With New York in 7th place, its rankings were: 5th best in “Walk Score”, 18th best in “Number of Dog-Friendly Trails”, 83rd best in “Average Dog Walker Rate”, and 49th best in “Pedestrian Fatalities per 100,000 Residents”— garnering a total of 60.89 points, sandwiched between Los Angeles, CA in 6th place with a score of 61.22, and Washington, DC in 8th with a score of 60.08.
“New York actually performed better or above average in most metrics,” the Lawnstarter team responded, when asked why they believed New York received such low scores. “But it was dragged down by its performance in the Services category,” they said, referring to the City placing second-to-last in access to dog walkers, just barely beating St. Paul, Minnesota.
New York has approximately 33 dog walkers per 100,000 residents, which is not a lot, according to the data team. In comparison, Los Angeles, the second largest city in the U.S., has less than half the population but four times as many dog walkers per 100,000 residents.
This low score in Services is actually a consequence of the pandemic, as most people were working from home when the study was conducted, decreasing the need for dog walkers or pet care professionals.
“Within weeks of the onset of the crisis, pet care startup Rover laid off 41% of its workers,” according to a Forbes article published in Dec. 2020. “If people are working from home and not traveling, the impact on our community of sitters and walkers is devastating,” CEO Aaron Easterly said in a statement.
Thankfully, in spring of 2021, countless publications, including Bloomberg News, published articles stating that the resurgence for dog walkers and pet sitters are at their highest demand since the pandemic began; a sign that New York may have a chance of reaching 1st place and becoming the “Best City to Walk Your Dog,” by 2023.
“Walking your dog can be a walk in the park (literally), a dreaded chore on a cold morning, or a workout if your big red dog is named Clifford,” said the LawnStarter team. Which is why they created this report, “to both educate and entertain” their audiences, “whether that’s through product reviews, pricing guides, or ranking studies.”
Click here to read the full report.
