Walkable, even with the hills

Working on a research project based in Charlotte NC on walking, obesity, land use and transit right now with some colleagues at the RAND Corp…key variables that are not accounted for in this web based model are basic demographics of the walker (held constant!?), perceptions of safety and disorder, and terrain (hills) and weather (some recent research looks at these two variables). They also seem to overvalue retail stores and undervalue transit. Anyway, their model generalizes some localized research and applies the weighting scheme to the US. Cool utility to say the least, but curious (albeit partially confessed by the developers) methodology. That said, me and the missus love walking around here for the most part (thus validating the qualified thumbs up for the area).