The Carfree Census Database
People often ask, "What are the best places to live if you don't have a car?" In an attempt to answer this question, we've compiled a database of the carfree communting behavior and car ownership rates for all communities in the United States, over 24,000 communities in all. The assumption is that communities where a large proportion of people commute to work without a car and/or don't own a car are more congenial to an autofree lifestyle.
The data are derived from Summary File 3 of the 1990 and 2000 Censuses. Data from 1990 was included to allow trends to be seen over the decade.
Please note that the data is taken from the census long form, which was given to approximately one out of six households. Because of this, the sample size in small towns of about a thousand or less was inherently small and shouldn't be judged as accurately reflecting that of the entire community.
A few communities in the database have both zero population and commuters in 1990. This is the result of the Census Bureau defining a new area (known as a Census Defined Place, or CDP) in the 2000 Census that did not exist in the 1990 Census. It doesn't indicate no one lived in the area previously, it only means the borders of the census tract were redrawn.
We hope you find this useful. If you have any questions, find any bugs, or have suggestions for improvements, please email us. Thanks.
Related Links:
Mike Lewyn has created a very interesting "Auto Free Livable Cities Guide" that ranks the major cities in the US using similar census data plus crime statistics.
There are two ways to use this database: predefined searches or custom searches
Predefined searches
Click on a link below to see the top cities in each category:
| Small towns (population 1000-50,000) | Small cities (population 50,000-250,000) | Large Cities (population 250,000+) | ALL communites (regardless of population) |
| Most bicycle commuters | Most bicycle commuters | Most bicycle commuters | Most bicycle commuters |
| Most pedestrian commuters | Most pedestrian commuters | Most pedestrian commuters | Most pedestrian commuters |
| Most public transit commuters | Most public transit commuters | Most public transit commuters | Most public transit commuters |
| Most non-car commuters | Most non-car commuters | Most non-car commuters | Most non-car commuters |
| Most carfree households | Most carfree households | Most carfree households | Most carfree households |
Custom searches
Search by state and/or population size:
