How the Nearside livability score works
No black box. Here is exactly how a Nearside score is built, and why you can re-weight every part of it.
No black box. Here is exactly how a Nearside score is built, and why you can re-weight every part of it.
A score is only trustworthy if it shows its work. Here is precisely how Nearside turns an address into a livability number out of 100.
Score = weighted amenities × neighbourhood factor × (1 − penalties)
For each of ten everyday categories (groceries, healthcare, transit, schools, dining, safety services, shopping, parks, pharmacies, gyms) we measure real on-foot walk-times to the nearest options within a 15-minute walk, and how well the category is covered. Closer and better-covered scores higher, on a decay curve — a 2-minute walk earns near-full credit, a 15-minute one modest credit, and beyond about 25 minutes nothing. Coverage has diminishing returns and it's category-aware: one nearby police or fire station, or one pharmacy, is enough for full credit there, while variety categories like dining reward genuine choice — because more isn't always better.
Junk listings — places with almost no reviews, or a lone suspicious 5★ — are filtered out by a credible-review gate before they can inflate a category. A well-reviewed, genuinely-used place counts; a phantom pin doesn't.
A multiplier reflects how genuinely urban and walkable the surroundings are: amenity density, how much is reachable within 5 minutes, the breadth of categories present, the vitality of the best nearby places, and street connectivity. A dense, well-connected core scores far higher than a sparse, car-dependent point.
Poor street connectivity (lots of detours) and difficult terrain apply transparent penalties, each shown in the "Why this score" panel.
Every category carries a built-in importance — daily essentials such as healthcare, groceries and a nearby police or fire station count for more than a gym or a mall. The default score keeps those importances balanced so it's comparable across places. Your priority sliders (0–10, where 5 is neutral) then multiply each category — bump schools and parks up, drop nightlife to zero — and Nearside re-weights instantly using the same underlying signals. The environmental reads (air quality, flood risk, climate) are shown alongside the score but deliberately not folded into it, so the core number stays stable and honest.
Paste any address and get a data-grounded livability read in seconds — free, no login.
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