The Hub of Halloween: Nationwide Study Shows Boston is a Top City for Trick-or-Treating

Courtesy of blissfullydomestic.com

Put on your costume, pick up your candy bag and get some fresh batteries in that old flashlight of yours. It’s time to go door-to-door in one of the best trick-or-treating cities in the country: Boston.

Zillow, an online home and real estate marketplace, named Boston as the #2 city in the country for 2011 trick-or-treating. San Francisco took top honors, while Honolulu, Seattle and Chicago rounded out the top 5.

The data heads at Zillow recently took a break from churning out real estate market reports and research briefs in order to help kids (and their parents) find some of the best urban areas for collecting candy.

Instead of relying on polls or surveys, Zillow created a trick-or-treat index, which is based on four equally weighted data variables. These variables are crime (the rate of violent and nonviolent crime); population density (people per square mile); walk score (the walkability of a city); and median home value (which was calculated using the Zillow Home Value Index).

Boston particularly shined in the population density category, with 12,787 people per square mile, as well as the walk score category, earning a score of 79.2. The only city that topped Boston in these two categories was San Francisco, which has a population density of 17,169 people per square mile and a walk score of 84.9.

Within the city of Boston, Zillow named Beacon Hill as the #1 neighborhood for trick-or-treating. Back Bay, the North End, the South End and Kenmore came next.

“I find it unbelievable that in Beacon Hill they close the streets off… the kids go all out,” Alexandra Curry told New England Post. Curry is a marketing & community relations associate at Hill House, a community center located in the heart of Beacon Hill.

“There are a lot of nonprofits and governmental committees based in Beacon Hill,” Curry continued. “They try their best to create a small-scale setting within a very large, urban place. And the same goes for a lot of the other downtown Boston neighborhoods. A lot of families that work here have made it a great place for families and for trick-or-treating.”

Curry also mentioned that Beacon Hill residents “have a lot of fun decorating,” which creates a festive atmosphere that trick-or-treaters enjoy.

See below for an infographic showing the top 20 trick-or-treating cities in the country as calculated by Zillow.

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3. Occupy Boston Protesters Continue to Forge Bonds with the City’s Homeless
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Posted by erik devaney on Oct 27 2011. Filed under Featured - For home page featured article, Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry