With this website you can type in an address and it will tell you how "walkable" the neighborhood or city is, on a scale of 0 to 100 (100 is very pedestrian-friendly). The score is based on distance to to the amenities in the area. Different types of amenities are weighted differently in the score, depending on how important the amenity type is in encouraging pedestrian activity. The score is also affected by block sizes and the amount of street intersections in the area. As far as I can tell, the score doesn't factor in sidewalks or other types of transportation networks targetting pedestrians. The idea is that when you're looking for a house or apartment, you would also consider the walkscore along with the other features you would normally look at, such as number of bedrooms, baths, and so on.
Starkville has a walkscore of 40, which is in the car-dependent category, though it is still one of the higher-rated communities in the state. You can see that it's really only the central portion of the city, between Highways 12 and 182, that are rated walkable.
For comparison, Oxford, MS, is 38, New York City is 85.3, Los Angeles, CA, is 65.9. Madison and Brandon, MS, are rated all the way down to 18. The highest-rated city in Mississippi is Hattiesburg, at 46. According to the website, Mississippi doesn't really have any pedestrian-friendly communities.
You can check the website out at
www.walkscore.com
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