This is actually one of the biggest reasons why I do not want to move. I love Nashua, New Hampshire because of how lovely it is to walk from the north end of town.
I walk to work every day in seven minutes[1]. The city maintains a large forested park that is a 5 minute walk from main street.
Every single weekend I walk to one of the fine cafes that exist on or around main street for breakfast. On workdays at lunch I have a wide array of restaurants, all within very reasonable walking distance. I purchase the fine beers I drink from the same building I work in[2].
Simply taking walks I can peruse downtown, or head north to the historic district and walk among the Victorian-era houses (I am living in one, built 1840, renting out the extra rooms to friends to make a kind of communal house), or I can go to the northern park and follow rail tracks through the woods, maybe swim in the Merrimack river (dangerous to amateurs but very fun), or go to Mine Falls by main street and stroll through the surprisingly deep woods in the heart of the little city.
I can go days without needing to use my car. I see walking as the norm in my life. My friends treat it as an eccentric novelty. I fear the day that I won't be able to walk to work anymore, and the simple walkable pleasures of my town are a big factor in not taking a job in SV.
Suburbs don't have to be horrible places, but as designed they seem very lacking.
It's a reason that I love living in Denver, Colorado. I live (affordably) about two miles from Downtown. There is a huge network of urban walking trails just a few short blocks form my house. I either bike or walk (or both thanks to the bike share) to work almost every day (or take public transit when it's really cold).
Since Denver is a very compact city at the core, I can get anywhere in the central city on foot. All the major sports stadiums and major cultural attractions are within a mile or two of each other. Most of the cities best bars and restaurants are clustered around the city center.
If you can live and work Downtown...it's just an amazing place to live. It's a major city that is extraordinarily approachable.
I'll second that -- I loved living in Downtown Denver, and still visit as much as I can. Funny, when I was reading about the seven-minute commute in Nashua, I thought "that sounds like the commute I had in Downtown Denver," then saw your comment.
I'm now living 6 miles out in Olde Town Arvada. It's actually a neat walkable area with coffee shops, brewpubs, etc., although there are no major tech employers within walking distance. (I work from home.)
Somewhat different note, any interest in a Denver HN meetup sometime? I knew I couldn't be the only one but I'd like to meet more if anyone's interested.
In NYC, I think nothing of a 30min to 1-hour walk to get to dinner. In my hometown, where there are sidewalks connecting my house to the "downtown", I can barely walk 3 blocks without feeling weird. It's not just the practical distance, or how "safe" it is to conduct the walk... it's the strangeness of walking through something not as dense as NYC.
I've done far less formal exercise these days than I ever have at any point in my life, yet I'm still about the same weight. I owe it all to walking, including the four-story walkup.
This is so true. Although I'm not sure it's entirely about density --I think part of it is just that you're so alone as a pedestrian. At least if you're walking around my hometown, you might be the only one on the sidewalks, barring neighborhood kids hopscotching around or whatever, for 2 miles, even though there are homes and businesses everywhere. The psychological effect of being such an outlier is really noticeable.
I pretty much walk or bike everywhere in Brooklyn.
When I go home to Oregon, we're constantly in the car. "Getting a coffee" consists of getting in a car, driving for 5 minutes, grabbing a to-go cup at Starbucks and driving back home... I can't really do it anymore.
Must not be Portland, where driving makes you one of the untouchables, as distinguished from the Master Race astride their bicycles, kitted out in TRON gear.
Portland wasn't always a safe haven for cyclists :)
And even now, on the sonorous hums and curves of Sandy Blvd, you may find yourself cycling next to several 'mudded' pickups, and called things that are hateful and confusing.
You can put the hipster in Oregon, but you can't take the redneck out.
Trying not to start a controversy or hijack this to an unrelated news story - but my first thought when the whole Trayvon Martin thing happened - the thing that alerts Neighborhood Watch types in bedroom communities isn't "walking while black," but just plain old "walking." It's suspicious.
I tried to take a walk in the suburban neighborhood where my parents live and was brought home in a police car. The neighbors called the police and reported someone suspicious walking through the neighborhood. Apparently, its just not done. I didn't have any ID on me so I was brought home in the cruiser so I could present my "papers" to the officer.
Its a terrible thing to think but I distinctly remember being grateful for the particulary large amount of light my skin happens to reflect that night.
It's not a terrible thing to think. You aren't thinking this because you're racist, but because we all know that in many communities, the cops will not give nonwhites the same benefit of the doubt that they extend to white people.
Nowhere in this country is a citizen required to carry or produce ID in public. Furthermore, officers need reasonable suspicion that you have committed, or are about to commit, a crime before you are required to identify yourself. You are never required to explain your actions.
It depends on your definition of fine, but probably, yes.
If 'fine' means not hassled or delayed in any way, then it already didn't work out 'fine'. If you're willing to add on another hour or two waiting, perhaps the night, waiting at the police station as 'fine', then you're still good.
I'm not sure if you're concerned that you would have been beaten or harmed? I'm sure it's not out of the question, it never is, but so long as you remained peacable as you explained it to the officer, I'm guessing it wasn't likely.
Every district / cop / municipality is of course different though.
It's semi-free for you to file a civil suit against the arresting officer for wrongful imprisonment as well.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be inconvenient, but fear of inconvenience isn't necessarily a great reason to lay down your civil rights.
That said, I don't mean to imply any judgement, I'm just curious as to "what would have happened". I've been in a number of scenarios similar to this one and have never been beaten, attacked, or in court spending a great deal to defend myself. Not to say it couldn't easily have happened, every encounter is different.
I don't know whether to agree with your second sentence or not. It looks like reasonable suspicion is required, but it also sounds like individual states' stop-and-identify laws are varied and vague.
As someone who grew up in a semi-rural area in the Midwest, I know I would feel like I were in danger riding a bike on the street instead of a sidewalk. I've been living in more urban areas in California for many years now, and bike lanes are everywhere, but honestly, I don't think I'd want to try to use them. Attempting to hit you is ridiculously stupid, but I think the feeling that bicycle riders should be on the sidewalk is probably pretty common outside of urban areas, especially in regions where snow and ice are an issue for half the year and biking is less common.
I've thought the same thing. I've never been stopped by anybody, but I've had local sheriff's deputies drive past me really slow and look really closely at me while I'm taking a walk through a nearby community during my lunch break. And I'm a pretty non-imposing white guy dressed in business attire. This wasn't even a gated community. Walking just isn't considered a "normal" activity in some areas, at least by people who aren't up to something.
You may be on to something. In some places, even walking downtown is suspicious. I'll never forget an experience I had in the 90's while working for a regional ISP in Alabama. I was spending the day at a town 60 miles away to work on our satellite POP, and decided to take a walk around the downtown to find some lunch. It just so happened that a sales guy from my office was also in town, and stopped on the main road and yelled "What happened to your car?!?!!" He was shocked that someone would choose to take a walk, and was telling people about the incident for weeks.
Of course, here in Colorado, it's not uncommon at all to find people walking or biking even way out in the suburbs. So I suppose attitudes vary greatly by region.
Great point. The whole notion of the "gated community" is patently offensive and only possible by virtue of the automobile.
Walk through an old city. Even in the victorian era, where families were packed in single rooms with no running water, they were just a 5-10 minute walk from stately townhouses of the well-to-do.
Now, we feel the need to separate ourselves with berms and fences.
Ever been inside an actual castle? The lord's family was lucky if they had one or two private rooms. Most castles are tiny compared to their presentation in the media.
Aside from things like 18th-century manor houses - a tiny proportion of any country's population, and absolutely stuffed with working-class servants - the lack of motorized transit meant that upper-class neighbourhoods were usually right in the centre of the city, within walking distance of the poorer areas. You really just have to look at NYC or London to see that. 19th century mansions are not that far from the historically poor areas. And even those people who did own manor houses usually had a townhouse. It wasn't until trains, subways, and automobiles arrived in the mid-20th century that commuting between the business centre and exclusive suburbs became possible.
Well, the ‘gated community’ as such may exist by virtue of the automobile, but the overall concept is much older and can apply even in high-density urban environments. What about a luxury apartment building that hires a doorman? It is the same thing in spirit as the gated community.
The concept of the gated community in a city is much older in Europe, and as in modern America, it also contained a section of society that ordinary people despised and didn't want to mix with.
After one country took this attitude to unfortunate extremes a couple of generations ago - we have tried to all get along a bit better.
In US (not counting downtowns of large Cities like NY or SF) it is much harder to enjoy walking compared to most other places in the world.
First you just look weird here when you walk somewhere and you are the only person walking in the street. Drivers usually look at you like you are crazy (especially if you walk in the evening when it's getting dark).
The second and most annoying thing is that sidewalks here can end suddenly without a warning. You can walk somewhere enjoying the nice weather and the sidewalk ends suddenly! WTF? You have to turn back or continue walking using the side of the road looking even more weird.
And the most strange thing is that Americans use their cars to drive to places located within just a couple of thousand feet from their home. For a person from Europe THIS is really weird.
I used to live in a neighborhood without sidewalks. People would often stop their cars to ask me if I was OK and if I needed a ride somewhere when I was walking to the local convenience store. It was less than a mile away.
One of the many reasons why I will probably not be moving back to the suburbs if I can possibly avoid it. Most the others seem to center on walking, too: Not being able to walk to the grocery store; not being stuck in a situation where going out to the bar would be synonymous with drinking and driving, not spending my after-dinner strolls in a ditch. . .
> And the most strange thing is that Americans use their cars to drive to places located within just a couple of thousand feet from their home. For a person from Europe THIS is really weird.
That's definitely true. When I lived in Strasbourg I thought nothing of walking 20 minutes to the hypermarche. I enjoyed it. Now, back in America, I live ~5 minutes from a major grocery store but I would never walk there.
Not only are there no sidewalks but I'd have to cross a major street and the intersection doesn't have pedestrian signals. It'd be suicide.
And this isn't Middle of Nowhere, USA. I live in the middle of San Antonio, TX. Five minutes from the Riverwalk. It's nuts but it's the way it is.
(Though the Texas heat may have something to do with not walking as well)
I live close to the downtown core of my city and my daily commute is a 6 km (3.7 mile) round trip by foot. People seem to think this is exotic if not downright subversive, whereas they think nothing about sitting in a car for an hour a day and stopping off at the gym for a workout.
Note that I'm not in particularly good shape and a walk of this magnitude is not at all difficult. I arrive at work every day refreshed, alert and in a good mood, and I arrive home after work feeling the same way.
You couldn't pay me enough to take a job at which I was forced to drive, though I wouldn't mind cycling to work if the distance was too long to walk in a reasonable time.
I live close (<2 miles) to work/downtown and could technically walk, except for about two blocks in the middle of the commute that I would not feel safe walking in the dark alone. (I am female, maybe a man wouldn't feel this way)
Sometimes I ride my bike, which feels safer, if for no other reason than those two blocks go by awfully fast and an assailant on foot could not easily catch up to me, but biking feels like a lot more work than walking. I have to gear up, and carry my bike down the stairs from my apartment, and bike three stories up the parking garage for our office once I get there (the building manager hates bicycles, and so you cannot take them up the stairs/elevator). I also feel like one of these days I'm going to be hit and killed in that garage. I feel that way even in my car (well, at least in my car I probably wouldn't die. On my bike? Maybe). The visibility around the corners is terrible and people seem to drive through that garage like maniacs.
Unfortunately, I have night owl tendencies and even if I didn't, I work for a startup and often need to work late nights, so I can't just arrange my schedule to know I can walk home before it's dark.
You raise a very important issue: a community is not walkable if a person walking in public doesn't feel reasonably safe doing so.
I'm not specifically aware of gender-specific data related to walking (though now I'm going to see what's out there), but I've looked at the issue with respect to cycling and there's a strong correlation between the gender balance of cyclists in a city and the city's material commitment to being bikeable.
That sucks :( My former office (in Pioneer Square, Seattle) has a pretty large homeless & drug-dealing population, but I rarely don't feel safe. Even when I leave work at 1am on a friday night, I just dodge a few intersections that are especially bad and I get home safe. But I'm also a guy-- I know that some of my female coworkers didn't like it, to the extent that we'd sometimes walk them to the parking garage.
Well, 1 am I might still feel okay. Downtown Gainesville is full of nightclubs, and they don't close until 2 am, so there's a large number of (drunk) pedestrians milling around up until about 2:30 am.
It's 3-4am that I don't feel safe. I can't change my route, any detours I could take would only take me through even less safe areas.
I've considered mace/pepper spray but quite honestly I'd rather just avoid the possibility altogether. About a year ago there was homeless woman killed in that area.
not cheap but easily transportable indoors and out. you can store it by your desk in a bag. i see them all over dublin as it's cheaper ultimately to keep your bike by your side than lock them in a public place. and also been brought on public transport.
I started doing the same thing last year, at least when the weather is pleasant. It's an amazingly liberating experience.
It makes you look forward to spring. I live in a place that typically has bad winters, so the prospect of breaking my neck on ice is not very appealing!
There are some pretty significant risks associated with driving as well, including both the risk of injury/death in a collision and the sheer sedentary seat time.
I grew up in Alberta and fresh dry wind blown snow is hard to walk on, like dry sand. Slow going.
I now live in Vancouver and despite temperature it gets damp enough that movement without sweating is well nigh impossible. Good thing I work at a pool and don't give a damn.
since i put the studded tires on, i have not slipped once. i haven't even come close to slipping to be honest. i pretty much rie as i would on clear, dry asphalt.
While I agree that most people walking would be generally better than not, I don't quite follow your reasoning.
According to this paper [1], mean comfortable walking speed for a male in his twenties is 253.3 cm/s (~5.67 mph). Assuming you are male and in your twenties, this means it takes you ~39 mins to work each way, not including stopping at intersections, etc. Contrast this to ~15 mins each way in a car.
This means the cost/benefit would go something like this:
Walking:
(+) 78 mins/day commuting + exercise
(+) Mood heightened
(-) Lesser exercise (walking vs 1 hr at the gym where, presumably, you'd do more than walk)
Driving/Gym:
(-) 90 mins/day communting + exercise
(-) Mood not heightened
(+) Better exercise
(+) More flexibility (want to go more than a couple miles for lunch? Sorry.)
My guess is that most people choose option 2 for the flexibility alone. This allows them to do their exercise when they want to. Whether or not they will is another story.
> this means it takes you ~39 mins to work each way
I'm not sure about your speed calculations - average adult walking speed is generally understood to be around 5-6 km/h (3-3.75 mph). I'm a male in my late 30s and I generally walk at a relatively brisk 7-8 km/h (4.3-5 mph).
As it happens, my walk home is about twice as long as my walk to work, since I pick up my son from school along the way. My walk to work takes about 20 minutes and the walk home takes around 45-50 (part of it at a child's brisk pace).
> This means the cost/benefit would go something like this:
You're missing some factors from your cost/benefit analysis.
* Walking to work means we only need 1 family car. That saves $10,000 a year in direct ownership costs, not including paying for parking.
* If I drove instead of walking, I would not use the time saved for exercise at a gym (know thyself), so I would simply miss that daily exercise. But if my commute just happens to constitute daily exercise, so be it.
* There are about a dozen restaurants within a 5-10 minute walk of my office, including some of the best places in the city. (However, I'm cheap and almost always pack a lunch anyway.)
* Downtown, not having a car confers more flexibility because I don't have to figure out where to park it.
* If I do need more transportation flexibility on a given day, I can always take my bike to work that day.
>...my daily commute is a 6 km (3.7 mile) round trip by foot...I'm a male in my late 30s and I generally walk at a relatively brisk 7-8 km/h (4.3-5 mph)...My walk to work takes about 20 minutes...
Does not compute. A trip of 3.7 miles at a speed of 5 miles per hour would take ~45 minutes. If you can actually walk your 6 km commute in 20 minutes, you should quit your job and start competing in Olympic race walking, since you are apparently outpacing the reigning world champion [1].
He said roundtrip, so his 20 minute figure is for 3km, not 6. Still fast but not impossible. He might also be mentally rounding up the distance a little and down the minutes a little.
For comfy gaits, the study reported 127.2 cm/s for women (2.8 mph) and 146.2 cm/s for men (3.2 mph). That matches my own experience walking and hiking.
Looking at figure 1, page 17, that 2.5 m/s is mean maximum speed, not comfortable speed. That's about 1.5 m/s. I think 2.5 m/s is high, even for mean top speed.
I can think of quite a few... San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, Boston, Dallas, Austin, Houston. Even Los Angeles and Atlanta have nice "new downtown" areas, though the traditional downtowns are sketchy (Wilshire and Midtown, respectively).
Lots of cities have nice areas around downtown, but few have nice areas around downtown where you can do everything you need (walk to work, walk to the grocery, etc). They do exist, obviously, and some people are more tolerant about walking through a few bad blocks on the way to work than others, but it is my observation that most U.S. cities don't do a good job of making downtown a desirable place to live. Many U.S. downtowns essentially shutdown after 5pm as all of the restaurants close for the day and everyone commutes back to the 'burbs.
That's the traditional "business district" style downtown, yeah, but afaict there's been a shift away from that in the past 15-20 years, and now many people commute to downtown in the evenings, because that's where all the restaurants/bars/clubs/theaters are. That's definitely the case in the Bay Area, where SF is much more lively after 5pm than most of the Valley is (Santa Clara is basically dead once office workers go home). Was also the case in Midtown Atlanta when I lived there a few years ago; big influx from the suburbs in the evenings, esp on weekends.
SOMA too for the most part. Sadly the walk between workable parts (SOMA/FiDi) and livable parts has goes through areas that are less than ideal for walking (in terms of feeling safe).
Salt Lake City's downtown and everything north, east, and south isn't sketchy at all. If you start going west, it's a little different story but compared to most anywhere in SF it's super tame.
SLC blocks are huge, though, and (with exception of a thin strip along Main St), it was clearly not designed with walking in mind. Yes, there are sidewalks, but there's very little street furniture, retail is set far back and not at sidewalk level, and lights don't open for pedestrians unless you specifically press the button.
It's better than most, I agree, but still a far cry from NYC, Boston, or SF.
I got pulled over by the police for walking in Houston
Running alongside the freeway is an access road where all the on-off ramps feed. It has a wide sidewalk along the side and it was only a couple of junctions between the hotel and the site I was visiting so I walked.
A police car immediately pulled up to ask where I was going and why? Fortunately the English accent convinced them I was obviously merely some pinko-commie weirdo and not a threat to Houston society.
I could see that in the suburbs, but people commonly walk downtown, in the museum district, and the Rice area. Lots of new condo towers going up in the past few years, and the light rail connects those areas.
Within one block of my house is a park, a subway stop, a mid sized mall, a variety of restaurants etc. I find it's easier to walk to most places in the area than get in my car and then look for parking. Honestly, most of the high density parts of Arlington Virginia are vary walkable because it's both high density and mixed use.
Growing up on the Norwegian country side. We walked or went by bike in the summer. In the winter we went by ski or "spark" [1]. I remember on Saturday's we were allowed to go to the closest grocery store for candy. This was 4 km away. The trip took me and my sister one hour each way. We were 6 and 8 years old by the time.
From the age of 9 I went by bike to school each day. I loved riding that bike — such a freedom. I never thought about those 14 km back and forth[2]. From and to school was just about getting there. After school involved more activities.
Currently I reside on one of the most bicycle friendly cities in the world. Approximately 40% use their bike to work in Copenhagen. I always use my bike when I can. During the summer we sometimes bike around the isle of Amager. It's 42 KM all the way around, but the trip takes you through so many different scenes of nature.
To me, getting around by foot or bike, is freedom. It's the only way I know. I can drive a traktor, but have never driven a car.
This is part of the reason my wife and I are moving closer to the city. I've been stuck in the suburbs my whole life and you have to drive literally everywhere. The thought of being able to stroll over to the local market is very appealing to me.
Funny. I'm at the point where I'd trade that convenience to have a proper yard. Or to not be startled by giant rats when I walk down an alley. Or not to have to wait for 4 trains to pass you by because they're too full in the winter. Or to not have to park 3 blocks away from my apartment and worry about whether or not it is a street cleaning day or somebody got a permit to block off the area I was parked at because I haven't driven in a day and a sign may have been posted that lets the city tow any car in their path.
The point is, there are advantages to living in an area that may not be as walkable...
You're just in the wrong spot:) I'm pimping Denver in this thread, but what the hell, I'm going to do it again!
I live in a house with a proper yard. It's not suburban big (1100 ft^2 house on a 4500 ft^2 lot), but it's really nice. I have a really cool grocery store 5 blocks away. I also have a small lake (that you can boat on) 6 blocks away in the other direction. I have a 40+ bars and restaurants within a mile of our house. Downtown is two miles down the hill, passing through one of the hottest neighborhoods in the city which adds a bunch more bars and restaurants to the mix. I routinely walk or bike to all of these places. My car is parked 90% of the time. We mainly use it for trips to Ikea or to the mountains.
Oh and my house, in an amazing neighborhood, was less than $300K two years ago:)
I should have been a bit more specific: we're moving to an "inner suburb" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_suburb) which compared to the suburb I live in now is basically "the city" as far as we're concerned.
I live and telecommute in Los Angeles and belive it or not live in a walkable neighborhood. It's near the metro station which I use if I need to go somewhere en route, there are fantastic restaurants in walking distance, and the weather is usually perfect. I love this lifestyle, it's so much healthier than the one I remember in the suburbs.
So, it's close to infuriating when I encounter the "soccer" moms in their SUVs who won't walk a single block or the kook at work who would give me a hard time for walking half a mile (.8km) to lunch on a beautiful day. Though, after I pointed out my guns and his gut the smug comments declined.
Sounds like you live near the red or gold lines, I used to take those to work every day when I worked in Old Town Pasadena and lived in Hollywood (two very walkable areas also).
You're highlighting something a lot of people don't understand about LA - there are tons of walkable neighborhoods in LA, the problem is traveling from neighborhood to neighborhood takes forever and requires a car.
LA was originally a dozen different cities, all walkable, all connected by good public transport. It's very, very slowly returning to that ideal but light rail and subway are about 25 years behind where it could be.
With the accelerated transit programs/taxes (new light rail, new subways, new bus lines) currently underway, the gaining popularity of biking, and the increasing telecommuting, it'll get better. Eventually. :)
wow. I have been walking since my childhood living in two different cities (Taipei and NYC). I really enjoy walking hours just to look at streets and scenes in different hours of days. I feel that I can perceive the environment while walking in much higher resolutions and bandwidth of information flowing into my brain than driving.
I was interviewed once in Mountain View in 2006 and I remembered walking on El Camino Real rd between Palo Alto and Sunnyvale on 100F July. I was the only one walking on the road and it is pain in ass to cross road since the traffic system is designed for cars. But I still remember vividly the scenes along El Camino Real between Palo Alto to Sunnyvale until now, even just one day in my life.
Yeah El Camino sucks (and 100F to boot, that is probably less than once a year occurrence), but it's quite nice to walk through the neighborhoods. I used to commute 10 miles from Sunnyvale to downtown PA by bike (or maybe Caltrain if the weather was bad). The first time I rode all the way on El Camino, but within a few weeks I had pieced together a route that completely avoided El Camino. I felt pretty proud of myself when I figured out all the pieces through trial and error. A few months later Google Maps added bicycle directions and nailed my route almost perfectly.
El Camino is definitely a car oriented byway, where the pedestrian is a second class citizen. Through most of the towns it passes through on the Peninsula, it has what I can only describe as an automobile-scale commercial "strip" quality.
But for the most part the cities are much more pedestrian scale and walkable just a short distance away from this road. "Never judge a city by its El Camino Real"; it's usually one of the least pleasant parts...
Not mentioned is the fact that something like 2/3 of traffic deaths in the US are pedestrians struck by vehicles. That's around 20,000 people per year.
Auto manufacturers are pretty good at protecting the people inside the car, but we're not so good at protecting pedestrians.
I'd like to see it with better UK support. My location near Clapham Junction in London scores an 93, but honestly that's a little low because this is the most insanely walkable place I can imagine. There are probably 300 shops within a quarter-mile radius, I'm two blocks from full on department stores, and there's even a Whole Foods three blocks away which is closer than I ever was to one living in Minneapolis, Santa Fe, and Mountain View (3 of the granolaiest places in America). Bus routes, I dunno, 30+? Rail links, no idea, but there are 18 platforms! Parks? 500 acres within walking distance.
"Walkers Paradise" nice. But I knew that already. Actually everything is almost too close, two food markets and five pubs within 3 blocks, so I have to circle around to get more exercise.
A great start to what looks to be a promising series of articles.
My Walk Score means a lot to me [1]; if you're looking for a new place to live, Walk Score's apartment-finding service is the best tool I know [2]. The commute times feature is a particularly interesting bit of tech.
[1] Warning: I am irretrievably biased (see my profile.)
As a kid (10-13) I was fascinated by birdwatching, and often got up early to go down to the estuaries near my house. I'd pack a lunch, my binoculars, and field guide. It was about a 4 mile walk, but to a kid, that's nothing.
One morning, a sheriff's deputy and his partner pulled up, told me to stop, and started asking me wth I was doing at 5am. They were amazed that I would get up that early to watch birds...
Nowadays my hometown is a lot more "trendy" and the estuary is surrounded by multi-million dollar homes. And I wouldn't expect that an unaccompanied minor would be greatly appreciated by the LE community, nor would a kid that age be as safe as I was.
I consider similar things to this every time I'm in a parking lot. If you think about it, all parking lots are poorly designed. It is obvious that people will need to walk to and from their cars when in a parking lot. However, you rarely see appropriate walking corridors (sidewalks, marked lanes, etc) specifically for pedestrians. This is especially noticeable, and dangerous, in the narrow confines of underground parking garages.
The bias to favor the car is clearly evident. Who is the customer? The car or the driver?
In Houston, where I grew up, older people (retirees) used to drive to their nearest indoor mall just after it opened for the day and walk laps around the inside the mall. They wanted to walk but they didn't want to do it in the heat. Some of those old guys, my grandfather included, could really move. I'm curious to know if that's still common.
It would be great if (new)cities where designed in small nucleus of 2 or 3 miles in diameter with homes around the business and commercial center, all surrounded by more or less green zones. This nucleus could be connected by subway or train. Obviously that is not going to work with old cities but here in Spain, Madrid has seen a huge grow this last decade (every thing is halted now but still you can see the town planing from the air) and the town planing has been non existent to disastrous (huge concrete islands surrounded by highways). Now you have all the inconvenience of vertical cities combined with the inconvenience of the suburbs...(No green zones, cant go walking anywhere...).
Obviously political and economical interest of the terrains to be built have priority over all this nonsense...
Part of it has to be just time. I used to walk a fair amount. A few miles a day. But as life became more busy there just wasn't time to walk to the grocery store any more - I go to the grocery store on the way back from somewhere else, because I just don't have an hour and a half to buy groceries any more.
As an aside, is anyone else annoyed by the appearance of the word "crisis" in the title of every damn news story? A crisis implies immediate danger. The lack of walking Americans is not a crisis. Global warming is not a crisis. Peak oil is not a crisis. These things are all problems, to be sure, but problems we have some time to deal with. Let's save the word for situations where it applies.
I'm currently living in the middle of Atlanta. High walk score, but walking around isn't really pleasant, and biking is less so.
I'm originally from Charleston, SC. I went back there recently because of a family member in the hospital, and I realized how much I really love that city simply because walking around and biking is so nice. The weather is nice, the streets are nice, greenspace everywhere, and you can literally walk the width of the peninsula in 15 minutes.
I am addicted to walking. Tokyo is so perfect for exploring on foot. I've thought about organizing a hike-n-hack - where a group of similar enthusiasts take their laptops and walk for an hour or two, stop to hack in a cafe for an hour or two, walk again .. Check out a gallery .. Hack again.. Walk again..
This is pretty much what I do on my days off anyway so if you're keen and in the area let me know!
Sort of related - a funny observation that might amuse Americans about us wacky Canucks:
An awful lot of Canadians, myself included, avoid drive-through ATMs, and instead park and walk into the bank. And sometimes, when the bank's busy, we walk up to the the drive-through ATM.
I did this once when I was a co-op student in Starkville, MS, and got some really, really strange looks.
Drive through ATMs? Never heard about that before. Suppose it makes sense in a drive centric area, but then I only use an ATM once or twice a year and I can walk to it if I need to.
But about the only time I do pay with cash nowadays is a drive through KFC, perhaps they dont trust people to not drive off with their portable pin&chip terminals...
My bank's branch in my neighborhood only has a drive-through ATM... and a sign disallowing pedestrians from using it. (A lot of drive-through places have such signs... liability, insurance, etc.) It's annoying. Of course, pedestrians walk up to the drive-through ATM all the time, anyway.
(By the way, I lived in Starkville in my college years, and also had some strange looks as a pedestrian...)
"Carlin Robinson, 12, walks from her grandmother's car to the school bus in Manchester, Ky. Her house can be seen in the background. A study published in 2010, investigating high obesity rates in the town found that residents used cars to minimize walking distance, to the detriment of their health."
Association != causation. While the picture this caption is from is indeed ridiculous (grandmother driving her daughter essentially to the end of her driveway for the school bus), the implication seems to be that Americans walking less somehow has a causative effect in skyrocketing obesity rates. This seems entirely wimpy and facile.
Here's an alternative: there exists an underlying metabolic disorder that develops in a large proportion of the population, in response to something new in our environment ( new compared to pre 1950's ). A major effect that this disorder has is to partition a large part of our calorie intake towards fat storage. Now we have less energy available for expenditure, and as a consequence we either eat more or behave more sedentarily. Sedentary behavior will be a compensatory effect, that will indeed associate with obesity ( as measured by observational studies, like the one mentioned).
A good candidate for such malady would be insulin resistance [1] (and more generally, metabolic syndrome); Gary Taubes makes a very compelling case [2] that this is indeed the case, and that the primary change(s) in our environment to cause these problems is our marked increase in sugar and refined carbohydrate consumption [3][4]. The same hypotheses also seem a good explanation for rising type II diabetes rates.
Now this is still a controversial topic [5], but my point this kind of explanation seems much stronger and more on-the-mark, than such flaccid ideas like 'americans are getting fat because they don't walk to school anymore'.
...the implication seems to be that Americans walking less somehow has a causative effect in skyrocketing obesity rates. This seems entirely wimpy and facile.
As for your hypothetical environmental cause, it must be extremely selective. For example, consider mixed income American neighborhoods (e.g., Harlem, Jersey City). This alleged environmental cause seems to primarily affect the lower income people. How does that happen? Are the yuppies with gym memberships and hipsters with their organic vegan raw paleo diets somehow immune?
> Are the yuppies with gym memberships and hipsters with their organic vegan raw paleo diets somehow immune?
Well, yes. As a paleo dieter, I can tell you I can't be eating more sugar than someone from the 1850s. My guess is that anyone conscious enough to be on a raw-vegan diet, doesn't either.
> This alleged environmental cause seems to primarily affect the lower income people.
My understanding is that refined carbohydrates and vegetable oils are cheap. Who was it that said that if you have $1.5 to spend on food, you're better off (calorically) buying potato chips than broccoli.
> Also, Taubes' insulin nonsense has been debunked. Lets move on.
I do suspect that it's simplistic. It's much better than the popular notion of calories-in/calories-out, though. That's why I said that it's controversial, but that it's the kind of thing, that's more on-the-mark than simply blaming sedentarity as a primary cause in obesity.
OTOH, exercise makes you hungry. What's more interesting is whether exercise is effective long-term to cure obesity. I'd suspect not alone, but that it certainly helps.
Who was it that said that if you have $1.5 to spend on food, you're better off (calorically) buying potato chips than broccoli.
High fat/high sugar foods offer the most calories/dollar. So what? If you are fat you have no reason to maximize the number of calories you consume.
Similarly, if you wanted to maximize your salt intake, you can get the most salt per dollar by buying a canister of salt.
It's much better than the popular notion of calories-in/calories-out, though.
Cals in/cals out has been validated in many controlled experiments to be a good first approximation. Taubes' insulin theories have been debunked by experiments.
Incidentally, the standard picture doesn't blame sedentarity as the sole cause of obesity. It blames the combination of sedentarity and increased caloric consumption as the cause.
But the cause, whatever it is, is highly unlikely to be some sort of metabolic disorder. Fat people have a higher metabolic rate than thin people, not a lower one. Their bodies release fat more easily into the bloodstream, contra Taubes and others. They just eat a lot more.
> High fat/high sugar foods offer the most calories/dollar. So what?
Well, the theory is that cheap vegetable oil and sugar causes these metabolic disorders which then causes obesity.
>Taubes' insulin theories have been debunked by experiments.
They're not his theories. He makes the point repeatedly in GCBC that they form part of modern, standard biochemistry. The only controversial points that he makes is that they should be applied to obesity research.
> Taubes' insulin theories have been debunked by experiments.
what are those experiments? My understanding is that carbohydrate-restricted diets generally fare better in terms of weight-loss, muscle-maintenance, and improvements in risk factors of chronic diseases:
Apparently they results are best for people who are insulin resistant, as you might expect.
"PLASMA FREE FATTY ACID TURNOVER RATE IN OBESITY"
I'm not sure exactly what that means, is this referring just to the rate at which FFAs cross fat-cell membranes, or the rate of esterification and lipolysis? Because it's the latter that Taubes argues is primarily important.
Now this is still a controversial topic [5], but my point this kind of explanation seems much stronger and more on-the-mark, than such flaccid ideas like 'americans are getting fat because they don't walk to school anymore'.
I interpreted the article's point is that people avoid any form of physical activity at all cost. One example being driving a child to the end of a driveway instead of letting them walk. If physical activity is essential to maintaining one's health, it seems this sort of decision making would be detrimental to one's health.
I don't see why this is such an awful stance to take.
It's not awful, it just seems off-the-mark. My point is that it seems avoiding physical activity at all costs is better viewed as a consequence of such a metabolic disorder, less so than a cause.
I completely agree that exercise is very important in maintaining health (exercise, especially weight-training is know to increase insulin sensitivity to some degree, for instance), I just think its role in weight-loss, for most people, is greatly exaggerated compared to fixing a diet which actively promotes fat storage (going beyond a caloric excess).
We've been telling overweight people to exercise more and eat less (esp. fat) for 40 years, it simply doesn't' seem to work [1].
Well, the main point of that article seems to be that once someone has been overweight for an extended period of time, it becomes really hard to get to and stay at a lower weight.
So, yes, it suggests that an increase in physical activity isn't an "easy" solution. However, I don't think it affects the point the article is making. People don't wake up to find themselves obese one day. It takes some time and effort to get there. And I would argue one of the biggest impacts on gaining weight is a lack of physical activity.
Not to mention that from my experience, avoiding physical activity has a self-enforcing effect. The more you avoid moving around, the more you want to avoid moving around.
One striking thing to me, as someone who spends half my time in San Francisco and half elsewhere, is how much thinner San Franciscans are than most other Americans. Now, it could be because San Franciscans eat less sugar (perhaps because they are wealthier and eat better on the whole). But the Bay Area in general is pretty wealthy, and I think you still see a lot more large people on the peninsula than in SF. The peninsula is much more car dependent. I don't think it's a coincidence, but I can't prove it either.
I think you probably don't have a good sense of just how much energy walking and other continuous small movements burn. There have several studies that showed that even different amounts of fidgeting can result in significant differences in energy usage, which correlated closely with levels of obesity.
"Overweight people have a tendency to sit, while lean ones have trouble holding still and spend two hours more a day on their feet, pacing around and fidgeting, researchers are reporting in findings published today.
"The difference translates into about 350 calories a day, enough to produce a weight loss of 30 to 40 pounds in one year without trips to the gym - if only heavy people could act more restless, like thin ones."
....
"The director of the study, Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist and nutritionist at the Mayo Clinic, said the findings offered hope to overweight people, suggesting that relatively simple and painless changes in their daily behavior, like making an effort to walk more and ride less, could help control weight."
A number of studies have shown that overweight people can make a difference just by walking around their home a bit more, and doing things in a more active way. For example, instead of sitting down to watch TV they could stand and do some ironing while watching tv. And then, when standing and ironing they can bounce a bit. Many of these seemingly trivial actions build into more exercise and better weight loss.
"Overweight people have a tendency to sit, while lean ones have trouble holding still and spend two hours more a day on their feet, pacing around and fidgeting, researchers are reporting in findings published today."
That's exactly what I'm talking about. Most of us eat plentifully. If your metabolism is up to shape, you'll spend the extra calories fidgeting. That's what a lean person is. In this paradigm, a fat person is one who partitions off calories towards fat, regardless of physical activity. He then has to match expenditure to what's left.
ridiculous (grandmother driving her daughter essentially to the end of her driveway for the school bus)
I drive my son about half a mile to the school bus every morning. One of my neighbors drives their children from the house, down the driveway to the street to the same school bus.
Their driveway is just under half a mile long!
We're not encouraging laziness: the reason I (and I suspect the neighbor also) do it is because if we just let him walk, he'd screw around and not make it to the bus on time. Eleven year-olds do stuff like that.
He walks home from the bus because it doesn't matter if it takes him a few extra minutes to get home.
Exactly. The organized sports for kids is insane in its breadth and depth. We used to play one, maybe two sports. Now normal kids are playing something most seasons. Not only are they playing, but they are going to special coaching sessions, camps, and so on. This is much more prevalent today than when I was a kid.
We had football practice twice a week (at 12 yo) with a game on Saturday.
She got a ride to the end of the driveway? Probably because she has a double-header soccer match that night. A soccer match at which some parents will get into a fistfight- but that's for another thread.
She got a ride to the end of the driveway? Probably because she has a double-header soccer match that night.
Someone athletic enough to play in a double-header soccer match wouldn't bat an eye at walking 100 feet down a driveway. As someone who played many sports in my earlier years, this line of reasoning seems completely off the mark.
I see it, though. Not quite to that exaggerated level, but not entirely hyperbolic either. It's not a matter of "they cant't do it," but "they don't have to do it." Not if an alternative is offered (and they like being with grandma anyway).
My point is that I'm not convinced that the kids are getting less exercise than previous generations. If I had to guess, I would guess they are getting more. Are they watching more TV? You bet. What they don't spend time on so much anymore are hobbies. Sports are the main hobbies of a lot of these kids.
Not for every kid, to be sure. But for a helluva lot of them.
I wonder, that no one gave a coders point of view to walking here.
I don't own a car for nearly 25 years. I'm a programmer for more than 35 years, and of course, I got a car with 18. But this first VW Golf told me a lesson, that driving a car and coding is incompatible. I crashed that car twice, after hacking through the night shift at a customer, driving home over fatigued. My second and last car was a BMW2002ti, it was fun, but hard to maintain. And I realized: I do not need a car!
Unlike other self employed, I do not need to carry heavy tools and equipment to serve my customer. And they pay for train and taxi cab, so I don't need a car to go to work. This was 25 years ago, when computer modems started to become brick size and cheap. Now I'm just 100ms away from my shop in Nashville, while sitting in Bremen Germany. A programmer does not need a car. No car could get me faster to work than the internet.
But a programmer needs a walk. Walking is like resting, for someone who sits in front of a computer while work. So I walk to buy my food, and I often just walk the imaginary dog. Walking to the lake, to my boat or to the boats house, just to relax, is one of my methods to attack difficult problems. My eyes can wander around, and legs move by them self, and my mind can drift around the problem, or even better about something completely different. I'll make a coffee, when I'm home, and often sit down immediately to code with much better productivity, than before the walk, when I was blocked. Walking is a way to get me into flow.
I'm currently living in the subs of a major German City. We have good public transport in Bremen, good bike lanes, and I'm faster to nearly anyplace in town, if I take the train, compared to car. But I also lived in the rural. Think about you have to carry your food, and your dogs food yourself over a distance of 5km/3miles, and suddenly a Pepsi becomes a luxury. Not owning a car for 25 years changed a lot of my life, not only when it comes to food, or when I comes to fitness. But most important when it comes to social life. Walking my neighborhood, to buy food, to relax, to talk with over the fence or in shop, is that part of my social life, where I can get contact with "normal" people. People who are not programmers, or belong to my peer group of friends from school, or to my yacht club.
I'm living in a cheap area, because I'm self employed, and reducing monthly cost, increases the runway. I'm not shy talking to a junky on the street. Well I have long hairs, beard and a hoodie also. The kids on the street greet me in the 'right' way to show respect. I helped people moving in, and often stay for a short barbecue or grill in neighbors gardens on my way home. Its important for a community that there is life outside the walls. That neighbors watch each other, especially in the cheaper areas. My ghetto is a good one. E.g. we have a new neighbor since January. An 82 year old lady from California, who came back to Germany because of health (insurance), and because she ran out of money. I saw her first when it was freezing cold, and she was standing there, in her plain white thin clothes in the supermarket. Half of the flats of my U-block here are rented out to Wohnungshilfe, a department of social welfare who have flats, for those who are in need, and can not find a flat on the normal market. Those could be people coming from jail, or in this case a bankrupt woman from California. It took less than 3 hours, to get her some warm clothes, a bed and warm blankets, and some furniture. I visit here regular, because our supermarket that is a mile away has no penut butter.
I own a small parcel in San Antioco, a Sardian island, and the people there have a special tradition called Passagiata. Every day after lunch, they walk the main street, up and down, again and again. Greet each other, talk a bit, drink a coffee or smoke a cigarette.
This kind of Mediterranean art of life is utterly lost in most modern cities. A suburb where people no longer walk, and talk, lost its soul and became a zombie of a town.
I walk to work every day in seven minutes[1]. The city maintains a large forested park that is a 5 minute walk from main street.
Every single weekend I walk to one of the fine cafes that exist on or around main street for breakfast. On workdays at lunch I have a wide array of restaurants, all within very reasonable walking distance. I purchase the fine beers I drink from the same building I work in[2].
Simply taking walks I can peruse downtown, or head north to the historic district and walk among the Victorian-era houses (I am living in one, built 1840, renting out the extra rooms to friends to make a kind of communal house), or I can go to the northern park and follow rail tracks through the woods, maybe swim in the Merrimack river (dangerous to amateurs but very fun), or go to Mine Falls by main street and stroll through the surprisingly deep woods in the heart of the little city.
I can go days without needing to use my car. I see walking as the norm in my life. My friends treat it as an eccentric novelty. I fear the day that I won't be able to walk to work anymore, and the simple walkable pleasures of my town are a big factor in not taking a job in SV.
Suburbs don't have to be horrible places, but as designed they seem very lacking.
[1] http://g.co/maps/8kvxg
[2] Warning, a lot of NH businesses have websites stuck in 1995! http://www.boomchugalug.com/