Walking is one of the most natural activities of our species. But it doesn’t seem that way for everyone. A year ago, after Donald Trump pressured his limousine driver to take him to his supporters on the day of the Assault on Capitol Hill, he was told that there was no way they would drive him there. He had the option of walking, but he decided against it. On another, more recent occasion, laughed at Biden for getting on a bike. She said no one would ever see him pedaling. Not using the car has become an identity issue in the US.
In fact, car dependency seems to be the main cause of a sad distinction that makes the US the industrialized country where people walk the least.
Some days ago, the debate came to Twitter from the hand of a simply incredible video. A man gave a series of advice to Americans who were encouraged to visit Europe. The best of them: “learn to walk first”. Quite an unknown revelation for Europeans: knowing that Americans literally practice their way of walking before visiting our continent.
funniest revelation of the week was learning that americans literally practice their walking before visiting europe pic.twitter.com/SFXM4UqbjF
— Europe Defender 🇪🇺🇺🇦 (@oroborous) June 26, 2022
also recently, another user argued that many Europeans may not understand the extent to which many North American cities are a kind of collection of roads and distant recreation spaces each other and low rise sheds with plenty of parking. Let’s go, non-places made municipalities.
He explained that it’s impossible to understand why ordinary European street photos continue to go viral in the US until you realize that a lot of America’s “city centers” look like this:
To enter the debate, you must first understand why Americans are such a sedentary society. Or what has forced them to be. An interesting article by Tom Vanderbilt, entitled The American Walking Crisis, mentioned that in 1969 half of American children walked to school, but by 2001 only 13% did. It’s no wonder then that data from the National Survey of Youth Physical Fitness shows that only 25% of 12-15 year olds get the required 60 minutes of daily physical activity.
There is more data: only 7% of American adults walk 10,000 steps a day. The country has the lowest rate of pedestrians, cyclists or users of public transport: 8% of all trips. The average citizen walks 140 km a year compared to 382 for Europeans. And finally, in the US, motor vehicles are used in 55% of trips of 0.5 km in length and in 85% of 1 km.
Not only is it more polluted, but many of the physical and cognitive benefits that a good walk provides are lost: walking 10 kilometers a week is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s, helps improve academic performance and reduces depression. And what is more important: it allows you to go from point A to point B on your own, without needing anything or anyone.
Despite these advantages, America has said goodbye to walking
Why?
Mainly because public attitudes towards pedestrians differ greatly between dense and well-connected areas and areas where it is difficult to get around without a car. In an article titled 5 reasons why walking around your city (probably) sucksit is mentioned that walking “doesn’t make sense” for many Americans. Basically because most of its cities have been designed in an uncontrolled way, with infrastructures that are very separate from each other. Homes and shops (supermarkets, post offices, etc.) are very far from each other.
This is common in most cities in a country that followed a combination of federal housing policy, single-use zoning, and where there is great influence from the automobile lobby. Additionally, in many states, walkable infrastructure is unsafe and unfinished. For example, there are many streets where sidewalks suddenly disappear, pushing pedestrians into traffic. Others are poorly paved or covered with dirt and grass.
in your article The city and nothing, Roger Senserrich spoke of the fact that the number of paved lots in many municipalities is comically excessive, drowning out any possibility that there is no one walking on their streets. He illustrated it like this: In the US there are 296 square meters of paved or cemented surface per inhabitant. In Spain there are 178.
Finally, it has gotten to the point where walking has cultural stigmas. Just as riding a bicycle is believed to be only for poor people, walking around the city also carries others. The inhabitants are perceived as too poor to have a car or too rich. Remember that it is the wealthiest who can afford to live in the pedestrianized urban places that are springing up across the country.
As the study authors wrote Poverty of the Carless: Toward Universal Auto Access in 2019, “The US has built a vast and comprehensive public infrastructure that allows, and often requires, most people to drive in most places. Yet each year, about one in 10 households (and sometimes more ) cannot access that public infrastructure because they cannot afford the large private investment that it requires.”
So they avoid it. For many Americans, walking is just transportation (after the car, of course), not recreation. Walking for exercise is a great thing, but for many people, the ability to walk is just one more obligation. And of course, they come here and hallucinate.
Images: Google Maps/Unsplash