Originally Posted by
JonathanGennick
I walk often to get around when I travel -- sometimes a couple or three miles one-way.
Areas built out during the 1970s and later are pretty much awful. Sidewalks randomly start and stop, one is forced to walk in breakdown lanes, poles come up in the middle of narrow sidewalks, walk buttons are fifteen or 20 feet from intersections one wishes to cross, buildings are built with their butt-ends toward the streets.
Getting between neighboring businesses sometimes requires climbing grassy embankments, walking through weed and debris filled open space, and I've even climbed banks of rip-rap-rock to get where I'm going.
Chicago's Loop and New York's Manhattan are nirvana by comparison.
Originally Posted by
Steely Dan
i admire your adventurous spirit, but your post exemplifies why i so greatly enjoy living in an urban city neighborhood with a fully interconnected street grid where there's no such thing a street without a sidewalk for miles in any direction around me.
i would feel so locked-in and isolated if i had to live in an area like my sister's where a simple walk to pick-up a 6 pack of beer is such a time-consuming ordeal that no one in practice ever actually does it. everything is so far away from everything else that everyone just drives everywhere anyway, so why even bother to provide consistent pedestrian infrastructure.
cars, CARS, CARS!
I incessantly post about Boston as a walking "nirvana,” as often as [MENTION=195860]Steely Dan[/MENTION] touts Chicago, and decries other American cities.
Originally Posted by
jon c.
People walk a lot more in places where there is somewhere to walk. But in much of the US, housing is relatively far from anywhere people want to go. And if you want to walk from your home to a nearby restaurant and that involves crossing a six lane highway and walking across a large parking lot, the journey is much less appealing.
Some cities are seeing revitalization of urban neighborhoods that allow people to walk to shops and restaurants. But these will never accommodate more than a small percentage of the population.
The best way to encourage people to do things without a car is to put those things closer to their homes.
But the US has developed in such a way that it's now much harder to do that
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
Some cities never lost those neighborhoods, like Boston.
It seems to me that
in order to be an attractive place to support a variety of restaurants and shops to which to walk (and not drive to visit that neighborhood0…
a neighborhood must be a large area with a substantial, dense population living there, likely that evolved in the pre-automotive era.
I think a lot of urban revitalization projects tend to create enclaves as driving destinations to walk around in such large cities like in my native Detroit
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
I often tout Boston as the epitome of LCF/LCL in America, not to brag, but illustrate the possibilities. When I take visitors on a 4-5 mile walking tour of downtown Boston, I introduce it with this explanation:
Several years ago, the architectural critic of the Boston Globe, Robert Campbell, was visiting Southfield, Michigan, a town I know well, and described it as the “City of Towers and Cars” (including “busy highways and vast parking lots" [and tall office buildings, and sprawling office and retail parks]).
In his article, he contrasted that that to the “City of Outdoor Rooms” (Boston) which is visited as one would visit a person’s home, passing through the various portals, from room to room, admiring the furnishings within.
That’s the motif I use on my tours as we start in the Back Bay, and pass through the Public Garden, Boston Common, Washington St and Quincy Market, the North End, Beacon Hill and back to Back Bay. The walk becomes the destination.
The black line on the street map represents one (1) mile.
Last edited by Jim from Boston; 12-04-18 at 10:38 AM.
Reason: added maps