[–] frailsnail 0 points 12 points 12 points (+12|-0) ago
Live in a city with a walking culture, a mile isn't anything. TBH, if it's warm and comfortably, would rather walk than drive because of the traffic conditions. I guess it depends on where you're from. Some more rural areas don't even have sidewalks for you to walk on.
There's actually a whole history on why some cities have a walking culture and others don't. Some urban developers in the past thought cars were the future of cities, so development of some cities were car-focused.
[–] KnobJockey [S] 0 points 6 points 6 points (+6|-0) ago
That's exactly as it is here, except basically every where has a walking culture.
I guess America could build cities around cars since its such a young country.
[–] ChanceofRain 0 points 7 points 7 points (+7|-0) ago
That is a very interesting field of study. There is some great reading on how Paris was transformed to accommodate modern vehicles. Entire historical neighborhoods were removed in the process. Check out the book How Cities Are Saved by Herbert Lottman (1976) if you can.
[–] frailsnail 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Yeah! And, those cities are just old enough to be born from the car age. More modern cities have a focus on walking now, thank god.
Question: where are you from?
[–] UnspeakableMe ago (edited ago)
It's not that our major cities were necessarily built around cars, it's that the world frequently misunderstands the importance of the Interstate Highway System and the changes it brought to American life after World War 2. The Eisenhower Interstate Highway Project was arguably the largest public works expenditure in the history of all of mankind costing over 450 BILLION dollars in today's money. It fundamentally altered the nature of living in America and introduced the inevitable downfall of American city life of the time. Large cities that had been artfully and intelligently designed around public transportation found entire neighborhoods destroyed and all their plans overridden as the new megahighways stretched to connect the major manufacturing and economic centers that the United States might need to defend in case of invasion from abroad. As their internal transportation networks and walking communities were destroyed the ability to move outside of the congestion and "just down the highway" led to the massive outflow of upper class tax bases to an ever expanding outer ring of suburbs. These new suburbs, having been born from upper class people with cars to drive in to their high-paying city jobs, were always designed with the car as the main form of transport.
Combine this with the nature of American life being fundamentally shifted to focus on consumption and you have the recipe for disaster we're in. Instead of getting together to do things we get together to watch things. Instead of going for a walk in the park we go for a walk in the mall. Instead of banding together to help raise a barn we band together to help support charity drives for medical expenses. We're living off the last vestiges of the largest windfall in human history that was ours to collect after the devastation of World War 2 left every other country on the face of the Earth ravaged and rebuilding, and sooner than we think the vaults will be empty.
[–] Antima 0 points 7 points 7 points (+7|-0) ago
You have to remember that America has a lot of rural areas. Not every town or city was designed for walking. Just an example the town I live in only has sidewalks on main street. Couple this with bad weather like snow and ice and walking in the road is bad for pedestrians and drivers. Also consider that most places I need to go are much more than a mile away. If I'm going down the street to a friends house I could walk but there is very little to find in that mile radius near my house. It is very different in the cities at least on the east coast where the cities weren't built around cars. Most people walk everywhere in the city.
[–] Zyaode 0 points 6 points 6 points (+6|-0) ago
Depends on where you are - refusal to walk is generally found in our suburbs in my experience, generally due to poor city planning. The example I really remember was having to drive about 200 meters to get smokes because there was no path that didnt involve crossing a busy road, and there wasnt even a sidewalk.
Cities are generally better but the culture in some suburbs is that if it's farther away than a football field, time to hop into the car.
[–] ChanceofRain 0 points 5 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago
There's also saying that goes Britons think 200 miles is a long way, while Americans think 200 years is a long time.
[–] PM_ME_YOUR_BOOBS2 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
200 miles is nothing. You can do that in like 3.5 hours in good traffic
[–] cabbagesandkings 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
My walk to work is a half mile. I've done it every day for so long that it doesn't feel like much anymore, but I've noticed that it seems a lot longer to people who drive often. I think it's all relative. Where I live the downtown area is very walker-centric but there is a lot of urban sprawl that you'd never be able to get to without a car.
Fun fact: the original Wendy's location in Columbus, OH closed permanently in 2007. The reason? Lack of parking/drive-thru meant they couldn't generate enough sales to keep the place open. Nobody is walking to Wendy's.
[–] G4 1 point 20 points 21 points (+21|-1) ago
A mile is far enough to where I would rather drive. It's not long as in strenuous or anything, just tedious when compared to driving the same distance
[–] KnobJockey [S] 0 points 7 points 7 points (+7|-0) ago
Yeh I can understand that. Out of curiosity, do you live in a built up or rural area?
[–] G4 1 point 13 points 14 points (+14|-1) ago
Middle of nowhere man. Imagine the middle of the desert where Walter and Jessie cooked in Breaking Bad. Season 1.