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How to Take a Walk

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121–130 of 191 posts

Re: How to Take a Walk

#121
post #75
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get really infuriated by the phrase "too much time on their hands", when used to dismiss acts of creativity (like building a model of the Eiffel tower out of match sticks). At least they weren't watching TV.

Some TV shows might be more worthwhile than building an Eiffel tower out of match sticks.

I still have to find one.

Re: How to Take a Walk

#122
post #30

I grew up in a SW Portland neighborhood with no sidewalks. The road shoulders were narrow, unsafe, and often muddy. I never saw people out for leisure walks. It just wasn't enjoyable. Now I live in the outskirts of Portland, in a place with modern suburbs grown up around a quaint old town. Sidewalks are everywhere. I take walks all the time, and I see other people out for walks daily. It's seems like common sense tha…

Woah, we've had some 'pack 'em in' zoning here in New Zealand but I've never seen anything where they left out footpaths entirely. Has anyone got a representative Google street view link for SW Portland or something similar? (And is this really quite common across the US?)

It's rare to have connected walkways in the US. They often stop suddenly on their trail off to nowhere, have big gaps between disconnected sections, lead up to bridges that are meant for driving on, etc.

Re: How to Take a Walk

#123
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2007/01/04/eiffel-tower-m...

I was with Tichy until I saw that link. Amazing work.

Amazing, indeed.

It's too bad the guy did the illumination with LEDs, instead of using matches for that, too. (Although that would have worked only once.)

Re: How to Take a Walk

#124
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the American suburbia I know best. Falls Church VA. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... Portland is not a good example of American urban planning gone awry. As it's probably one of the most sensible cities in the US. And yes, unfortunately neighborhoods without sidewalks are all too common in American suburbs.

So you need to trespass through people's gardens to walk down the street? Or do people just walk in the street?

In the suburbs you can walk in the street or through people's yards ("gardens") along the edges and no one really minds. Everyone tends drive instead, though, since there aren't any well-connected walkways that lead to any place you'd really like to get to.

Re: How to Take a Walk

#125
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the American suburbia I know best. Falls Church VA. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... Portland is not a good example of American urban planning gone awry. As it's probably one of the most sensible cities in the US. And yes, unfortunately neighborhoods without sidewalks are all too common in American suburbs.

So you need to trespass through people's gardens to walk down the street? Or do people just walk in the street?

In general, people do not walk down the street at all. I used to live in a place that looked a bit like this (except spread out a bit more) in Alabama, and while you'd once in a while see someone walking down the street, it was pretty rare except for kids too young to have cars (under 16, basically).

Re: How to Take a Walk

#126

"You will not sweat." The author has clearly never lived in Texas during the summer. (A decent-length leisurely walk around Austin at midnight during this time of the year will inevitably result in more than enough sweat.)

I am in decent shape and I've always sweated when I go outside in the summer, particularly at midday. I have to plan my walks around this so that I don't stink up the office when I'm done.

Edit: I live in Tennessee.

Re: How to Take a Walk

#127
post #30

I grew up in a SW Portland neighborhood with no sidewalks. The road shoulders were narrow, unsafe, and often muddy. I never saw people out for leisure walks. It just wasn't enjoyable. Now I live in the outskirts of Portland, in a place with modern suburbs grown up around a quaint old town. Sidewalks are everywhere. I take walks all the time, and I see other people out for walks daily. It's seems like common sense tha…

Woah, we've had some 'pack 'em in' zoning here in New Zealand but I've never seen anything where they left out footpaths entirely. Has anyone got a representative Google street view link for SW Portland or something similar? (And is this really quite common across the US?)

My mother-in-law lives in a neighborhood with no sidewalk. However, it's got very little traffic, and it's a 20mph zone. When we go for a walk, we just walk on the street. A good number of people in the neighborhood do the same.

A sidewalk is not always needed to have a good walk.

Re: How to Take a Walk

#129
post #9

I liked the article; it expressed something that had been lingering on the edges of my subconscious, but that I had never brought to light - like most good articles do. What I don't see is why it had to have an anti-American bias. It doesn't help make your point, and all it does is antagonize your American readers. I am an American, I also take walks.

I disliked the part where he assumes he can tell where someone is born by looking at them. :( I wonder if he thinks he looks like a native-born or an immigrant?

"The gesticulations and facial expressions with which an American will supplement his English are as distinctively American as those of a Frenchman are distinctively French. One can tell the nationality of a stranger by his gestures as readily as by his language. In a vague, general way I had become aware of this before, probably from contact with some American-born Jews whose gesticulations, when they spoke Yiddish, impressed me as utterly un-Yiddish. And so I studied Bender's gestures almost as closely as I did his words."

Abraham Cahan, _The Rise of David Delinsky_, published 1920s, set in the New York of the late 1800s & early 1900s.

Re: How to Take a Walk

#130
post #30

I grew up in a SW Portland neighborhood with no sidewalks. The road shoulders were narrow, unsafe, and often muddy. I never saw people out for leisure walks. It just wasn't enjoyable. Now I live in the outskirts of Portland, in a place with modern suburbs grown up around a quaint old town. Sidewalks are everywhere. I take walks all the time, and I see other people out for walks daily. It's seems like common sense tha…

In my neighborhood (Washington, DC area) some residents recently objected to plans to install a sidewalk along the main drag because "the drivers don't need any more distractions than they already have". We're moving in two weeks, hallelujah!
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