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Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

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Re: Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

#121

Post by rags2riches »

Nihilartikel wrote: post #2

This is probably one of my favorite activities in foreign cities - walk or take public transportation aimlessly for a few hours. Buy a snack that catches my eye, or find a cafe or pub to linger at long enough to see the ebb and flow of foot traffic. Directed tourism is fine, but seeing a few randomly sampled slices of a culture and place gives the experience 'roots' for me in some intangible way.

I'd like to put a word in for the early morning walk. Before the streets are crowded and all business is happening. There will still be a interesting activity to observe as the city wakes up and begins preparation for the new day. Maybe you'll find out where the cabbies meet and what they do to pass the slower hours. Who buys the first bread when the bakeries open. In some cities, there may be animals about that would wouldn't see during the day!

Re: Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

#122

Post by rags2riches »

gffrd wrote: post #64
dhosek wrote: post #14

There’s a lot to be said for serendipity. I occasionally do walks where at every intersection, I randomly select a direction to go (left/right/straight—I use a dice app on my phone to keep things random). It takes me places that I might not otherwise go. Another thing I did along these lines was I had a project when I lived in Santa Monica where I walked streets end-to-end in alphabetical order. I got up to the D’s a…

Love the random direction choosing: it's good to choose to see/experience difference. Even just passing down the other side of the street / coming at the same one from the opposite direction you experience such different things … How I do it: if I feel a "pull" toward a certain direction (often due to familiarity / urge to 'get back'), I'll go the another direction … just to show the subconscious who's boss.

> just to show the subconscious who's boss.

That's just your consciousness putting together the same old story where it's always in control knows why you did what you did!

Re: Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

#124

Post by autoexec »

impossiblefork wrote: post #120
autoexec wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not the physique / weight but the intent, which is some kind of sexual harassment at a minimum. that seems like a weird take. Most of the time I'd think people wandering unfamiliar streets will be accosted by assholes looking for money than looking for someone to sexually harass. Even catcallers will have various motivations which might not involve intent to sexually harass (even though that's usually the eff…

>Still, I'd feel way more comfortable as a 60kg woman who was fit and knew how to defend herself than I would as a 60kg man who had no idea how to fight and little muscle. Generally, even in this situation, men are more able to defend themselves. Women have 60-70% of the upper body strength of a man of the same weight.(see https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/brzycki/fi... )

I imagine that just demonstrating that you're ready and able to fight would be enough to dissuade an attacker who was just looking for an easy mark, but even if they persist I'm not sure raw strength would necessarily win out over skill and stamina. I suppose it's a matter of how skilled and how athletic/healthy you are vs the person you'd be fighting. I doubt I'd find a decent answer to the question though. I'm not sure it could be researched ethically and even it could, what would a representative sample of street muggers and rapists even look like? It might need to include everything from gangbangers and strung out junkies to drunken frat boys and mentally ill homeless people.

Re: Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

#125

Post by freetanga »

smugma wrote: post #78
clairity wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fear is mostly irrational, as people are generally bad at perceiving risk objectively. statistics show that nearly all cities and neighborhoods are generally quite safe for casual visitors and residents alike. vehicular accidents are more likely than violent confrontation, for instance, yet no one bats an eye at getting into a car. even in the rare occasion of some type of confrontation, most people want to resolve i…

I accidentally walked through a Rio favela one evening. Never ran into anyone and didn’t realize it until the next day when I was looking at a map. But I believe by most accounts, that was foolish and lucky. Crime, including robbery and kidnapping, is quite common in Rio. It’s common for nice buildings to have armed guards outside them. I’m American so I’d love to hear locals tell me how wrong/right my belief of luck…

As someone who lived for a few years as an expat in Brazil, you got really lucky. I spent a lot of time on the streets, with nothing but a short, a t-shirt, and havaianas, and I speak Spanish and Portuguese, and even so I would try to avoid crossing a Rio favela as much as possible.

We are talking of a city where mobs close a highway tunnel with automatic guns, stop traffic, and rob every car stuck in the tunnel. On broad daylight. Life is not worth much, neither theirs nor yours.

Maybe before heading out, memorise a few no-go zones next time?

Re: Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

#126

Post by notahacker »

robocat wrote: post #86
suscialmadia wrote: post #42

We have a similar word in English, "perambulating". The Brits sometimes call it "rambling", as well. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/perambulate

As a New Zealander, I wouldn’t say either of those words were similar, although I admit our usage of English is special. My naive interpretation of those words is: perambulate is closer to just walking; rambling is a country walk with the sense of avoiding normal walking routes, but often planned and often walking with others (really need UK person to clarify). Wander or meander-through have the sense of randomness,…

Brit here: can confirm that rambling generally implies countryside walking (perhaps a bit slower and less purposefully than hiking or trekking). Perambulation sounds a bit Victorian and tends to imply walking in some sort of defined circuit. Strolling might be closer but also doesn't really imply paying much attention to surroundings.

Re: Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

#127

Post by impossiblefork »

autoexec wrote: post #124
impossiblefork wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Still, I'd feel way more comfortable as a 60kg woman who was fit and knew how to defend herself than I would as a 60kg man who had no idea how to fight and little muscle. Generally, even in this situation, men are more able to defend themselves. Women have 60-70% of the upper body strength of a man of the same weight.(see https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/brzycki/fi... )

I imagine that just demonstrating that you're ready and able to fight would be enough to dissuade an attacker who was just looking for an easy mark, but even if they persist I'm not sure raw strength would necessarily win out over skill and stamina. I suppose it's a matter of how skilled and how athletic/healthy you are vs the person you'd be fighting. I doubt I'd find a decent answer to the question though. I'm not…

Strength is critical in fighting. I have assumed that even an expert can't go up against people in different weight classes in fighting sports, and that basic skill is something that all sporty people have.

Re: Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

#128

Post by clairity »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #110
clairity wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fear is mostly irrational, as people are generally bad at perceiving risk objectively. statistics show that nearly all cities and neighborhoods are generally quite safe for casual visitors and residents alike. vehicular accidents are more likely than violent confrontation, for instance, yet no one bats an eye at getting into a car. even in the rare occasion of some type of confrontation, most people want to resolve i…

Statistics often miss a huge amount of threatening behaviour, and in many countries you just outright cannot trust the stats at all. Plus, people will take more precautions in areas that are genuinely more dangerous - if they didn't, the statistics would look much worse. In general I think people are actually quite good at perceiving the risk present to them. That doesn't mean 'always correct' but it does mean 'has a…

no, people are mostly terrible at perceiving actual risk vs. the imagined, because evolutionarily, it was much less harmful to get it wrong one way than the other. we humans no longer live in a world of such unpredictable mortality. and even if imprecise, statistics provide relevant information, especially on relative and general magnitude. moreover, serious crimes are the ones most likely to be reported, and therefore having more accurate stats, so survivorship bias isn't a significant factor.

humans consistently overestimate the dangers of the unknown and consistently underestimate the dangers of the known, often by orders of magnitude. we're also wired to be highly overconfident in our estimations of just about anything. your conjectures include prime examples of such mis-estimation, e.g., "much greater risk" and "hundreds of times more dangerous", implying all that avoidance behavior is justified. but death by firearm, for instance, is caused 90+% of the time by the self or familiars, yet we spend all of our time and resources worrying about strangers and extremely rare scenarios (armed robbery, home invasion, mass shootings, terrorism, etc.) rather than the common (suicide, accidental shooting, crimes of passion, etc.). mostly, we worry about the wrong things most of the time.

Re: Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

#129

Post by nicbou »

mym1990 wrote: post #19

I think(at least in America, or less walkable cities) this is becoming a lost art. So many of my friends simply can't imagine what an hour or two might look like without being preoccupied by something. Walking to them is a boring activity, a pointless one. But when I do it, its almost like my mind just explodes with creativity, I notice the smallest details that would otherwise pass me by. And its a great form of low…

That's because walking sucks in most of North America. My home town doesn't even bother with sidewalks in many places. You have loud roads with giant parking lots and quiet neighborhoods with only houses and no businesses. The countryside is all fenced up, so you can't just walk between fields and into forests. You pretty much need to drive to a park.

I can't speak for all of Europe, but Germany has a gigantic network of bicycle and foot paths where you can be truly in nature. Cities have mixed housing with cafés, pubs and other businesses. The countryside is criss-crossed with quiet paths that are accessible to all.

I couldn't pinpoint why I enjoy Canada less and less until I realised how flânerie became ingrained in my habits in Germany. I just pack water, snacks and a notebook and bike around all day. I meet friends in cafés, read by the river, eat pastries in parks etc. That's simply not doable in large parts of NA.

Re: Flânerie: The Art of Aimless Strolling

#130

Post by uoaei »

FredPret wrote: post #94
uoaei wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what of the bias that says "every city that I deem 'unsafe' is indeed unsafe"?

You can look at the murder rate per 100k people and draw a conclusion, all without any bias.

This assumes that the sample of murders over the population is uniformly distributed. But I think it's very obvious this is not the case!

Would you please read up on the kinds and degrees of relationships between perpetrator and victim in the statistics? You will find that the vast majority of cases involve two people who already have a prior relationship, and typically a close relationship either in a social or business sense.

Random murders happen so rarely, you can be confident in the assumption that your family is safe unless you get involved with some sketchy people. But then, it's your responsibility to avoid those people, not the city's job to do that work for you.

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