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The slow death of purposeless walking

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#141

Post by aaron987 »

I am an avid walker. Even when I was a kid, I would go for long walks. My parents never worried about me, because I always came back, sometimes after walking for 4 or 5 hours. I would sit in the woods and watch birds. Sometimes I would find myself sitting in a park. Other times I would walk around in cemeteries (they are actually great places to walk. They have paved roads but no traffic).

There was this homeless guy who sometimes sat next to one of the places I would walk past. I guess he eventually got curious, so one day he asked where I am always going. I said, "I don't know. I'll find out when I get there".

In college, people would spend the morning cramming for a big test. I would just go for a walk. At that point, I either knew the test material or I didn't, and destressing was more important.

To this day, I walk a lot, even in the middle of winter in Fargo. I turn my phone off and leave everything else at home. I don't even take my wallet. If I don't have money, it eliminates the urge to run into a gas station and grab some milk, or take care of other errands.

Walking is my meditation, therapy, and medication. My friends and family know when I haven't walked that morning because I get cranky and/or depressed.

It is such a shame that our culture does not allow walking for various reasons. Some places don't have sidewalks. Some places have too much traffic. Other places are just not safe. It really is sad. I wonder how many of our problems could be solved if more people just took a chill pill and went for a walk once in awhile.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#142

Post by themoonbus »

jmzbond wrote: post #120
themoonbus wrote: post #39

As some one who currently works from home, a "purposeless" walk is how I start and end my work day – I think of it as my "commute". Walking clears my head, gets me outside for a bit, and helps me separate my home life from my work life. For me, those walks might not be a necessity, but they are definitely not without purpose.

But as you say it's a purposeful walk to commute to/from work no? I wonder what % of people truly do the purposeless, I'm going outside for a walk, kind of walk... I know I never do that. I walk to get somewhere, I walk to show friends the city, I walk while meeting with someone, but never walk just to walk.

I work from home – my commute starts and ends in the same place, so it is walking for the sake of walking.

I also grew up doing it, so that might have something to do with it.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#143

Post by grobot »

Interested to know if any other visitors from here were presented with an SSL cert selection dialog for beta.bbc.co.uk:443 on visiting this article - "Select a certificate" not something I've seen before.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dedkeid58gj7bln/Screenshot%202014-...

Selecting the DigiCert option delivered a Keychain popup asking me for "privateKey", which kept presenting itself on being deny, deny, denied.

(Chrome/OSX)

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#144

Post by minor_nitwit »

SonicSoul wrote: post #91

Very few people, particularly in cities, are obliged to do much of it at all. Cars, bicycles, buses, trams, and trains all beckon. I think they got it backwards. It's suburbia that let's you use your car door to door. I haven't done the study, but based on my observations walking is one of the favorite activities of inhabitants of my city. In fact people come from far away just to spend the day walking around. Some i…

The article also says that just 17% of walks are made for the pleasure of walking. That sounds like a good number to me, should I expect a third of the people I see to be going nowhere?

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#145

Post by jrockway »

mattjaynes wrote: post #135

Was living in NYC and absolutely loved being able to walk everywhere and not own a car. The last few months I've been in US suburbia though (Texas/Utah) and it seems actively hostile towards walkers in many places. Sometimes there's sidewalks, but often they're not continuous and just end for no apparent reason. You then have to walk in the road next to the cars for a ways and hope the sidewalk starts up again. Even…

This is exactly how I feel when I visit Mountain View for work. Why are the parking lots in front of the store and not in the back? Why do I have to walk through a sea of parked cars to get to my building? It's all very strange to me.

I also noticed the suspicious looks for my terrible crime of not owning a car after dark.

My conclusion: not the place for me.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#146

Post by intractable »

The article brings to mind this wonderful short story by Ray Bradbury, "Pedestrian" [1]

    "What are you doing out?"
    "Walking," said Leonard Mead.
    "Walking!"
    "Just walking," he said simply, but his face felt cold.
    "Walking, just walking, walking?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Walking where? For what?"
    "Walking for air. Walking to see."
[1] http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by-bradbury-1...

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#147

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

mattjaynes wrote: post #135

Was living in NYC and absolutely loved being able to walk everywhere and not own a car. The last few months I've been in US suburbia though (Texas/Utah) and it seems actively hostile towards walkers in many places. Sometimes there's sidewalks, but often they're not continuous and just end for no apparent reason. You then have to walk in the road next to the cars for a ways and hope the sidewalk starts up again. Even…

This is why everyone's trying to cram into San Francisco. It's extremely walkable. At some point Americans decided to abandon the walkable city that was designed by thousand year old civilizations and spread out like crazy. Thus requiring cars. Now people are realizing why driving everywhere isn't such a good idea.

Trust is also increasingly disappearing in America and the car, gated communities, and spread out maze-like suburbs are what people put in front to make themselves feel safe.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#148

Post by ahi »

mattjaynes wrote: post #135

Was living in NYC and absolutely loved being able to walk everywhere and not own a car. The last few months I've been in US suburbia though (Texas/Utah) and it seems actively hostile towards walkers in many places. Sometimes there's sidewalks, but often they're not continuous and just end for no apparent reason. You then have to walk in the road next to the cars for a ways and hope the sidewalk starts up again. Even…

There are still some small cities in the midwest that are both cheap and walkable. Look for college towns for cities that arent completely rundown nd rusted away.
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