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The slow death of purposeless walking

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#181

Post by mapt »

coldpie wrote: post #166
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…

> Even if there are sidewalks, there seems to be a unspoken "don't walk at night" rule even in safe neighborhoods. If I do walk at night, I get suspicious looks. I've encountered this, too. My solution is to use a flashlight. I don't even aim it where I'm looking as I want to keep my night vision, I just aim it at my feet as I walk. This announces my presence to anyone nearby, so I don't suddenly surprise them or mak…

I had a stretch where I was very fond of walking around my neighborhood at night - the quiet, the lack of cars, the wildlife.

A flashlight is going to destroy what little night vision the streetlamps have left you with, and make you blind to the world.

Try a cheap, bright orange/yellow reflective vest - it serves the same purpose.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#182

Post by egypturnash »

throw7 wrote: post #170

Ughh. A corner strip mall opened recently in my area and plopped down a parking lot with no sidewalks abutting the side streets (there are planters directly between the lot and street). There is no safe walkable way to get to/through this area. It's really depressing.

Walk through the planters!

I may be crazy.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#183

Post by egypturnash »

JacksonGariety wrote: post #116
debt wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, you just gotta smoke the right stuff. Sometimes that paranoia is what makes it interesting; reveals the contours of your mind. You get a sense of your personality you never had before.

> never had before You don't understand, you just don't. People who smoke and get paranoid get it all the time.

I get paranoid when I smoke. I've found that some strains do it a lot more than others; I gravitate towards indices rather than sativas, and up strains high in CBD.

I have also learnt to watch the paranoia pass through me without giving in to it. There's a sense of "oh hi you again. Sigh." when it comes.

I do also have the luxury of living in Seattle, where I can buy a particular strain out of a wide selection, instead of being stuck with "whatever my buddy scored".

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#184

Post by anatoly »

hessenwolf wrote: post #154

Please tell me you saw the /r/unitedkingdom thread where somebody suggested replacing walking with wanking? A great information theory example of what happens when two codes are too close together; walk is one letter away from wank, so a single-letter error changes the meaning completely, but leaves the message still hysterically sensible and readable.

It also works with most comments here!

Whoever thought this up is a genius. Thanks for brightening my day.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#185

Post by twistedpair »

thenipper wrote: post #37
throwaway13qf85 wrote: post #23

I'm not going to claim that it improves my creativity or makes me a better person, but for the last few years I've generally taken at least a half hour out of the middle of my workday to walk (I'm lucky enough to work next to a park). It massively improves my mood, and I'd fight hard against giving it up. There was a tube (underground metro) strike in London the past few days, so I walked to work, leaving my apartmen…

I walk 45 minutes to and from work each day along a beautiful tree lined street. It is a great way to start the day and then to transition back into home life, sort of a metaphorical journey to leave my work problems at work.

Comm Ave to the Public Garden and through the Common each day to work. Pity so many people will spend their free hours in cars and underground.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#186

Post by jefurii »

rwhitman wrote: post #179
bunderbunder wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point I finally realized that most cities in the US are designed for cars, not humans. I still haven't figured out why humans who live in the USA aren't bothered by this. They really seem to enjoy living in the thrall of their 4-wheeled overlords. They'll even arrange their lives to ensure that the car gets upwards of an hour of exercise per day, at great great financial cost to themselves. Oftentimes to the…

Great book on the cars-first disaster of urban planning that I read years ago if you're interested: http://www.amazon.com/The-Geography-Nowhere-Americas-Landsca...

I heard horror stories of Japanese salarymen living in monotonous apartment blocks, returning to the wrong apartment by accident if they didn't pay attention. But American suburbs are just like that: block after block of identical houses, the same 1-n designs on the same lot plans, with the same front yards. In many neighborhoods it's even frowned upon to decorate your house so that it looks differently from the rest of the cookie-cutter houses. No shops or anything to break up the monotony, and when you do drive to the closest strip mall it's just a bunch of franchises and chain stores. No wonder we don't walk in the U.S. -- everything is too far apart, and it all looks the same anyway!

I lived in Japan in my twenties after growing up in a California suburb. I loved walking around there. In most places there simply was no grid; in places with a grid it was often broken up by geography. Many places had been inhabited continuously for hundreds of years. It's an incredibly visually rich environment.

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#187

Post by jrockway »

auvrw wrote: post #156
jrockway wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I also noticed the suspicious looks for my terrible crime of not owning a car after dark. i lived near mountain view and did not notice this when visiting on my bicycle or the caltrain. sure, it's not the city proper, but mountain view seems rather quaint and really quite pedestrian friendly, at least in the area by the train station.

Try walking from the train station to the nearby Safeway. You'll be lucky if you even make it past the Central Expy.

https://goo.gl/maps/NoZOa

Re: The slow death of purposeless walking

#188

Post by thanatropism »

charlesthomas wrote: post #48
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you be bad at walking without a destination in mind? You just put one foot in front of another and every time you have to choose a new direction, pick whichever way looks more interesting (by whatever measure you classify interesting at that moment). Not meant to be hostile, genuinely curious.

Part of it is motivation. Why bother leaving, if I don't have a particular destination in mind? There are other things I could be doing that seem more important. The other part is that I fall into patterns really easily. If I don't have a set destination in mind when I leave my apartment, I often just end up at the subway stop I take to get to work.

Step-counting apps or bracelets? I find myself trying to outdo myself and taking ever more convoluted ways home.
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