It's crazy how some places have no sidewalks at all. Dumbest city design.
Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
41–50 of 120 posts
Re: Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
#42This is not surprising in a capitalistic first-world country and always happens when everything around you is designed for you to always drive somewhere.
It's up to each individual person to decide how or if they want to spend time outdoors, be it a run, walk, or a bike ride.
Re: Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
#43I am glad there is a growing enthusiasm for walkable cities in the US. It's something I've become very passionate about lately. For those that are interested in learning more about the topic, I highly highly recommend the City Nerd youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@CityNerd . I find a lot of arguments for for walkability tend to be emotional or needlessly hostile towards car owners. City Nerd takes a much mor…
I see arguments that are hostile towards a certain type of car owner -- the entitled sort that can't stand anything less than absolute car dominance of the roads. The kind who's opposed to new housing or badly needed bike or bus lanes because it might impact public street parking.
Hostility towards anyone who owns a car is rather more rare from walkability proponents. Not totally unheard of, but hardly mainstream.
Re: Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
#44Expected a study, got an ad. Literally the "above-the-fold" piece is an ad to buy a MAWA hat and then a beg for a documentary that isn't yet produced. Ugh.
Yup - for anyone else, this link is junk. It's a page that says they have a million views on Tiktok and please give some money.
Re: Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
#45Are there any studies that show that walkability improves mental health?
Here's a meta analysis[1] from 2012 showing that walking has a strong positive effect on depression. Here's one showing that biking and walking for commuting were associated with improved physical/mental health[2]. Here's a newer study showing benefits to the elderly from walking in urban green spaces[3]. Seems like a well supported idea. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S17552... [2] https:/…
These studies just shows that exercise improves mental health. I doubt anyone disputes that. The question is — are there benefits from walking directly, benefits that you can't get by say going to the gym. The claim of urban density advocates is that just being around thousands of strangers improves mental health.
Re: Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
#46IMHO we're going to look back historically at single-family-detached-suburban-sprawl as not just the fulcrum in destroying the environment, but also actively harmful to the people that live there, especially children. Its easy for it to feel "normal" or even aspirational to us now, but its basically only ~3 generations old, and the first generation raised in suburbs was usually larger families in closer-in suburbs, p…
Reasonable people can disagree.
My quite small yard in the burbs is my oasis with fruit trees, a garden, place for my dog to run, and a lovely place to sit and listen to birds. On top of this, we can walk to amenities and greet our neighbors on the sidewalk.
If I lived in a soulless apartment block my mental health by contrast would be in the pits.
Re: Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
#47Expected a study, got an ad. Literally the "above-the-fold" piece is an ad to buy a MAWA hat and then a beg for a documentary that isn't yet produced. Ugh.
A good doc needs some funding. It’s been a slow journey. Our TikTok is quite popular and raised a lot of awareness.
Re: Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
#48It's the cause of so many issues in America (physical, mental, social). A great book on the utterly broken build environment in North America is "The Geography of Nowhere": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125313.The_Geography_of_... Also, people forget - walkable doesn't just mean "somewhere you can walk" - I means you can walk to activities of daily living (groceries, pharmacy, gym, job, friends places, etc).
While it might cause other issues, I think the root is somewhere else and harder to solve (even if the solution is obvious).
Re: Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not living in the suburbs improves mental health.
Not if you are living in a noisy and polluted location, which is the case for most people without a car, clichees aside.
The places with low rates of car ownership in the US are cities like D.C., NYC, SF, Boston, and Chicago. These aren't heavily polluted places, NYC in fact has great air quality most of the time due to prevailing winds. The ten worst cities for Air pollution have 0 overlap with the bottom 10 cities in car ownership.
Re: Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Canada also has free healthcare. There are an infinite number of cultural differences that could affect the mental health rates in EU/CA more positively than in the US.
"free", but you often get what you pay for. source: am canadian.
In the US, you'll empty your bank account and still get terrible service - you've spent money but received terrible care. Maybe things change if you can afford your own full-time doctor for 500k / year. Canada ranks above the US in every healthcare measure.