A pedestrian perspective.
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WALKING AS FOREIGN POLICY
Earlier this month, national security scholar Patrick Doherty published a proposal in Foreign Policy magazine for America’s next “grand strategy,” a plan for how the U.S. should reposition itself in a world defined less by threats from communism or terrorism and more by the global challenge of sustainability … He believes a central piece of American security and strength in the 21st century will reside in walkable neighborhoods. …
Doherty’s basic idea is that pent-up demand for such communities could help power a new American economic engine in the same way that suburban housing (and all of the consumption that came with it) made America economically and globally powerful in the Cold War era.
It’s not that great a stretch.
First, (walkable cities) will reduce the demand for oil. Suburban living required loads of it (which in turn required U.S. military might in volatile oil-rich regions of the world). … In Doherty’s view, walkable development is both the means to drive the economy and the product that enables us to live more sustainably.
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TWEETING WITH OUR FEET
Wayne Curtis in Skipping Steps explores the lost art of the in-depth walk:
Modern life, of course, keeps getting more chopped, diced and disjointed. Nonfiction seems to be getting shorter and shorter (magazine editors no longer even apologize to writers for assigning “listicles” or “charticles”). And the long walk has gradually become disaggregated into a series of miniature marches, each now with its own purpose. Anything more than 140 characters or a few dozen steps begins to feel burdensome; we grow restless….
That 5,000 steps we take each day translates into about two and a half miles every day, or 900 miles per year. That’s not insubstantial. But I’m pretty sure the quality of our walks has also changed — when we move by foot today — at least in my experience and what I hear from others — it always seem to involve brief, intense tromps motivated by a single purpose. We walk to the garage to get to the car. We walk from the mall parking lot to Best Buy. We walk from Gate 4 to Gate 22 in Terminal B.
Essentially, we tweet with our feet.
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THE HEALTHY CITY
Jim Sallis, professor at the University of California San Diego’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, is the latest winner of the Bloomberg Manulife Prize for the Promotion of Active Health, a $50,000 award administered by McGill University. He’s interviewed in the Globe and Mail:
What does the research show?
… when we do comparison studies that adjust for socioeconomic status and other factors we find, over and over again, that people are much more active in walkable cities. Many of those studies show that people in more walkable cities are less likely to be obese. We’ve done studies that show this across all age groups. We’ve done a study in 11 countries showing the same thing internationally. So the evidence is really adding up.
What should cities be doing differently?
First, start building mixed-use places again. Don’t build residential areas that are separate from commercial areas, build communities so that the places where people want to go are in walking distance. Mixed use is the key. And in transportation we’ve got to prioritize pedestrians, bicyclists and public transit, because people who use those for active transportation are healthier.
What do you notice that strikes you about Toronto?
I’ve seen bicyclists but no protection for bicyclists.
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