A dozen years ago I was a pastor in suburban Detroit, wondering why the community that people expect from a church (think of Cheers without alcohol) was proving so hard to create. Then a friend lent me Home from Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler (kunstler.com), and my eyes were opened: almost all residential areas designed since WWII were built around the needs of the automobile. It was assumed no one would ever walk anywhere again.
Fast forward from 1950 to the present, and the prophecy is self-fulfilled. It is almost impossible to walk in most neighborhoods; and even where walking is possible, there is really no where to walk to (if you'd like to see how your place measures against this assertion, see walkscore.com ). Single use zoning built around the assumption that people will drive to every destination means that the only walkers visible in modern neighborhoods are recreational ones - people walking for the sake of walking. And, in my neck of the woods, anyway, there are very few of those.
This blog is dedicated to the recovery of walking as a primary mode of transportation. The title is a short form of a question: what are our two feet for?
2 comments:
48 Naismith Cr., Kanata, Ontario got a walkscore of 35 out of 100. Not great. But its results are exceedingly wacky... it doesn't know there's a library in our neighbourhood (the closest it found was 13 kms), and the hardware store is also within walking distance (it found one 15 kms away). Plus it thought a home entertainment store was a cinema!Strange... but still a cool idea. Hope the improve it!
yes, there are glitches in it. With mine, it showed the Walmart, but didn't register that Walmart is grocery, hardware, automotive, etc. And it cannot determine walkability. In fact, some of it's distances are "as the crow flies" and are impassable.
But for someone asking themselves how much could they leave the car at home, it's a start.
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