why walk: seniors

The reasons that I believe in walking fall generally into two categories. First, it's good for me. Second, it's good for all of us. The one I've chosen to start with actually spans both, which only goes to show that most categories have blurry edges.

Walking is the most democratic and universal mode of transportation. The vast majority of people from about 1 to about 100 can do it. And since the range of speed from the slowest to the fastest varies by a factor of about 3, from a toddler's or arthritic senior's 1.5 mph to my brisk 4 mph, it is possible for the fast and the slow to adapt to each other.
In other words, urban spaces designed around walking offer almost everyone the chance to get around. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the automobile excludes most people in most western countries until they reach 16 or 18. It also excludes people at the other end of life. Here there is no fixed number: every family or government official looks at the capacities of the seniors in their care and makes a decision about when to take the car keys away. Independent living is often not only a matter of whether a person can cook, clean, and remember to pay the bills (and be happy caring for themselves) but whether the person can navigate a car. Automotive design of residential areas results in people not being able to remain in their homes simply because they can no longer drive.

It seems to me that the house should have primacy over the car. I need to have a safe place to stay more than I need to get places. There should be other ways to do the minor things (getting out) so that the major things (staying home) can be done well. A simple analogy: my ability to write checks is limited not by the checks in my checkbook, but by the money in my account. Creating a culture of encouraging people to leave their homes because they cannot drive is like saying that they should stop paying bills because they have no checks. Only if we've created a system where there's only one way to pay bills (or get places) does having checks (or driving a car) become an issue.

Furthermore, it seems not only good for seniors (and I will eventually be one) to be given places to live where they can be independent as long as they are able to walk, but it seems good for me that they have this freedom. Our neighborhoods do not benefit from two generational demographics; it's good for us to have grandparents around - ours if possible, but surrogates have served admirably. It's good for neighborhoods to have retired people around during the day, and it's good for seniors to have watchful adults around at night. It's good for a culture to have a sense of history - to have people around to remember how things are done, or how they used to be. And it's always good for humanity to be humbled by the presence of less "productive" human beings - lest we begin to think, as we often have, that those who don't fit, produce, or belong are disposable.

Creating a walkable world benefits the elderly who cannot drive, and, I believe, benefits the rest of us by their presence. It also, I must confess, reduces their burden. You may gasp at this, but it is, in my experience, what many people dread most: being a burden. If they can't drive, and driving is the only way to get around, then someone has to drive them. That someone would be a driver. But in a walkable community, that driver is free (and the funds required, perhaps, to pay her) for something else.

A final note: what about the people who can't walk, either their whole lives or a significant chunk of it? It seems to me that a walkable community is far kinder to them than an automotive one. Because so many of us walk, and have for generations, we have learned to adapt for the lame.

A culture is only as great as its protection of the weak. Recreating walkable communities, thus empowering the elderly and children, would be a step toward greatness.