Everyday Systems

I used to work at Lehigh University. It's an attractive campus built on some very steep terrain and features looping roads that make their way to the top of the hills, and an elaborate series of stairways that cut straight up to classroom buildings, residence halls, and fraternities and sororities. In those days at least, the cool thing was for students to drive to class rather than walk from their residence, and then I would see the same people later in the gym laboring away on Stairmasters.

Recalling this got me thinking of the issue of peer pressure, especially strong on young people but active on all of us, to drive when we could walk. I went to high school in a small town and it was just impossible for me to walk to school. Oh, it was perfectly safe, a pleasant route with sidewalks the whole way, and that 20 minute walk twice a day would have been very good for me, but it was socially impossible, or so I thought. I had to be like the other kids and show that I had use of a car and so was a grown up.

The same mentality is expressed in neighborhoods--there are some near me in Louisville--that have no sidewalks. Walking? Who would walk? Humans cool enough to live here are in cars--so the urban design is saying.

How can we turn it around so that driving is the uncool thing and the peer pressure is toward walking?

The best way to turn it around is by example. Put one foot in front of the other... If anyone asks why, say "isn't it cool, man?" I don't know if you remember the late 70's and 80's. Everybody and their brother was out jogging because it was "cool". Even those who hated it!

You CAN be a trendsetter by example. You can always say that it's the latest rage in Europe.

Just want to say a friend lived in L.A. for years and walked a lot in his neighborhood, though one day he was stopped by police. When he said he was just out for a walk before work, they looked at him like he was nuts. Granted, he was walking in the street, but explained that the asphalt is easier on the knees than cement sidewalks. They thought he was casing cars to break into, which was plausible. He got on the sidewalk while they were there but went back to the asphalt when they left.

The best stores to buy groceries are not in my neighborhood, but I walk and almost always come across other walkers, too. But it has definitely made me think about where I'd like to have another retirement home. I don't want to be out in the boonies having to drive to get everywhere, even if it is pretty to walk in.