Constantino Diaz-Duran is a fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University. He is chronicling his walk from New York to Los Angeles to celebrate his eligibility for American citizenship. Follow Constantino’s progress.
Tom Vanderbilt at Slate is writing a series about “the crisis in American walking.” This week’s piece contains some interesting data, including the fact that the average American takes 5,117 steps each day, compared to 9,695 by the average Australian, 9,650 by the Swiss, and 7,168 by the Japanese. In other words, we come in last among industrialized nations when it comes to walking.
This #FirstWorldProblem is serious, says Vanderbilt, because walking has many benefits. Walking, he says, reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s, makes you smarter, reduces depression, lowers blood pressure, and raises your self-esteem. Walking more would make us a healthier, smarter, happier nation. But how do we get more people walking, when most of our cities have been designed for the automobile?
Vanderbilt writes that there is a stigma attached to being a pedestrian, and he’s right. Not owning a car is, in most places, extremely uncool. No one, TLC reminds us, wants “no scrub, hanging out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride.”
What I’m doing makes me an eccentric. Some people think it’s “cool,” others tell me it’s “awesome,” but everyone asks me “why?” When I tell them I’ve become friends with others who have walked across the country, their jaws drop. And when I say that I don’t ever want to own a car again, they declare me officially insane. Now, I grant that walking from one coast to the other is extreme, but I agree with Vanderbilt that it is important to make our cities more walkable and to promote this activity.
Walkability is one of the reasons I choose to live in New York. I loved Charlotte and would consider moving there because it has a walkable city center. The same goes for Philly, D.C., and Richmond. But when you think of how much of the country I’ve covered already, it’s pretty sad that I can only come up with a few alternatives to New York City (I’m not counting Chicago, though I like it there, because it’s not part of this walking tour). Not even Atlanta, the great metropolis of the South, makes the cut.
The purpose of my walk is to learn about the country and my fellow Americans-I’m not out to proselytize about anything, not even fitness or other things I value highly. But I am glad someone is calling attention to this “crisis in walking.” In my own way, I’ve tried to encourage people to exercise more, but I know that’s just a drop in the bucket. A nationwide effort is needed to make walking less pedestrian, and more exciting.
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*Photo by Constantino Diaz-Duran.
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