Hey pals! This blog post is kind of an essay? I'm super open to having discussions about this, so if you're interested, hit me up!
Recently, I've seen a few Twitter threads talking about how city-building and good planning are concept foreign to North America: we admire them, we desire them, yet we never actually make these ideas reality. The focus of these threads tends to be walkability. For those unfamiliar, walkability is defined as how friendly an area is for walking, and it is very subjective. The end goal are broad health benefits on both individual and societal levels.
Those who live in North America are very familiar to how automobility is entrenched within our urban landscapes, so much so that walking in many cities is viewed as being impossible. Walking is not the norm, and occurs in mass only in a few select locations. In addition, the North American political landscape is so devolved into perpetuating capitalist structures that the financial wants of automobile manufacturers supersede any and all human needs. This, in turn, accelerates the process of automobility, meaning that walkable cities are further and further unattainable. Organized pedestrian movements are viewed as 'radical' and 'fringe'. These parts are a whole other discussion (a blog post for a later time), but they reinforce how cities are seen as car-centric. Everywhere else in the world, there is at least a slight acknowledgement that things being in close proximity, yet accessible without a car, makes sense. This is a phenomenon found in Europe, Asia, Africa, Central America, the Caribbean, South America... everywhere but here.
Two walkable spaces in North America! On the left is Naperville, the right is Vancouver.
North Americans, despite being owned by their cars, simultaneously love romanticizing walkability. While they cannot see it for the spaces they occupy, they see it as a reality of other, and a positive at that. In this piece, I will discuss the ways in which North Americans experience walkability that they romanticize, which I split into three categories, and draw some very loose conclusions about steps ahead.
Category One: College Towns
College towns are a distinct form of urbanism. They are urban, for sure, but their orientations is to serve the needs of students and faculty at a particular post-secondary institution. The institutions tend to be urban campuses, and often older, meaning that they are very centralized, and so the college-oriented parts of town must be immediately adjacent to the university. This helps reinforce feelings of 'moving out,' as proximity increases independence. University life within American culture is highly memorable for many people: the unique, walkable environments in many of these spaces absolutely has a direct impact on this experience. To understand better, I have two examples.
Madison, Wisconsin, is home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison (fitting, I know). The school has 45,000 students and 2,000 staff, accounting for just under 20% of the entire city's population. The large yet concentrated campus is surrounded to the south and east by off-campus university housing, particularly in the State-Langdon neighbourhood. With grocery stores, pharmacies, and school itself close to these off-campuses houses, few students regularly use cars.
While it has many suburban areas, Kingston, Ontario, is dominated by Queen's University, whose university population of 36,000 people is nearly 30% of the entire city. The off-campus student housing, including the infamous Aberdeen Street, is also located close to a Metro, a Shoppers Drug Mart, and many popular bars and restaurants, with many other attractions along the Princess Street strip. Similar to Madison, walking is an important piece of the university experience here.
Category 2: Vacation Spots
On the left is Main Street USA, Magic Kingdom. On the right is Zermatt, Switzerland.
North Americans love nothing more than going elsewhere. However, no matter where they go, tourists love being able to walk places. For many, it helps situate themselves within the new environment, allowing for a more authentic experience of a place. So many staple vacation spots for North Americans are walkable. Destinations like Tokyo, London, and Paris are easily navigated by foot or transit. Main Street USA at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom is a recreation of a historic American Main Street, and each of Disney World's resort hotels feature entertainment, restaurants, and an bus terminal within a very short walk from each room. In fact, all resort complexes that call themselves 'all-inclusive' have to walkable; otherwise, they would be lying. Lastly, ski towns, for the same reasons above, remain easy to traverse on foot, even in winter weather.
Map of Walt Disney World's Port Orleans resorts. Both are concentrated, with many amenities located very close to the rooms where people stay.
Category 3: Winter Villages
The last category is fitting, given the season. The idea of a cozy town in wintertime, bustling before Christmas, is a staple in the minds of many. In Toronto, the Christmas market at the Distillery District replicates this in a historic setting. No one actually lives at the Distillery District, but the Christmas market fills this void by being a place of interactions between people. It has become so popular, that entry tariffs are charged during busy periods. Christmas displays in storefronts recreate these towns as well.
So, what does this all mean?
North Americans see walkable cities as being something magical, something that it is a treat to experience. We've replicated these spaces, we seek out these spaces, and we attribute many of our best memories to these spaces. So why don't we make these spaces? Why can't Toronto's downtown be people-focussed? Why can't the type of city we see at the Christmas market be something we can experience every day?
I think that the disconnect between these walkable spaces in our heads and making them realities is that we are simple creatures of habit. Autocentric development from the cities onwards is all we know, and so why would we deviate from that? Do we know how to produce walkable spaces within a North American context? Probably not, and directly applying European urbanism onto our landscapes is a colonial mismatch at best. Thinking and designing these spaces while also breaking from autocentricity requires organization, mobilization, commitment, resources, and more. It feels like far too much work to make a change. That might be true. However, we have seen change in North America before. Destination Danforth in Toronto, closing of downtown streets for patios in Guelph. These are small-scale, sure, but they are experiments that let people dip their foot into a different version of their cities that doesn't feel too foreign. That, I think, is the start of great change.
Patios laid out at the intersection of Wyndham and Macdonell in Guelph.
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