A little over 5 years ago (on May 17, 2020), I launched the Pedestrian Space Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/pedestrianspace/
I was a stay-at-home mom to two young children at the time. I had already, for years, been interested in issues of media, built environment and urbanism. Also, for as long as I can remember, I loved walking and great pedestrian spaces.
But it was during those early days of the pandemic, with heightened global attention on issues of public space, movementand the various dimensions of resilience of our towns, cities and communities, that I began to connect the dots up for myself, and clearly understanding walkability as a foundational element of common sense urban planning (it had not been addressed in my Master’s Spatial Planning curriculum a decade prior).
I also had an ‘A-ha moment’ of realizing walkability as a deeply personal value that I could look back and see expressed in diverse chapters of my life.
The following year (2021) I set up the Pedestrian Space website (https://pedestrianspace.org/) and the year after established it as an NGO.
The activity at Pedestrian Space is also the foundation and springboard for my current research and other opportunities & projects I’m involved in.
I look forward to continuing to develop Pedestrian Space as a media, advocacy, and research platform- looking to get even more creative with activities, with collaborations and projects that continue to support multidisciplinary approaches to exploring, researching, and documenting what is needed across diverse geographic, cultural, and climatic contexts to support walkability.
Thanks for following, and here’s to the collective and diverse efforts (we need) to create walkable communities.
~Annika
