Military Posts & Walkability

It’s sort of humourous to me as well as thrilling and mildly frustrating (and maybe even a bit normal?) that I’m knee deep in a year and a half of doctoral student fieldwork and approaching writing stage while a series of what I consider dissertation worthy ideas are just regular coursing through my mind.

A handful of them have what feels like serious staying power. Postdoc ideas….?

One of these relates to the walkability of military bases.

It was only in the past year or so that I thought about my time in the military community (as a spouse) and realized, ‚Huh, military bases really are a pretty great microcosm of walkability & functional proximity to amenities’.

Walkability is integrated into base design, for multiple reasons.

I was not yet documenting issues of mobility much during that chapter, but pulled a few photos from my archives including:

Fort Leavenworth

Images from Fort Leavenworth where we stopped for a wonderful Autumn walk about 15 years ago on a cross-country trip to (formerly named) Fort Rucker

Fort Leavenworth
formerly called Fort Rucker

Cabin on Fort Rucker where we spent our last few nights before moving to Bavaria where we were stationed for 3 years. But we had lived on that Alabaman base for nearly a year and while I had access to a car I frequently walked to work at the time at the Child Development Center on post.

Base in Bavaria


My booth where I sold my postcards at an art fair at an auditorium at a base in Bavaria. I’m thinking back a lot now to those bases I got to know in Bavaria and how pedestrian mobility was also prioritized on them.