I work with issues of urbanism academically but my interest in walkability, at root, is about lived experience and the understanding that a truly walkable community and lifestyle is beneficial for individuals and communities in so many ways.
The seeds of understanding walkability began for me in Malmö over family summer vacations throughout my youth. We would leave our car-dependent lifestyle in southern California and spend a few weeks in the southern Swedish city of Malmö, often spending many of our days moving by foot and public transit.
Years later, in my early 20’s and freshly graduated with my BA, I moved to Seattle into an apartment in the University District and for the first time in my life experienced walkable urbanism as a lifestyle.
I wasn’t aware of walkability as a concept then, but I knew that I loved being able to move around the city by foot and public transit. Public transit also was not as socially stigmatized as other places I’d lived and was also more convenient to use (no doubt the two going hand in hand).
Since then, I’ve lived in many more cities and regions- sometimes being completely or partially car-dependent and other times, having the liberty to move by foot as my primary mode of mobility.
Pedestrian Space was established while my family and I were living in Örebro- a nice, ordinary city with loads of examples of best practices for walkable urbanism. I also view it as a textbook example of a 15-minute city and truly thrived in a lifestyle in which I could walk everywhere I needed to go within 5-15 minutes- my kids’ preschool, multiple grocery stores, the health clinic and hospital, shopping areas, multiple parks and playgrounds and other services.
Walkability as a lifestyle offers so many natural benefits for individual, community and society. Being able to walk (including rolling and using public transit) as a primary mode of mobility should be a very basic function for anyone in their community. I learned this through living it.
Do you have walkability ‘A-ha’ moments?
-Annika