Walking in the Suburbs: The challenges and tribulations of being a weird bipedal creature in a car-dominated limbo

Man walking on a suburban street.

The United States has been a car-dominated culture since the 1950s. However, when you are from a dense city such as New York, you don’t fully realize this. My family never owned a car and I didn’t drive regularly until well into my 20s. As someone with a nomadic lifestyle for the last ten years, I’ve lived in a wide variety of settings — as a walker, driver, public transportation rider, or some combination of the three. Wherever I go, I still look at the world primarily through the eyes of a walker.

I prefer the word “walker” to “pedestrian.” The latter seems too long and
technical a word for such a normal activity. After all, getting around on foot was the norm for most of history. But now it’s the driver who is considered normal. Walking is now for children in the playground, seniors going on their daily constitutional, or what you do after parking your car and heading into the mall.

Where Walking is Weird

Nowhere is walking more of a fringe activity than in the suburbs, which, tragically, encompass more and more space on the planet. The following are a few random impressions and issues.

• Walking in the suburbs, especially alone…