Is it true that no one wants to walk?

Alex Tabarrok very briefly reviews a new book No one makes you shop at Wal-Mart and offers an example of the book's approach, which Tabarrok likes in part but dislikes. Here's a passage he doesn't like:

Faced with the observation that few children walk to school anymore, we commonly hear that this tendency represents our preferences: that "people won't walk" anymore. But this is oversimplified.� What we are seeing is one equilibrium among many, and perhaps not the best one.� There is an equilibrium in which no one wants their children to walk along empty streets, and so no children walk, but there is another equilibrium in which many children enjoy walking with groups of other children, and parents feel safe about their children because there is safety in numbers on the busy sidewalks. ...Too many cities have concluded that empty sidewalks are a result of our preferences...but once a city takes it as a given that most children will be driven to school, there is no need for the city to even build sidewalks in new subdivisions, and there is more temptation to build fewer, bigger schools rather than more, smaller, easily accessible schools.� With these decisions, the empty-sidewalks equilibrium becomes even more entrenched: we are trapped in an outcome that was the result of individual choices, but that may not represent our true preferences.

At least in this instance, I think the analysis is correct. If there are no or few sidewalks and you create a hostile environment for walking well then few will walk leading to the belief/myth that no one wants to walk. I hear such an perspective all the time when people say that a proposed building need not have a pedestrian orientation along a particular street because "No one walks on that street." Obviously an examination of places where people do walk suggests that such a belief — "People won't walk." — is not accurate. People will walk when it is comfortable. People won't walk when it is not comfortable.

Of course the "People won't walk" attitude yields an unfriendly street-front (usually a blank wall) which will guarantee that indeed no one will walk along that frontage. (Consider Disney Hall in LA.)

Comments

[Holly B.]

The general argument is valid, but the example of fewer children walking to school is suspect. In Seattle, for example, a good portion of public school kids don't live within reasonable (say, under two miles) walking distance of school anymore. They get assigned someplace outside their neighborhoods where the only reasonable transportation options are taking the bus or riding by car.

If they could choose between riding a bus for around two hours a day or walking a few miles with their friends to the school nearest their own neighborhoods, I think that substantially more kids would walk to school, with or without continuous sidewalks.

[Bill]

Interesting concept but perhaps the wrong example.

In many cases,kids don't want to school anymore because of the fear of pedophiles and sexual predators. If you feel that such fears are over blown and you would prefer your kids to walk to school, you are seen as an uncaring negligent parent, and besides there are no other kids to walk to school with.

A better example would be the horrendous shopping centers now being built where a number of disconnected big box retailers are connected by acres of parking, connecting roads with 4 way stop signs and myriads of traffic lights. You would have to be insane to walk from one side to the other, although driving is not much better.

I find myself frequenting such places,almost against my will because most of the retailers have relocated there.

People will spend big bucks to fly to Europe and spend their vacation in walkable cities like Paris and Amsterdam and that is one of the things they talk about when they return.