This is a great summary, thanks!

Interesting video. On a totally anecdotal, personal level, I've found my own experience the opposite of the studies about time perception. I used to do a 60 minute walk home every night from work. The first half was on a straight, boring path and it felt like it took absolutely forever. The second half was through town, with several corners, varied buildings, people, more traffic, etc., and it went by MUCH faster. Now that I live in an actual city I find walking to be a dream. Every block or two is a different neighborhood, a different visual style, a different set of people. It keeps me engaged and enjoying myself, and never feels like a slog.

I walk to work and that makes me pretty happy. What annoys me is that about a year ago they built a wall that cuts off my previous route. So instead of walking through a nice park I have to go the long way around along a busy road. This ads 15 minutes to my commute and the walk is far less pleasant.

This is something I've thought about for the past 10 years, mostly because I was born and raised in Texas. Everything is so far apart, it's basically a necessity to own a car, especially in the summer when no one wants to stand outside waiting in the heat for a damp slow bus. I don't understand why they make things so far apart in the first place as if the state didn't feel big enough already, it's just such an inconvenience driving to a store when realistically it could be a 5-10 minute walk if it wasn't for all the dead space and empty lots. It's almost like walking is discouraged when there's a lack of pavement/sidewalks in some areas that can obviously be traveled by foot. For example, walking to a corner store/gas station by a neighborhood/apartment complex.

Due to my own personal neuroses, I choose walking routes based on the fewest number of road crossings. I'd probably take a ten minute detour over crossing a busy road. It'd be nice if there were more over-road bridges to make it simpler.

There are two Metro stations nearish my house, they're almost exactly the same distance as the crow flies. However, one is a fifteen minute walk away along a long, straight, busy, dirty, noisy road, and one is a twenty minute walk away through a winding path through the woods and then a quieter residential street. When I have to walk home from the Metro I will always choose those extra five minutes walking to have a more pleasant journey. So there is definitely more to walkability than just object journey times.

After walking through Florence in Italy and Quito in Ecuador, there is something to be said for the plaza. Your have your personal bubble and your public bubble. Designing public spaces around this concept of the public bubble you possess I think is part of what defines the plazas in these two cities I've visited. Florence, Italy in particular felt incredible to walk around. For the fact it explicitly feels as though the city is not designed for cars on any level, but for walking. You would enver be able to achieve this level of walkability feeling in any American city of similar size. That level of retrofitting doesn't seem possible to me. And for Americans who lack the experience of wlaking through cities like this may nor have a full appreciation of the scope of what it means to live somewhere walkable.

I live in Montreal, Canada. Walkability is pretty bad in my neighborhood. I have to deal with stroads and walk more than 25 minutes if I want to reach a descent grocery store. When I first went to Japan in 2008, I saw how much better things could be! Almost everywhere except the country side and mountains, you can pretty much go everywhere and do everything by walking, cycling or riding public transit. Living in North America feels like our urban spaces have been designed for cars instead of humans. Any attempt at bike paths or transit feel like a distant afterthought. Connectivity is poor. So much space is wasted for road and cars that point of interest are too far away to walk between them. Your video put words and showed examples for a lot of things I saw and felt. Great work!

As an architect I welcome with open arms this video. Excellently presented and very informative. Well done sir!!

Living in Hong Kong, I would say that the distance and the density of buildings and people make it walkable, but not the environment.

Where I live Houston,USA fails all of this.I wish it is Walkable but it’s not from my house to my school on car is 20 minutes(3 hours walking) And the nearest park with trees is a 30 min drive(4 hour walk) that’s why people get depressed because they are stuck in a box, driving through neighborhoods for 30 mins that looks exactly the same just for an open green space. 😔

Something I'd like to encounter more of is simple public maps. As an example, I'll offer my experience in London in 2011. I went on a business trip with my husband, and our hotel was right across the bridge from Big Ben. Okay, that's a landmark, and one I'm not going to easily lose track of. I, being a grim little murder fan, wanted to go to Whitechapel and see some of the places I'd read about in all those books about Jack the Ripper, so I checked a map and set off on foot. If you've been to London a lot, or you live there, you're laughing at me right now. I got to Chelsea, saw too much cool stuff in Chelsea, got lost in Chelsea, and decided it was best to go back to the hotel and figure out public transit so I could visit Whitechapel another day. The only problem was, I'd been wandering around for a while and wasn't really certain of where I was. That was a pretty frightening situation to be in, but then I noticed the bike rentals that were all around. They're the kind that you plug a coin into and it unlocks and you can ride the bike where to another rental station where you lock it up, and all of these stations have this big, clearly labelled, round map. The map has arrows pointing travelers toward major landmarks. One of those arrows pointed to Buckingham Palace, and I knew where the hotel was from there, so I just followed those maps and those arrows back. All in all, it was about a six hour walk, I enjoyed myself immensely, and I didn't ever feel truly lost, even though I'd only been in the city for 18 hours. I eventually figured out how to use the underground, but I took a lot of excursions on foot that trip, because I felt confident that I could always find my way back.

I’m surprised this doesn’t have more views, it is a very informative video. Thank you!

I realized how beneficial it is to avoid being stuack on traffic since 2 months ago when I moved to an apartment only 4 blocks away from my job. Being able to leave your workplace on lunch time everyday to go have lunch and a quick nap in your own home before going back to work is just so nice.

I used to walk to work partly through residential streets, by a high school and through a park, the park was the best part, did my best thinking of the day 11:47

its cool how almost 3 years ago, people were talking about 20 minute cities/neighborhoods and now we have people advocating for 5 minute cities/neighborhoods. a year ago we were living in an almost 10 minute neighborhood and while its doable, a 5 minute neighborhood would be perfect. there was almost no reason to drive. and we were lucky in that if we wanted to go somewhere a little further away, we had some public transportation options. under 10 should definitely be the standard goal

I enjoy walking if there is shade and places are closer.

One of my favorite parts of living in the Twin Cities was biking around the cities for my main transportation. I also used the train with my bike for long trips sometimes. And I would use bus and train during snow storms or if I decided not to haul my bike around for a day. The biking and walking was lovely because of a few factors. One, well-designed bike lanes, roads and sidewalks in a lot of places so the transition between biking and walking was easy. Curbs stay out of the way with slopes to get onto a sidewalk; there's plenty of places to lock up a bike and space for everyone to move around each other. One of the best factors though was how scenic and nature-surrounded many places are in the cities. When I've visited places like Chicago, New York and Boston I found it was a miserable, concrete, noisy hell with no space, nature or regular neighborhoods. There was of course, variation between these three places, and I found New York was by far the worst to an extreme - constant loud noise everywhere, bright blinding lights late into the night among other things. By comparison, we have at least two dozen neighborhoods in the Twin Cities that are scenic, nature-surrounded by trees, parks, and the river in some cases, with a mix of houses and diverse amenities. Biking year round and use of major transit is extremely common here. I'd say only about 20% of the people I interacted with often owned a car at all, and at least half of those people came from the suburbs (which are as miserable and shit designed as you see in most infrastructure design videos).

As a landscape architecture student this really help me a lot. Thank you for this great video.

I went to Edinburgh, Scotland, for the summer festival season in 2017 and besides being able to see six or more performances a day a highlight was just strolling through the city going from venue to venue. The Old Town was endlessly fascinating with several narrow pathways which were only intended for pedestrians and when I had to venture further through parks and residential neighborhoods my senses were perpetually entertained. Of course, having a satellite navigation system on my smart phone gave me a clear route and tangible sense of time to confirm that I was on schedule to arrive before the next show started. If I was just wandering around an unfamiliar city with a paper map I may have been much more stressed about getting lost. That experience definitely checked off the listed items of a positive walkable environment.

One of best summaries I've seen on this topic. Well done 👏🏼 Thank you

Another factor to consider (probably falls under ‘path context’) is the noise level.

Thye m ain point to this whole concept is create NEIGHBORHOODS that people feel attached to, so that they will prefer to access the goods and services in that neighborhood, support those vendors and service providers, and reward them with their income. The biggest problem in the US is suburbia, where you need a vehicle to ac cess everything. What few people realize is that by moving to and living in a walkable neighborhood, they can use that income saved from needing a vehicle for everything for their lifestyle, to be spent on entertainment and the like, it yields them greater disposable income. When you consider the cost of a yearly car payment, the insurance a newer vehicle requires, and all the maintenance associated with using that vehicle extensively + fuel costs, it adds up a large part of the average workers family income. When you consider that most families require multiple vehicles for things like a daily commute, accessing childcare, and the like, it becomes a huge sum of $$$ that can be repurposed as disposable income, to be used as savings or to invest in things like housing upgrades without taking out loans. In fact, one can live much more frugally without all of those vehicle costs and it can even allow workers and families to step back from needing to work as much to pay for those costs. Which is exactly why CAPITAL will never embrace this model, the suburban model emphasizes consumption and excess which put more $$$ into their pockets. I have lived in places that had both measures designed by planners v. developers, and while taxes are necessary to support a walkable city plan v. a suburban developer plan, it is more than offset by the savings accrued from foregoing extensive vehicle costs & more importantly, the quality of life and time saved avoiding a daily commute in gridlocked traffic and parking woes.

This is brilliant. I feel like I've just discovered the next major urbanism channel in its infancy.

Brilliant video with some familiar surroundings

I really appreciate this video, extremely well put together, I hope you'll get the recognition you deserve!

Great video. I like that you included the citations in the description. Subscribed. Look forward seeing more. Cheers!

sending positive vibes your way hoping to see more of this channel

Regarding the "passing of time" perception. I think there has been a confusion between "having fun" and "being in a stimulating environment"; common saying goes "time flies when you are having fun", which may translate in believing to have walked less than one actually did. I believe this is correct as it is coherent with my experience. "Being in a stimulating environment" (a rich and varied path), doesn't translate immediately with having fun though. Especially the first time one walks a new road, it seems longer than what it actually is because more cognitive power is invested in learning about it. So, I think this explains the apparent contradiction. Crossing a varied, even beautiful environment, doesn't directly translates with having fun… it may translate with being amazed, amused, disoriented, overwhelmed, … depends on the person (and its history).

Just found the channel, i see that is kind of new, pretty good video. Thanks

Awesome and interesting video. I appreciate walkable areas especially in Europe. Thanks

This really sums up Southworth's paper! Thank you!

Very interesting, great job further explaining walkability!

Wow! What an unexpected amazing find on KZfaq!! Thankx alot for this video, I surly did subscribeed. I'm an architect and I'm planning on pursuing my higher education in the field of urban planning so I'm always glad to find this type of content on KZfaq. Waiting for more vidz like this! Keep the good work up!!

Thank you for this video. Such a fundamental content. I think that the perception of the pedestrians are pretty subjetive. The feel of an inviting space to walk is difficult to generalize. I think that walking is affected by a lot of aspects, including individual, cultural, social and context aspects. For example, the feeling of safety differs from men and women. In addition, for some cultures walking and cycling is seen as a low-income activity, specially in the face of the excessive valuation of the car. It's such a complex subject. I love to study this

enjoyed this and learned a lot, thank you for this helpful content!

Love this video, thanks !

Amazing stuff! Thanks.

Excellent video

Great video, thanks!

the similarity of your voice to roman mars is uncanny and great video btw!

Fantastic video, very informative :)

Loved this

I love walking. and i want to live in a community that is safe, scenic, with many parks and trees and shops.

Great to see an urbanism video based on Glasgow!

i agree with all what you said and I experience bad walk as I live in Istanbul where it is a walkable city due to its beautiful weather but non walkable due to its lack of pedestrian paths

Great Video !

I havent even watched the video and im already subscribed cuz of the channel name

interesting video!

path context is fun especially the liminal space side of things

I swear Brisbane - Australia is becoming one of the most walkable cities..

4:08 i'm not so sure if this rgb led light installation is really that aesthetic...maybe to a pc gamer

Oh I wish Phx got the walkability memo. The RTA and conservative interests for sprawl have been dominant

good video

Where I live, walking is hazardous as there is no walkway, streets are narrow and vehicles may hit pedestrians.

Walk down a long straight road with the same scenery all the way and experience an hour long walk in 20 real minutes

This is basically just the Soviet principle of urban design

Can this be applied for places in the tropics wholesale or does there need to be modified to suit the climate?

8:30 Something to consider from urban planning publications I've read in my years: I think in this case you also have to take into account the purpose of the walk. If your goal is to get as quickly from a to b, then this adds up. More distraction and complexity leads to a perceived longer walk and thus is considered less desirable. But if you're walking to pass free time, or to engage in ''entertainment'' activities (like shopping, drinking a beer, people watching, going out for a bite, and so on, then the reverse is true. You actually want complexity and distraction, since this is exactly what you seek, and complex walk routes become desirable. You want people to linger! Which is why traditional historical (and complex) city centers are so popular to walk, shop,... and pass the time. There this complexity and distraction is a benefit and very desired! Otherwise you end up with boring transitory walk paths where no one lingers.

Crime/Safety is the foremost concern for a lot of people. More areas than you'd think are dangerous. Fractured communities and many conflicting groups result in places where being of an outsider or "enemy" group will go very, VERY poorly for you, even if you're a local. Being on foot in such areas is best avoided.

wait did i just found a gem

4.40 IS there literature informing this 20 minute concept and 3km ph walking speed?

0:37 where is it

Sri Lanka has some very un walkable places. But, Galle, NÉliya and Places in Colombo are good.

The Car needs to be Put back in its place it's the servant not the king

20 minutes per walk for some things and 20 minutes per drive for other things. Though, which things is the question...

I think walkability concept is pretty Hard to apply in several tropical cou try, Such as Indonesia. I mean, you know the Rain and the temperature that makes people lazy to take a walk. #cmiiw

Noicee

Could you please use metric for future videos?

The only real solution is Futurama style suction tubes they are everywhere but never seemed to be used...

Yes, you are safe in public, because others can see you. This is called social control. Someone can please tell that to Elon Musk, who is afraid of serial killers in public transport (he really said that). I have seen enough horror films, to know: Serial killers don't attack you in public.

The best walking paths are those where I will encounter no other people.

I have to walk through rubbish, crowd and traffic jams. I want to use a car but it would save at most 10 minutes each way.

Only people whom have not lived in the countryside, want this. And yes, you are able to walk in the countryside, too.

Urbaburble 👁👄👁

the real american dream

Don't forget about dealing with the homeless. No matter how beautifully designed, few people will voluntarily walk in a city where they have to dodge pan handlers, junkies, the crazy, used needles, and piles of human shit.

Disappointed to see skateboarding designed out

We live in the uk it rains 9 out of 10 days and its cold I’m sorry unless its covered there no real reason to walk. It’s fine to walk in a country with a better climate but sorry not the uk its not realistic.

Pink background needs to go.