[p2p-research] Walkability: check it before choosing your next home!

[Michel Bauwens]

on walkability ...

traditionally, Asian cities are eminently walkable, but the car culture has
pretty much destroyed it ... in Thailand for example, sidewalks cannot be
used to walk because they are used a private, not public space ... in Hanoi,
sidewalks are broad, you can walk, but crossing the street through a traffic
that never stops (yes, literally, you just have to throw yourself in the
flow and hope all will be well) ... Luckily, outside of the main boulevards
that visitors see, asian cities are collection of villages with narrow
streets, where walking is a little more easy, because cars only have local
reasons to be there ...

Michel

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 10:13 PM, M. Fioretti <mfioretti at nexaima.net> wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 09:26:48 AM -0400, Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> >> "Walkability is a characteristic of homes and apartments that all
> >> their owners, or everybody considering (even in these times) buying
> >> a new house should know and think about."
> >> Full text (please don't overlook the terms of use) at
> >>
> http://stop.zona-m.net/livingworld/walkability-check-it-choosing-your-next-home
> >
> > With rising populations, there is a need to build new cities. How
> > about a new city in the USA designed for walkability? Or other
> > aspects of "sustainability"? Might even be "profitable" for someone
> > with billions of dollars to build one.
>
> Paul,
>
> many thanks for all the comments and reference material. I want to
> cover these themes again on Stop!, so I'll certainly use them in the
> future. Here and now, I would only highlight one background aspect of
> your reply (NOT as a critic, just as food for everybody's thought)
>
> most of what you said is only valid, applicable or otherwise an issue
> in the USA and only there, because North America has screwed itself up
> so badly with zoning and urban sprawl. Or maybe in China/Asia, but
> there I really don't know. In Italy and most of Europe there is no
> rising populations (even considering immigration, if you look more
> than a decade ahead). And many, many cities here would be perfectly
> walkable as they are, if we just managed to:
>
> - kick cars out of the streets (there are so many cars that eventually
>  it takes less time to drive than wait for a bus, which is less
>  comfortable and slowed down by cars parked in the middle of the
>  street; and driving becomes even healthier and safer, especially if
>  moving with kids, than breathing smog and slaloming by feet among
>  cars as a pedestrian)
>
> - reorganize work hours, public services and public transportation so
>  that they all work in harmony, rather than each against the others.
>
> European cities have been walkable since the Roman Empire. Today in
> Italy, and I'm sure in most of Europe, there is no need to build new
> cities. Besides, there is NO space anymore, if one cares even a little
> bit about the environment, local food production and similar issues.
>
> Here we need to make empty apartments available on the rental market,
> and above all slowly REBUILD /SUBSTITUTE what already exist. Last year
> there was a report saying most public schools buildings are unsafe
> because too old. A plan to rebuild all of them, a few every year,
> INSTEAD of building new homes or whole new cities nobody knows where,
> would keep all the building industry busy for decades.
>
> But they (industry and politicians) prefer to keep lobbying for new
> residential buildings permits, or dumb huge projects like the Messina
> Bridge, because it is easier and less tiring to make money in ways you
> already know (even if they are harmful in the long term) than try new
> ones.
>        Marco
> --
> Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
> software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84
>
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