Zamil Ahmed

ENG 2150 – Hoodology

Professor Singleton

Walkability Draft

We all walk. If you’ve been blessed enough to have a pair of working legs you have walked before. As technology advances, the practicality of walking is diminishing with the addition of bikes, car services, and public transportation. People travel from one point to another, focused on getting to their destination in the shortest amount of time possible. The vast majority of us we can assume don’t embrace the journey to get there. Ralph Waldo Emerson left a great quote behind that’s become very well known amongst people. He said, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” It’s beneficial for us to absorb what’s in our surroundings and fully acknowledge everything we go through on our way to a place. Walking is synonymous with the improvement of well being. There are many benefits to walking including boosts in your physical and mental state of well being. This can be enough to promote walking but the benefits don’t stop there.

My experiences walking have provided my mind and body countless benefits. When I walk it feels like with every step I take I am releasing a burden off my back. Going outside and breathing fresh air invigorates my lungs. From personal experience I’ve found myself to prefer areas with visual stimulus. For me there are two kinds. One is visuals that are created by nature and the other is manmade. The ones from nature always humble me. For example a pink blossom tree on a walk is such a beautiful sight to see. It shows me what a wonderful artist Mother Nature is and this brings me down to earth. Man Made visuals come in many forms. We as humans have progressed exponentially and our creations have followed suit. Cars, buildings, storefronts, or anything really that catches my attention gives me inspiration. The weekly walks have gave me a stronger urge to photograph these places or things and engrave them into internet where it will be available for others to see. In my opinion this is an aspect of waking this is overlooked. Many people do it but they don’t think about the effects it has. When people take pictures and upload it to the internet, people who don’t have the opportunity to visit this place can get some sort of idea of what the place encompasses. They are given a vision as well although limited because they’ve never visited. This can be very enjoyable and helpful because I personally know that before I want to go to a completely new place I try to find pictures or videos of the place just to get a sense of what it’s like. Cars take us from one point to another. We are restricted to a small space inside a moving vehicle with windows that provide a limited view. Imagine walking the whole entire journey or maybe even a portion of the way. There’s so much to see and take in along the way. Walking supports and strengthens the most important muscle in your body, our heart. Our cardiovascular health is extremely important because it’s what determines how properly our hearts work. A lot of people neglect walking because it doesn’t seem significant enough to really affect our health. The caloric burn per minute is very minimal however the importance of walking is the length. A walk around the block won’t have the same effect as walking around the mall or through a park. Interaction with people is very important in my opinion because a lot of people in our generation lock themselves up in their room with their computers and tablets and televisions. They neglect interaction and conversation with other humans and this as a result leads to many subconscious issues like social anxiety. When your out there surrounded by other people you feel like a part of humanity and the world. Being with people is more connected than what social media promotes as connection through the web. Just being outside and walking can you easily lead you to meet someone new and strike up a conversation. Conversation is very helpful because it takes us out of isolation and our own minds. A lot of people suffer from depression from loneliness and the harmful thoughts that circulate in their head.

Walking has its disadvantages when the surrounding in which you are walking is being accounted for. Cities and neighborhoods propose danger to these who walk on the streets. Crime such as theft, assault, rape, kidnapping, and murder happens on the streets. Along with things that happen 24 hours a day that can’t be accounted for like car accidents. All of this can make leaving your house intimidating. However, there are steps that can be taken to reduce and maybe even completely eliminate these dangers. Jane Jacobs discusses many of these in her piece “Uses of Sidewalks.” Populated sidewalks are one of the biggest diversions to trouble. If walking is promoted to everyone than the streets will have more walkers and as a result scare criminals off. The advantage of having populated streets is that there are more eyes on the street. There is a larger audience in case something dangerous occurs. People will feel compelled to watch the streets from their homes because they have something to observe as opposed to nothing when the streets are dead.

A study for the restorative effects of walking in rural and urban environments on people with poor mental health and good mental health was conducted. A walk through a rural area was advantageous to affective and cognitive restoration in both health groups compared to an urban walk. “However, beneficial change took place to a greater extent in the poor health group. Differential outcomes between health groups were found in the urban setting, which was most advantageous to restoration in the poor mental health group.” Overall people of all mental states can benefit from a walk anywhere. Four experiments demonstrate that walking boosts creative ideation in real time and shortly after. In Experiment 1, while seated and then when walking on a treadmill, adults completed Guilford s alternate uses (GAU) test of creative divergent thinking and the compound remote associates (CRA) test of convergent thinking. Walking increased 81% of participants  creativity on the GAU, but only increased 23% of participants  scores for the CRA. In Experiment 2, participants completed the GAU when seated and then walking, when walking and then seated, or when seated twice. Again, walking led to higher GAU scores. Moreover, when seated after walking, participants exhibited a residual creative boost. Experiment 3 generalized the prior effects to outdoor walking. Experiment 4 tested the effect of walking on creative analogy generation. Participants sat inside, walked on a treadmill inside, walked outside, or were rolled outside in a wheelchair. Walking outside produced the most novel and highest quality analogies. The effects of outdoor stimulation and walking were separable. Walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and increasing physical activity. The data speaks for itself. My neighborhood is a great example of a place to walk in order to get brain juices flowing. The Main Street is lined with all kinds of stores from clothing, shoes, to fast food. There are also clubs and hookah lounges as well as a bunch of retail stores. The options are endless and the street that spans a ten blocks exist similar to how an outdoor mall would. My neighborhood offers a lot of activities to get into while walking because it also has many areas where people sit and converse. There are two pet stores that garner a lot of attention because of their adorable puppies and kittens. There a great sum of people from all age groups gather because those little animals are hard to keep away from. I’ve mad conversation over there with many people about the dogs and have stayed in contact with some because I discovered that they live nearby and hang out at the places I do. The park is an exceptional place for walking because the activities there are physically beneficial and the vibe is great. The place is roaming with kids, teens, and adults all running around having fun. When warm weather comes around the place intensifies and there’s no way you can walk through without talking to at least one person. Every person in my community takes care of their own responsibilities so that everyone can enjoy a safe environment. For the most part, my neighborhood has a lot of children and families and therefore it is extremely important for mothers and fathers to do everything in their power to create a safe environment for their children. My neighborhood is very populated and diverse so in order to protect everyone’s interests people come together to help the community out. People are always conversing with the police in order to ensure that there is no suspicious activity going unnoticed. This is what communities must do to protect their members so that these members can walk around peacefully and not have to encounter the danger that streets in general may possess.

Works Cited

Roe, and Aspinall. “The Restorative Benefits of Walking in Urban and Rural Settings in Adults with Good and Poor Mental Health.” Health and Place, vol. 17, no. 1, 2011, pp. 103–113.

Weekly walks