What is it about?
Walking is a fundamental act, and it can be thoughtful and emotional as well as physical. We studied how people in a small city centre in Wollongong, Australia, perceive and experience walking. We asked them how they interacted with the city and how the walking in the city changed their sense of identity, habits, and engagement with others. Their positive and negative accounts and reflections on those stories reveal different kinds of insights for theory and policy.
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Why is it important?
Walking is so much a part of daily life and in urban locations it is often complicated by the volume and velocity of traffic and unpleasant encounters and, conversely, enriched by delightful views and pleasant exchanges. Local governments are often charged with creating the conditions in which urban centers are more liveable and walkable, and it is important for them to have sound understandings of the ways in which people do perceive and experience walking. The study contributes to such agenda for one city, but adds insights to theory and policy more generally.
Perspectives
With a larger team, and funded by the Australian Research Council's Linkage grant program, the authors spent over two years working with members of the Wollongong community and Wollongong City Council to learn about different perspectives on walking the city. A surprising and affirming discovery from the work done was our ability to show that walkers want to care - for themselves, each other, and their environs - and truly value the opportunities that walking affords them when urban environs are well planned and managed.
Professor Elaine Stratford
University of Tasmania
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Rethinking the Geographies of Walkability in Small City Centers, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, February 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2018.1507815.
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