Can we learn to walk again?

In the 1950s American writer Ray Bradbury predicted earphones, flat screen TVs, self driving cars and ATMs. In his 1951 short story – The Pedestrian – Bradbury also predicted a future where you might be arrested for walking.

For air, to see, and just to walk

Set in Los Angeles in 2053, Bradbury’s short story features Leonard Mead – a man who likes to walk around his neighbourhood after 8pm.

“In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not once in all that time.”

Everyone was indoors with their “viewing screens”:

“Magazines and books didn’t sell any more. Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night now – where the people sat like the dead… multicoloured lights touching their faces, but never really touching them”

Suddenly an autonomous police car pulls up:

“What are you doing out?” asks the voice.

Mead explains “walking for air and to see”.

“But you haven’t explained for what purpose.”

“I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk.”

The police find it highly suspicious that he isn’t indoors – like everyone else – watching TV. Perplexed – Mead is arrested and transported to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies.

Oklahoma, 2024

Far fetched? Fast forward to the 4th of July 2024. John Sexton and his son like walking at dawn – in the small town of Watonga, Oklahoma – before the day gets too hot. It’s something they do regularly. A passing police car stops them.

“Where you headed off to?” asks the police officer.

“Just walking” responds Sexton.

“I find it a little bit suspicious” says the police officer.

“Walking around is a little bit suspicious?” asks Sexton.

“Yeah – I need to see your ID” says the police officer.

“What am I being detained for?” Sexton says.

“We don’t know what you’re doing! We can call it criminal activity” the officer answers.

The police officer forces Sexton to the ground, cuffs him – puts him in the back of a police car while his young son is left in tears, traumatised by the event.

Father body slammed and arrested by cops for taking "suspicious" early morning walk with his 6 year old son
by inThatsInsane

To understand how we’ve reached this point so quickly we need to start in Paris in the 1850s.

The flâneur

Paris – like all European cities – evolved organically over centuries, building by building, street by street. During the Industrial Revolution its population exploded into a labyrinth of narrow walkable back streets, entries and alley ways. These population explosions lead to poor sanitation and frequent revolution. Paris’ revolutionaries could quickly barricade these narrow streets and move swiftly throughout the city – causing chaos.

By the mid 1800s Napoleon III had had his fill of stink and sedition. In 1853 he gave Haussmann the go ahead to clear the slums and create wide, straight, tree-lined boulevards – flooded with air and light. Too wide to barricade and easier to police, the city settled down temporarily – its citizens now explored public parks and open spaces on foot, stopping at bars and cafés as they navigated their new interconnected city.

As a result – new character appeared in Parisian literature and Impressionist paintings of the 1860s – the flâneur – the stroller, the saunterer, the casual observer of life. As these wide boulevards became adopted across Europe – strolling culture spread. Flâneurs appeared in other fictional works and other cities, most famously in Dublin – as Leopold Bloom – sauntering Dublin’s wide boulevards in Ulysses (written & published in Paris).

Parisian planning influenced Washington D.C. and cities across the North America. Walking and strolling boomed. Pedestrianism even became a sport. Kansas City became known as “Paris of the Plains”. Detroit the “Paris of the Midwest”. Cincinnati the “Paris of America” and San Francisco the “Paris of the West”.

Unwittingly however – Hausmann’s wide, straight boulevards spelled the end of the flâneur in the USA and paved the way for the defining technology of the 20th Century.

The driver

In Washington DC in 1907 there were 2,200 cars. Within 20 years there were 112,000. A booming car culture took advantage of the city’s wide straight boulevards. Tree-lined avenues were chopped down – creating more space for cars. Collisions with pedestrians increased and public outrage grew.

Throughout the 1920s the battle for road space was fought out in the nation’s newspapers and courtrooms – one judge exclaiming:

“Something drastic must be done to end this menace to pedestrians and to children in particular”.

In 1923, 42,000 Cincinnati residents petitioned the Governor to restrict speed to 25mph. Car manufacturers and dealers countered with the “Jaywalker” – a new word for a “country bumpkin”, unversed with the modern city – a word to shame the pedestrian off the road. Police were encouraged to whistle or shout at walkers crossing the road. Pedestrians were effectively marginalised when Jaywalking laws passed in states across the USA. Post WWII urban America utterly transformed from walkable city to drivable city.

As Leonard Mead was hauled off for psychiatric assessment in 1951, a new literary figure replaced him. No longer free to walk – the flâneur adapted, got a car and went On the Road.

Generation Hi-vis

Back in Europe city planners braced themselves for the approaching tsunami. The UK’s Department for Transport commissioned a report in 1961 into the “Traffic problem”. Published in 1963 Traffic in Towns concluded:

“We are not conscious of any exaggeration in saying that we have been appalled by the magnitude of the problem and by the speed with which it is advancing upon us… We are nourishing a monster of great potential destructiveness. And yet we love him dearly. Regarded as “the traffic problem” the motor car is a menace which can spoil our civilisation.”

The tsunami eventually broke across Europe in the late 60s and early 70s. Cars flooded the streets. Similar battles over road space were played out in Amsterdam in 1972 but ultimately – like the USA –cities transformed and pedestrians were marginalised.

Gen X (1965–1980) were the last generation in the UK/Ireland with a free-range childhood. In 1971, 86% of children travelled home from school independently – by 2010 this was down to 25%. Generation Z (1997–2012) are the cooped-up generation – the hi-vis generation – decked out in the cloak of visibility, the cape of the Jaywalker.

A child dressed in hi-vis signifies the Minister in charge of active travel has outsourced their responsibility to our most vulnerable citizens. Like a juvenile perp-walk – a public parade of vulnerability, a government’s cheap show of “tough on road safety”, substituting actual safe roads with the ultimate symbol of failure.

Images ©Department for Infrastructure

However, we may have just turned the corner.

Conclusion

A toddler’s first steps are a defining moment – its first tentative move toward independence. Over the past few weeks Europe started taking its first tentative steps away from US cultural dominance.

Once again Paris is in the vanguard – recently voting to pedestrianise a further 500 streets. The pandemic gave it an opportunity to recover its boulevards and rediscover its historical place as the birthplace of the stroller, the wanderer, the free-ranger – the flâneur.

As other European cities find their feet, we might see a recalibration of urban landscapes – a shift away from American-style car-centricity to a more human-scaled experience – where Leonard Mead can walk at dusk and John Sexton and his son can walk at dawn.

Stephen McNally is the director of Cycul– a not-for-profit – promoting cycle culture in Northern Ireland.
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