Was living in NYC and absolutely loved being able to walk everywhere and not own a car. The last few months I've been in US suburbia though (Texas/Utah) and it seems actively hostile towards walkers in many places.
Sometimes there's sidewalks, but often they're not continuous and just end for no apparent reason. You then have to walk in the road next to the cars for a ways and hope the sidewalk starts up again.
Even if there are sidewalks, there seems to be a unspoken "don't walk at night" rule even in safe neighborhoods. If I do walk at night, I get suspicious looks. Am I frightening the neighborhood by going on a walk after dark? It sure feels like it.
In suburbia, I'll even get suspicious looks walking during the day - as if I'm scoping out houses to rob or something. And I'm a pretty boring safe looking type of guy (so I'm told, haha).
The exception to this I've found is if I'm walking a dog or walking with another person (preferably female) to legitimize me as a walker.
The longer I'm in these parts of suburbia, the more I realize that these attitudes are somewhat justified. Sadly, I don't think I've ever seen a man walking around the neighborhoods by himself unless he was a vagrant.
Apparently the vast majority of men in these neighborhoods just don't ever go on walks unaccompanied. Otherwise it would turn into a 'normal' activity and the suspiciousness of it would subside.
I realize there are probably great neighborhoods in the US for walking, but from my limited experience (living in ~10 states), they seem pretty rare outside of urban centers.
I spent a lot of time in Germany (US military communities) growing up and it was a totally different experience. Much of Europe that I've seen is likewise a vastly better experience for walking.
In 6 days I'm moving to Berlin. Why? Well, I'm bootstrapping a small systems-training business and want to live somewhere low cost and without a car. While cheap walkable places surely must exist in the US, they're rare and I haven't been able to find many that are also safe and not run-down. If I'm missing some, please let me know!
After being in US suburbia for the last few months, I'm really looking forward to being a first-class citizen as a walker again.
I've also had the experience of getting "suspicious looks" while walking in suburbia.
I was once stopped and questioned by a police cruiser because I was walking on a well lit street at night in my Ohio hometown. The officer was reluctant to accept that anyone would walk for the sake of walking - and yes, I've read "The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury [1]. Truth can be as strange as fiction.
After living in NYC for 10 years, walking has become such a natural part of life that I completely forgot how unusual it was in suburban Ohio.
I can't help but think that the lack of walking goes beyond negative health effects; I feel like it erodes civil society to a certain degree. When you drive door to door, you rarely interact with strangers. Given my experience, I don't think "paranoia" is too harsh of a word to describe what car-focused settlement patterns can do to people.
At some point I finally realized that most cities in the US are designed for cars, not humans.
I still haven't figured out why humans who live in the USA aren't bothered by this. They really seem to enjoy living in the thrall of their 4-wheeled overlords. They'll even arrange their lives to ensure that the car gets upwards of an hour of exercise per day, at great great financial cost to themselves. Oftentimes to the detriment of their own health, too, since they usually forego their own exercise for the sake of the car's. It's absolutely bizarre.
I heard horror stories of Japanese salarymen living in monotonous apartment blocks, returning to the wrong apartment by accident if they didn't pay attention. But American suburbs are just like that: block after block of identical houses, the same 1-n designs on the same lot plans, with the same front yards. In many neighborhoods it's even frowned upon to decorate your house so that it looks differently from the rest of the cookie-cutter houses. No shops or anything to break up the monotony, and when you do drive to the closest strip mall it's just a bunch of franchises and chain stores. No wonder we don't walk in the U.S. -- everything is too far apart, and it all looks the same anyway!
I lived in Japan in my twenties after growing up in a California suburb. I loved walking around there. In most places there simply was no grid; in places with a grid it was often broken up by geography. Many places had been inhabited continuously for hundreds of years. It's an incredibly visually rich environment.
This is exactly how I feel when I visit Mountain View for work. Why are the parking lots in front of the store and not in the back? Why do I have to walk through a sea of parked cars to get to my building? It's all very strange to me.
I also noticed the suspicious looks for my terrible crime of not owning a car after dark.
> I also noticed the suspicious looks for my terrible crime of not owning a car after dark.
i lived near mountain view and did not notice this when visiting on my bicycle or the caltrain. sure, it's not the city proper, but mountain view seems rather quaint and really quite pedestrian friendly, at least in the area by the train station.
I live in Berlin and have just walked to work - I love it (even on a rainy day like today) - time to think.
Whilst Berlin is spread out I have found that you normally stick to your own "kiez" (neighbourhood). If you are lucky you'll be able to live and work in roughly the same area, and therefore walking (or cycling) is a great option.
As a previous commenter said, there are a number of shared car options available. I don't use these as I have no need, but they seem very good.
Also, the public transport within the city is very good.
There is, however, one danger of walking. It is very easy to find yourself stopping for a coffee or a beer on a sunny day!
> Even if there are sidewalks, there seems to be a unspoken "don't walk at night" rule even in safe neighborhoods. If I do walk at night, I get suspicious looks.
I've encountered this, too. My solution is to use a flashlight. I don't even aim it where I'm looking as I want to keep my night vision, I just aim it at my feet as I walk. This announces my presence to anyone nearby, so I don't suddenly surprise them or make them think I'm trying to hide.
Good luck with your move to Berlin! It might interest you that there are many car-sharing schemes operational in Berlin, so that you can go completely car-less, even if you have to cover a large distance or transport something every now and then.
You don't need a car in Berlin unless you need to move furniture or need to re-stock multiple beer crates at once.
car2go works fine for occasional small size shuttle needs (yet their coverage is shrinking with every update of their TOS). For the ultimate exposure to Berlin-style directness (some people mislabel this as rudeness) I would also recommend renting a Sprinter van at Robben-Wientjes.
As a rule of thumb:
if you stay within the S-Bahn Ring or in walking distance to any S/U-Bahn Station up to 3 stops out of it you get almost anywhere within the city in about half an hour. Biking is normally easier in the former east, since West-Berlin's post-war urban development was also all about cars.
Was in Texas multiple times for a few weeks and the car-centric AC-enabled lifestyle is always quite the culture shock for me.
It's spread out, but the S- and U-Bahns will take you quite far, out past the edges of the city. It's hard for me to imagine needing a car (OK multi-crate Bier runs maybe an exception, as another has written, or moving apartments). For real long-distance stuff there's the Regional Express and normal long-haul train service. As to walkability, I'm a dedicated walker and the city's fantastic for it. Sidewalks are quite wide (by US standards) and there are usually plenty of safe places to cross streets, legally and otherwise. Mind the Ampelmännchen and you probably won't even get hit by a trolley.
> OK multi-crate Bier runs maybe an exception, as another has written
You can generally have drinks delivered for little to no surcharge and probably cheaper than specifically renting a car. Plus you don’t have to carry them upstairs :)
This is why everyone's trying to cram into San Francisco. It's extremely walkable. At some point Americans decided to abandon the walkable city that was designed by thousand year old civilizations and spread out like crazy. Thus requiring cars. Now people are realizing why driving everywhere isn't such a good idea.
Trust is also increasingly disappearing in America and the car, gated communities, and spread out maze-like suburbs are what people put in front to make themselves feel safe.
Good luck with the move! I moved to Berlin from the US just over a year ago, and I've absolutely loved it here so far. Such a great place to explore on foot too. Especially when I first arrived, one of my favorite things to do was just pick a district and wander for a while. I discovered many of my now-favorite places that way.
It is indeed rather spread out though, so I definitely recommend supplementing your transport possibilities with a bike. =)
There are still some small cities in the midwest that are both cheap and walkable. Look for college towns for cities that arent completely rundown nd rusted away.
Sometimes there's sidewalks, but often they're not continuous and just end for no apparent reason. You then have to walk in the road next to the cars for a ways and hope the sidewalk starts up again.
Even if there are sidewalks, there seems to be a unspoken "don't walk at night" rule even in safe neighborhoods. If I do walk at night, I get suspicious looks. Am I frightening the neighborhood by going on a walk after dark? It sure feels like it.
In suburbia, I'll even get suspicious looks walking during the day - as if I'm scoping out houses to rob or something. And I'm a pretty boring safe looking type of guy (so I'm told, haha).
The exception to this I've found is if I'm walking a dog or walking with another person (preferably female) to legitimize me as a walker.
The longer I'm in these parts of suburbia, the more I realize that these attitudes are somewhat justified. Sadly, I don't think I've ever seen a man walking around the neighborhoods by himself unless he was a vagrant.
Apparently the vast majority of men in these neighborhoods just don't ever go on walks unaccompanied. Otherwise it would turn into a 'normal' activity and the suspiciousness of it would subside.
I realize there are probably great neighborhoods in the US for walking, but from my limited experience (living in ~10 states), they seem pretty rare outside of urban centers.
I spent a lot of time in Germany (US military communities) growing up and it was a totally different experience. Much of Europe that I've seen is likewise a vastly better experience for walking.
In 6 days I'm moving to Berlin. Why? Well, I'm bootstrapping a small systems-training business and want to live somewhere low cost and without a car. While cheap walkable places surely must exist in the US, they're rare and I haven't been able to find many that are also safe and not run-down. If I'm missing some, please let me know!
After being in US suburbia for the last few months, I'm really looking forward to being a first-class citizen as a walker again.