Wanderlust: A History of Walking

by Rebecca Solnit

And as the climate heats up and oil runs out, this recovery is going to be very important, more important perhaps than “alternative fuels” and the other modes of continuing down the motorized route rather than reclaiming the alternatives. I often find myself at odds with pedestrian and bicycle advocates who believe that infrastructure is everything; that if you build it they will come. I believe that most industrial-zone human beings need to rethink time, space and their own bodies before they will be equipped to be as urbane and as pedestrian (or at least nonmotorized) as their predecessors. Only in places like Manhattan and London do people—some people—seem to remember how to integrate public transit and their own legs into an effective, ethical and sometimes deeply pleasurable way of navigating the terrain of their daily lives.