Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars

by Samuel I. Schwartz

This time I decided to follow my father’s footsteps. In 1951, he had moved us from Brownsville to Bensonhurst to be within walking distance of his grocery store. In 2002, I did the same, moving to an apartment in Greenwich Village, eight blocks from my office on Houston Street. There were seven different ways to walk from my home to the office, one for each day of the week. Every day I’d pick a different side street and always find something new. Depending on the wait for the elevator, the entire trip took between ten and eleven minutes, and I wasn’t anxious or rushed for a single one of them. As a boy, I had been a bit discomfited by the fact that my father walked to work, while most of the other fathers drove. Now I knew my father was the wisest of them all. He picked his home to minimize travel.

92. I have kind of done the same, but for transit. Just like his father, the author decides to move within walking distance of work. He had previously written how weird urban life is. It used to be the poor. Now it's the affluent who can afford to pay more in rent, bit the living expenses are less, in transit and acess to entertainment.