In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration

by Shane O'Mara

There is a powerful lesson to be learned here: those charged with complex political, organisational and other problems should not be cooped up in conference rooms. They should get out and walk their way to better solutions, and to a better world.

As we’ve seen throughout this book, walking itself is an activity that is key to so many aspects of individual lives and societies. Walking should be central to policymakers, medical professionals and town planners. Walkers everywhere need a charter that is at the foundation of our communities. At its core this charter needs some straightforward principles and to have its provisions legally implemented. Earlier I suggested the acronym EASE as a tool for our town planners and architects (walking in our towns and cities should be easy, accessible, safe and enjoyable). Design principles built around EASE will increase the quality of all our lives. This is something we can both aspire to and convert into actual policy if politicians know that your vote depends on their support for a walker’s charter. The principles of this charter need to be translated into ‘on the ground’ designs – not as an afterthought – but as the central design component. The message should be straightforward: walking is good for you. But we humans are also a little bit lazy and resistant to messages which ask us to re-evaluate our world views. Deep policy documents are of use when attempting to argue or bolster a case.16 To ensure change, the best methods are evidence-based appeals to reality and truth, within the context of a succinct story that adds to or coheres with values that the listener already has. However, if mere information provision was enough, there would be no anti-vaccination campaigns, t...

the permeability and walkability of our towns and cities, providing well-designed green spaces for walking, promoting the needs of walkers as the central human experience of mobility and movement. We need to ensure our towns and cities allow us to do what comes naturally to us: afford us opportunities for lots of activity, as well as places to rest and recharge. Creating, engineering and defending walking places and spaces is the present and future challenge. Rising to it will enrich us all in more ways than we know.

AFTERWORD In the course of this book we have travelled back into the depths of evolutionary time to meet our bipedal ancestors. We’ve witnessed how walking is a wonderful solution hit upon time and again by nature – from bottom-dwellers on the ocean floor and undulating tetrapods seeking food on sandy beaches, to we humans seeking new worlds to conquer, undertaking those great migratory waves out of Africa to walk the world over. We’ve learned that to avoid getting lost we need cognitive maps that work best when they are regularly activated by walking. We’ve wandered about the marvels that are our modern cities. Our cities can be the best of walking – if they are designed with walking in mind. We need to conceive of walking in cities in its broadest sense – giving EASE for the elderly, the young, those who have to use walking sticks, crutches and wheelchairs. As we become an increasingly urban-dwelling species we need to remember this – our cities are for people. We’ve journeyed back to childhood, when we learned to stand, struggled to our feet, fell down, and struggled back up again. And we’ve learned how all of our senses are sharpened by walking, freeing our hands for gesture, for tool use, for carrying food and children, our feet rhythmically moving, swinging through the air, stabilising against the ground, gaining purchase, and onwards we move again. The commonplace wonder is that we do this largely automatically. How can you make these lessons endure beyond reading t...