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Comment by muppetman | Hacker News Reader

I'm Australian and when visiting LA about 10 years ago I decided I wanted to see some things. Every time I asked for directions, local people would say "Well you get on this motorway and then turn here" etc. I'd say "No, I want to walk" and people would look at me like I was a leper.

Maybe it's LA specific, but I was amazed at just what a "You don't WALK anywhere" culture there was, at least with all the people I spoke to.

Or maybe I'm the crazy one for wanting to walk everywhere!

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Having grown up in LA, I think it is LA specific (and a few other cities too). Given how big and spread out the city is, it is pretty difficult to walk around unless you only want local attractions in a certain area (say, Hollywood). Taking public transit or a bike might work for some attractions too, but it's also incredibly time consuming. I do a good 50+ miles of driving when friends/family are visiting even for a couple of days. Just to get out of my former neighborhood and to a shopping center or whatever, in the city of LA so not like out in the boonies, takes a couple miles alone.

Compare to SF where I live now, and I'm pretty happy I can walk to a lot more places within a few blocks :)

Well then call the funny farm and have me committed, because I dont drive. My main mode of transportation is walking.

I'm actually known around town as the "guy who walks everywhere". It's like I'm the town freak.

More seriously though, in this culture, cars and driving are like a religion. I also think that driving instead of walking disconnects people from nature and from knowing their own neighborhood, both socially and ecologically.

Traveling at high speeds in an insulated metal cage can have that effect.

I think this idea that 'driving disconnects people from nature and from knowing their own neighborhood' is silly, and possibly harmful if it leads people down suboptimal urban planning designs. It sounds lovely and humanistic and all that, but I would love to see some evidence that it's actually, y'know, true.

I walk my neighborhood (2-3 times a week), and I can't say I am any more connected when walking than when driving. I see no more people when I walk than when I drive, and the ones I do see don't recognize me nor I them. It's not as if walking makes me suddenly introduce myself to people, or that doing so will induce me to somehow pick up (nonexistent) litter or the like, or somehow notice things I wouldn't otherwise.

It's not as if walking makes me suddenly introduce myself to people, or that doing so will induce me to somehow pick up... litter or the like, or somehow notice things I wouldn't otherwise.

Sorry to hear that.

This is what I don't get, that people think that walking somehow magically makes people somehow more social than they are. Maybe I'm wrong! But I'd like to see data that proves people are more social when walking than driving. I think the lack of social interaction is the controlling factor, not a particular mode of transportation people choose.

Fear wears many masks.

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