Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health

89 117 3 years ago

Why do you feel better when you go to Europe, or even to Disneyland? Humans crave walkable neighborhoods. American and Canadian infrastructure is the main reason we have so many mental health problems.

wombat-man• 3 years ago

Yeah, visited a few smaller cities in Spain and they were all very nice and walkable, at least in the areas I was at. Made me kinda sad to think about how we miss the mark on this.

Feels like NYC is the only place, and it's great, just expensive to live in.

anon291• 3 years ago

Feels like NYC is the only place, and it's great, just expensive to live in.

There's actually a lot of walkable areas of many American cities or alternatively smaller rural towns. Generally, the older the city the easier these neighborhoods are to find. even LA has walkable neighborhoods (even though you'll still need a car to get around in general). But yes... expensive.

blueyes2• 3 years ago

Many parts of SF are walkable and many neighborhoods within the city do not have the crime problem that is so visible downtown.

Zigurd• 3 years ago

Boston and San Francisco are walkable, too, but on a much smaller scale. There are small cities, mainly in the eastern US that are walkable.

I hope the rising popularity of e-bikes makes some lower density cities more navigable without a car. Pretty much all "stroads" should be converted to 2 car lanes and a turning lane in the middle, which would leave room for protected bike lanes.

ericmcer• 3 years ago

Beyond walkable just removing the constant noise and air pollution would have an instant positive affect on mental health.

eBombzor2• 3 years ago

This 1000%. I live in Seattle and I was lucky enough to find a 30min walkable commute to work but holy hell it is unbelievably stressful. Crazy drivers not respecting pedestrians, super loud trucks everywhere, constant road rage with blaring horns, sketchy looking sidewalks.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I'm pretty sure I have hearing loss from walking next to trucks that make an unbelievable amount of noise. Garbage trucks are the worst offenders in my experience.

It's definitely gotten to the point where I have to find alternative routes from the main streets for my own safety.

And isn't Seattle supposed to be one of the most walkable cities in the US?

RankingMember• 3 years ago

I'm not a fan of the condescending tone of a lot of NotJustBikes' videos, but he made a solid piece about the sheer sound impact of vehicles in cities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8

tptacek2• 3 years ago

I buy the value of walkable neighborhoods, but it's hard to make this epidemiological claim hold up; Canada and the US have broadly similar infrastructure but sharply different rates of mental illness; similarly, mental illness rates don't appear to track walkability in Europe.

loandbehold5• 3 years ago

Walkability is good for physical health. Walking is a light exercise. Physical health improves mental health. But I'm not sure if walkability directly improves mental health.

eBombzor2• 3 years ago

Canada also has free healthcare. There are an infinite number of cultural differences that could affect the mental health rates in EU/CA more positively than in the US.

moritzwarhier4• 3 years ago

I don't think it's hard to make this claim hold up at all. Have you looked at local differences apart from comparing HUGE countries with each other; one of which has an extremely low population density? Since you are mentioning walkable "very similar" infrastructure, how do you quantidy actual walkability?

It takes a single search to find many different studies and meta-studies about correlations between noise, air pollution and mental illness, cardiovascular health, life expectancy and others.

I encourage you to look for studies about a metropolitan area near you:

Car traffic is not harmless. Noise is not harmless. It's just that those who contribute the most to pollution anr noise usually don't experience it every day for hours on end, or even during their sleep.

If you prefer esoteric subjects to obvious ones, I'd recommend this study:

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/11/5/467

If you are looking for proofs for the obvious (living at a busy road makes you sick), there are plenty of studies about this subject as well.

Cancer rates rise, IQ drops, life expectancy drops, all in clear correlation to your immediate environment.

As a German, also the pedestrian's and cyclist's utopia that Europe is painted as on US media also sickens me.

It's purely a matter of money and inheritance.

Good luck finding a non-toxic place to live in a big city with an average wage and *without owning a car*.

Possible, but exceptional.

automatic6131• 3 years ago

Why do you feel better when you go to Europe, or even to Disneyland?

Probably because you're on vacation?

Why is there nothing that walkable city enthusiasts will claim walkable cities won't fix?

loandbehold5• 3 years ago

Right. I also feel good on road trips.

CalRobert3• 3 years ago

I'm not on vacation and Europe has been great for me mentally. Similarly, I hate when I go back to the US.

blueyes2• 3 years ago

Modern America reserves walkability for college campuses (which explains some of the nostalgia that attaches to them); golf courses and shopping malls -- which may explain part of their popularity.

mrguyorama4• 3 years ago

Actually, American shopping malls are a great example of UNwalkability, because they are usually out in the middle of nowhere with respect to the closest population center, mostly to fit giant parking lots but also because American Malls were a weird result of a certain retail and real estate situation.

In America, "going to the mall" is almost always a trip you get into your car for, even if you live in a big city! You can't just drop in to get something as you walk around.

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

Great points here. Walkability is the main reason people enjoy their college experience so much. Imagine having to drive from your dorm, to class, then to hang out with friends, then back. It would be a nightmare. Unfortunately, this is the everyday experience for most Americans.

nine_zeros• 3 years ago

The main reason I like walking is just to feel like I am among people, even if I am not actively interacting with them. In the Bay area, my favorite place used to be the airport, because that's the only place I could see people other than my coworkers.

And this may just be me but I feel that the reason I liked being among people is because it creates the illusion of possibilities. Possibilities of friendships, a date, an interesting person, a job opportunity etc. This was reaffirmed when I chatted with utter strangers for hours at the airport.

hardcopy• 3 years ago

illusion of possibilities

I wouldn't say it's an illusion.

People who live on heavily trafficked streets, which cater mostly to motorists, count on average about one friend. People who live on walkable streets, however, count three—and twice as many acquaintances, to boot. If your neighbors are within walking distance, and it’s easy for you to walk, it’s much more likely that you’ll bump into them, strike up a conversation, get to know them a little.

https://qz.com/1421323/for-the-good-of-all-humankind-make-yo...

Finnucane3• 3 years ago

In my neighborhood I can walk, bike, or take the public transit almost anywhere I need to go (20 min bike ride to my office). There are shops, restaurants, a nice movie theater nearby. I live in a rowhouse surrounded mostly by other rowhouses and 2-3 family buildings, so I do know most of my neighbors. I grew up in a suburb and wouldn't go back for anything.

vosper2• 3 years ago

There’s nothing at this site except a hat that’s for sale and a claim that it’s raising money for a documentary?

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

What would you like to see on the site? The main purpose is to raise funds for the walkability doc. The doc will cover why the US became car-centric (corporate lobbying, etc), benefits of walkable infrastructure and it will compare US cities to walkable Euro cities.

vosper2• 3 years ago

I’d like to see anything supporting the claim made in the post title.

loandbehold5• 3 years ago

Are there any studies that show that walkability improves mental health?

Finnucane3• 3 years ago

Not living in the suburbs improves mental health.

moritzwarhier4• 3 years ago

Not if you are living in a noisy and polluted location, which is the case for most people without a car, clichees aside.

PraetorianGourd• 3 years ago

Can you back that up with any study at all? Or are we counting smug anecdotes as facts these days?

loandbehold5• 3 years ago

Citation?

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

My favorite places in the world are small walkable towns in nature. Sprawling car-centric suburbia has more asphalt than trees. It sucks.

ch4s35• 3 years ago

Here's a meta analysis[1] from 2012 showing that walking has a strong positive effect on depression. Here's one showing that biking and walking for commuting were associated with improved physical/mental health[2]. Here's a newer study showing benefits to the elderly from walking in urban green spaces[3].

Seems like a well supported idea.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S17552...

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01604...

[3] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.5759...

loandbehold5• 3 years ago

These studies just shows that exercise improves mental health. I doubt anyone disputes that. The question is — are there benefits from walking directly, benefits that you can't get by say going to the gym. The claim of urban density advocates is that just being around thousands of strangers improves mental health.

coderintherye• 3 years ago

Your mileage may vary, literally, but I walk 1-2 hours everyday and am 10/10 on self-assessed happiness and mental health.

glonq4• 3 years ago

I'm happy with jogging and walking every day, especially because I can reap the mental health benefits that better physical health brings.

sky_rw• 3 years ago

During my commute I watch a homeless guy in my town walk 2 miles with a limp everyday to the spot he panhandles. There may be more to it than walking.

cagenut2• 3 years ago

IMHO we're going to look back historically at single-family-detached-suburban-sprawl as not just the fulcrum in destroying the environment, but also actively harmful to the people that live there, especially children. Its easy for it to feel "normal" or even aspirational to us now, but its basically only ~3 generations old, and the first generation raised in suburbs was usually larger families in closer-in suburbs, people that could still walk and bike to more-than-nothing and would be able to interact with extended family and cousins more frequently than just the holiday mega-travel. So really its only the children of baby boomers and their children that have exhibited the full force of the mental health and social development impacts of the extremely isolating environment.

deprecative3• 3 years ago

I hope we exist long enough to look back at it and see what harm it has done. As it stands, I'm pretty sure most of us will be dead and so will most life on the planet.

chromatin2• 3 years ago

Reasonable people can disagree.

My quite small yard in the burbs is my oasis with fruit trees, a garden, place for my dog to run, and a lovely place to sit and listen to birds. On top of this, we can walk to amenities and greet our neighbors on the sidewalk.

If I lived in a soulless apartment block my mental health by contrast would be in the pits.

ch4s35• 3 years ago

I think people miss that there are living arrangements other than detached single family homes and tall apartment buildings.

TulliusCicero6• 3 years ago

The solution is soulful apartment blocks.

The US is really bad at apartment complexes. I commonly saw way nicer, less depressing ones while living in the outskirts of Munich.

Finnucane3• 3 years ago

'suburb' and 'soulless apartment block' aren't the only choices. It's entirely possible to build denser mixed-use neighborhoods with less car-dependence without making them urban warehouses. THough typically this is not what we build, neighborhoods like that exist here mainly in places where they've grown that way over time.

zer8k• 3 years ago

IMHO we're going to look back historically at single-family-detached-suburban-sprawl as not just the fulcrum in destroying the environment, but also actively harmful to the people that live there, especially children.

Spicy take. I grew up in a neighborhood that would've been considered "suburban" I guess. I had no problems because there were 20 kids who lived there and we all played together. We also went to the same schools. Never had any problem with that though the fact my family moved for work did distance us from our relatives. I was never "extremely isolated". Ever. Bullied, perhaps, but never isolated.

I think the terminally online always connected culture of today is doing far more damage. Compound that with people having less children, housing being transient due to a rental economy, etc and you have the destruction you're looking for. I don't think the implied solution here, giant multi-story multi-family housing, is the solution either. Packing people in like sardines is not effective. You only need to look at Asia to see what happens when you let this form of housing reach its natural conclusion. It sure is nice having my own 4 walls, a garage, etc. It's a space I control and I would fight to keep it. I do wish my area was more walkable. However, I will take what I can get. There's a park about 10 minutes from me and a few coffee shops.

I am simply not a fan of this anti-car, anti-natalist, anti-detatched-housing trifecta that seems to be polluting more progressive social media. I don't understand it. I don't think I ever will.

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

Watch the TED talk "Ghastly Tragedy of the Suburbs". Has your mind changed after watching it?

TacticalCoder• 3 years ago

... IMHO we're going to look back historically at single-family-detached-suburban-sprawl as not just the fulcrum in destroying the environment

As opposed to packing people like ants in high-rises in cities, which is the most environmentally friendly?

cagenut2• 3 years ago

Unquestionably. The denser the housing the more environmentally friendly, they are nearly perfectly correlated. Shared walls share thermal mass, which helps on both the hot and cold end. Shared facilities reduce per-unit square footage, further saving on heating/cooling. Network-effects of density cause more things to be in walkable/bikeable distance. Substantial density is required to make public transit function.

As an example, check out the map of the boston-washington/east-coast-corridor of the US here: https://coolclimate.org/maps

jzb2• 3 years ago

Expected a study, got an ad. Literally the "above-the-fold" piece is an ad to buy a MAWA hat and then a beg for a documentary that isn't yet produced. Ugh.

alibarber2• 3 years ago

Yup - for anyone else, this link is junk. It's a page that says they have a million views on Tiktok and please give some money.

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

It’s a project raising money for the documentary. Goal of the doc is to raise awareness about walkability.

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

A good doc needs some funding. It’s been a slow journey. Our TikTok is quite popular and raised a lot of awareness.

zedadex• 3 years ago

is an ad to buy a MAWA hat

There's no quicker way to get me to close a tab, aside from maybe just invoking window.close() yourself

EdTechAndrew3• 3 years ago

I am glad there is a growing enthusiasm for walkable cities in the US. It's something I've become very passionate about lately.

For those that are interested in learning more about the topic, I highly highly recommend the City Nerd youtube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@CityNerd.

I find a lot of arguments for for walkability tend to be emotional or needlessly hostile towards car owners. City Nerd takes a much more analytical approach and shares the data he uses for his videos, I think that's something most of HackerNews can appreciate.

deprecative3• 3 years ago

Are they hostile to car owners or is it the car dependency enforced via city planning / infrastructure? I almost always see the latter but hear the former as criticism which is laughable.

mrguyorama4• 3 years ago

When you've only ever been familiar with privilege, fairness feels unfair.

EdTechAndrew3• 3 years ago

Hostility may have been too strong of a choice of word. It's less the arguments or sentiments of anti-car advocates but more the language used online. For example, r/fuckcars is massive. A large subreddit might not be considered mainstream, but it does have massive reach. A lot of people see this as one of their first exposures to car-free communities and do not feel welcomed by it.

I think it's somewhat of an optics issue, but it is very hard to find walkability communities online that aren't using terms like "car-brain". I know that these terms are targeted at a certain type of car owner, but without being familiar with the car-free community this is not always clear and can be a turn-off to car-owners who may be curious about learning more.

TulliusCicero6• 3 years ago

I see arguments that are hostile towards a certain type of car owner -- the entitled sort that can't stand anything less than absolute car dominance of the roads. The kind who's opposed to new housing or badly needed bike or bus lanes because it might impact public street parking.

Hostility towards anyone who owns a car is rather more rare from walkability proponents. Not totally unheard of, but hardly mainstream.

EdTechAndrew3• 3 years ago

Hostility may have been too strong of a choice of word. It's less the arguments or sentiments of anti-car advocates but more the language used online.

For example, r/fuckcars is massive. A large subreddit might not be considered mainstream, but it does have massive reach. A lot of people see this as one of their first exposures to car-free communities and do not feel welcomed by it.

hackyhacky3• 3 years ago

I am fully on-board with walkable cities, it's something I feel very strongly about. This link, however, is not to an article supporting the lofty claim of the title (currently "Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health"), but rather to a shop where you can buy red Trump-style "Make America Walkable Again" hats.... for what end exactly? Not clear. The site is collecting donations, but they don't say what they plan to do with them. All of this smells very fishy. (As an aside, I'd guess the number of US residents who support walkable cities AND who are willing to wear a hat that is designed to be mistaken at first glance for one supporting the former president is very small.)

If you're interested in a more informative discussion of city design and its effect on lived experience, I recommend Not Just Bikes [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

What would you like to see on the website? All proceeds from hat sales go toward funding the Make America Walkable documentary.

hackyhacky3• 3 years ago

If you want to make a documentary, I would like to know why your documentary will be better than what is already available, such as Not Just Bikes, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, or any other prior art.

cpursley2• 3 years ago

It's the cause of so many issues in America (physical, mental, social). A great book on the utterly broken build environment in North America is "The Geography of Nowhere":

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125313.The_Geography_of_...

Also, people forget - walkable doesn't just mean "somewhere you can walk" - I means you can walk to activities of daily living (groceries, pharmacy, gym, job, friends places, etc).

oerpli• 3 years ago

While it might cause other issues, I think the root is somewhere else and harder to solve (even if the solution is obvious).

cpursley2• 3 years ago

Walkable communities would get people actually talking to each other, for a start - just from the serendipitous encounters with other people irl (like what happens in Europe).

rajeshp1986• 3 years ago

There are other factors which contribute more to mental health but this is like justifying what the authors want using mental health as a reason. Making cities more walkable would be better for other reason but I doubt if mental health would significantly increase if we make cities more walkable. San Francisco is very much walkable but has highest mental health issues.

shmerl3• 3 years ago

It's crazy how some places have no sidewalks at all. Dumbest city design.

TulliusCicero6• 3 years ago

Yes, but walkability goes far beyond sidewalks.

It's easy to find US cities with plenty of sidewalks that are hideously unwalkable, as well as many streets in Japan with no sidewalks that are still highly walkable.

shmerl3• 3 years ago

Unless there are separate streets for pedestrians (which is basically non existent in US most of the time), not sure how you can have any city walkable without sidewalks.

princevegeta89• 3 years ago

This is not surprising in a capitalistic first-world country and always happens when everything around you is designed for you to always drive somewhere.

It's up to each individual person to decide how or if they want to spend time outdoors, be it a run, walk, or a bike ride.

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

The irony of your comment is American infrastructure in 2023 favors cars is less capitalistic and more corporate lobbying and the government siding with the car industry.

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

It’s not about being anti-car, it’s about having OPTIONS. In most of the USA, you are forced to drive. There is no good alternative.

marktani3• 3 years ago

Had a fun conversation about language learning with an American friend who's learning German.

She asked me what "walkable" is in German. Then it hit me, we don't have this word because in Germany this concept is unknown.

Funny how societal factors have such an imprint in language.

rightbyte• 3 years ago

"Fußgängerfreundlich"? It is used alright. E.g. Berlin has really bad street lighting, so I guess you could say it is not very pedestrian friendly.

marktani3• 3 years ago

I stand corrected!

I haven't heard this before and can only find online usage from official institutions and city departments though, so maybe it's a more official term?

henryhenryhenry17• 3 years ago

Very interesting fact. Thank you!

predictabl3• 3 years ago

The closest I've come to slipping back into clinical depression is when I moved home for a few months to KS where the weather is brutalizing and on top of it, they live in the "country" where civilization is 20 minutes away.

One of my family members is clearly desperate for social outlets. And they thrive and gush over anywhere they travel to that inevitably is walkable and has tangible community.

Idk how people do it.

josuepeq• 3 years ago

Resident of walkable “San Francisco” here.

I would say the stress of completing day to day errands and activities here having recently moved to a “walkable neighborhood” has been detrimental to my mental health, since moving out of the car centric western side of SF.

It’s a fact that most of the commercial corridors here are at the bottom of the hill, which means climbing home. It only seems walkable here until you have to climb up 200 feet+ in elevation to get home with your groceries, and panhandled along the way.

And at night, the situation is worse. I have learned that PCP is the most popular drug of choice for the encampment that exists between my walk from Whole Foods to home, and that explains the insanity that comes from it with an almost nightly occurrence.

And even then, options for completing all of my errands locally are limited; for example we lack a full line grocery store in walking distance, among other needed businesses (like Walgreens) that have closed.

I have found that getting what I need without a car in SF is 10x more complicated than having a car, so I keep mine.

When talking about walkable cities, I would leave this off the list.

lastitude• 3 years ago

And the disabled, the elderly and the pregnant can just go sign up for MAID. I lived a decade in both NYC and LA and my quality of life, at a lower cost, was vastly better in LA, where I had to drive almost everywhere. People who want to live in restricted zones, like 15 minute cities where cars are banned and all options are limited, should certainly be free to do so. But these schemes are detrimental to the majority of the population.

sharts• 3 years ago

Lack of walkability in the US is destroying mental health…and that is great for for health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well “mental-health” tech entrepreneurs and ChatGPT.

Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health

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