“Give Me Walkable Cities” — Resident Highlights How Poor Urban Planning Is Ruining USA Towns

Living in a walkable city is a tough prospect to come by, something that The Happy Urbanist aka Jon (@jonjon.mp4) highlighted in a viral TikTok he posted where he calls out all of the problems with the way his Tennessee neighborhood is laid out during a walk to the park.

On his journey, he discusses the importance of urban planning in order to make cities/towns more walkable, and what's missing from his area. One of the first points he brings up is a lack of canopy trees, which can make the temperature in unshaded areas skyrocket. One of his friends even posted pictures of various temperature readings in shaded versus unshaded areas.

He then points out how cars being parked too close to a curb is a big no-no for pedestrians who now have limited visibility when it comes to looking out for any oncoming cars.

Jon calls the practice of keeping curb space open "daylighting," stating that oftentimes bollards or bike racks do a good job of ensuring these spaces are free from parked vehicles.

"It would be very easy for a kid to step out and be hit by this car," he states while pointing to a van driving on the street passing by his camera lens in the video, citing a recent news story of a child in a nearby Tennessee neighborhood being struck by a car under similar circumstances.

The TikToker goes on to say that there are some 100 million Americans who aren't within a 10-minute walk of a park from their home.

(An initiative aptly named 10minutewalk is pushing for "improving park & green space access" across the country which will give more citizens near immediate access to parks that they can easily visit from their houses.)

Jon states that although there is a park within a 10-minute walk from his own home, due to the poor city planning in the area, his pedestrian commute is "unwalkable."

He records an "incredibly unsafe road" that he shows, on camera, as having a "sidewalk bumped right up against" it. In the clip, cars across four lanes can be seen, and heard, whizzing by.

"It's exposing pedestrians to really fast traffic," he says before pointing out how a utility pole is placed on the sidewalk, giving pedestrians even less space to clear for separation from automobile traffic. He also delineates the importance of clear zones, which is the space between buildings and pedestrians and road traffic.

These clear zones are meant to be used as a buffer to help prevent any serious damage to structures; however, as he points out on the path he uses to walk to the park, there really isn't a suitable clear zone to facilitate these safety protocols, as pedestrians themselves are "inhabiting the clear zone."

He points out other structural issues with the sidewalk/road separation, noting that there aren't enough "curb cuts" while recording a mother darting across the road with her child when there's a dip in traffic, showing that people indeed do walk in the area.

Jon says that jaywalking isn't illegal in Tennessee, but that there aren't many cross walks in the area either, pointing that the nearest one from the area where the mom and kid jaywalked was half a mile up the road.

"When you make the safe option inconvenient you incentivize risky behavior," he says, then highlights that the definition of "walkable" was broken down by Jeff Speck into four different categories in his 2013 book Walkable City.

The 4 different categories are:

1. Safe Walk

2. Useful Walk

3. Comfortable Walk

4. Interesting Walk

Jon highlighted that while a lot of his opening points in the video pertain primarily to protecting folks on foot, there are other things to consider. Like the "usefulness" of walking. He shows a historical photo of the same street he's walking on, pointing out that the road used to be two lanes instead of four.

He said that this created more space for folks to walk, which made the area more conducive to foot traffic, making it a livelier place to be. He says that even though this particular area is safe to walk in, it's not practical because the area is filled with parking lots and vacant spaces because it's not a "destination," but more of a place to pass through.

He says that because there aren't "canopy" trees or any ambiance, his walk isn't necessarily an "enjoyable" one either. He then goes back to safety talks, showing how a building has both guard rails and bollards in front of it, and that's because the building has been hit by vehicles several times which Jon says is a direct result of poor road planning.

By the time he finally makes it to the park area, Jon points out that even though he can arrive at it within a 10-12 minute walk, a very high fence placed around the park forces him to walk an additional six or seven minutes just to make it actually inside of the park grounds.

He goes on to highlight other damage to guardrails, posts, and other fixtures in the area due to car accidents as well, along with pieces of vehicle debris showing more signs of accidents, which could only mean more danger to those walking on foot.

When he's actually in the park, he puts up a screenshot of a map indicating that he still has a ways from his destination. The end of his video shows with him stating that unless local politicians are forced to walk around their own towns that they govern, they're never going to understand just how important it is to make a walkable city.

There are some areas in the United States that have taken extreme measures to create living environments for people that promote walking, like this car-free city in Arizona called Culdesac. Guardian interviewed the CEO of Culdesac who talked about creating a living apartment model for folks who want to live in a community without vehicles.