Walking city

A walking city is a type of city that is created to avoid internal transportation, and therefore be small enough that a person can use walking to navigate the city. It is characterized by narrow, often winding streets.[1] Their transport system is inherently egalitarian, with no one being disadvantaged by a lack of transport, unlike modern automobile cities.[1]

"Walking City" redirects here. For the conceptual, moving city, see Ron Herron § The Walking City.

History
Narrow streets are a common feature in walking cities, where space is at a premium.

Before the advent of machine-powered transportation, walking cities were common, due to land transportation being a scarce commodity. People arranged cities to reduce the amount of one-way trips and the necessary length of these trips.[2] This meant that features of modern cities such as one-way streets would have been avoided by city planners. Circulation patterns were sought that assured people would travel the least distance. The crooked streets of medieval towns, while seemingly inefficient, were actually created to enable circumferential routes.[2]

In Europe, the walking city was dominant up to 1850, when walking, or at most, horse-drawn transport, was the primary means of movement.[1]

Many walking cities around the world became overrun by cars during the 1950s and 1960s, but some gradually reclaimed their walking qualities, such as Freiburg and Munich in Germany and Copenhagen in Denmark.[1]

Features

In walking cities, everything was "crammed into the smallest space possible". Streets were by necessity narrow, overhanging upper stories were common, and they were often surrounded by walls for defensive purposes.[2]

See also

References
  1. L. Schiller, Preston (2010). An Introduction to Sustainable Transportation: Policy, Planning and Implementation. Routledge. ISBN 978-1136541940.
  2. Schaeffer, K. H. (1980). Access for All: Transportation and Urban Growth. Sclar, Elliott (Columbia University Press Morningside ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 8–9, 14. ISBN 0-231-05164-6. OCLC 6707513.
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