Walking Is Being Reinvented

Odds and Ends:

• I love that NYC has created a Parents’ Night Out program to provide free babysitting at rec centers so parents can go out on a date.

• It’s a great counter to the notion that we have a fun shortage due to the high cost of activities these days.

• The first global convening on informal and shared mobility is happening in Bangkok this October. Here’s my list of the other conferences worth attending this fall.

It sounds ridiculous to say it – but, walking is being reinvented as an appointment activity. Forget about those walking tours where you follow a person hoisting a flag telling you about the city’s history while people with cameras slung over their chests gape, or being a flâneur, aimlessly wandering the city.

Instead, now thousands of people are circumnavigating Manhattan on foot, not for charity, just to have done it. Walking tours – not for tourists, but for locals – are garnering waitlists. People are making a living writing about their walks. What was once just a form of transportation, exercise, a way to kill time or chat with a friend, walking in cities is now becoming a way to reconnect with place and discover the unsanctioned parts of cities.

Why is walking trending right now? My instinctual response to that question was the pace of the world. With all those 15-second videos and AI agents speeding up work, people want something slow and off screen. But if that were the case, I think we’d see mostly a trend toward solo walks in nature. Instead, what we’re seeing is a series of new kinds of urban walks, and a growing culture around them.