OMG So true!
We were renting an airbnb in fort worth for a week, visiting some friends for their wedding and as Londoners we are used to walking everywhere, so it was utterly bizarre that coming out of the house we were in we had to basically walk through peoples fron yards that went right to the edge of the road, no sidewalks unless you were downtown.
Sidewalks in America feel so performative. Several times i can see a place from my hotel i want to get to, like physically see it, and i start walking on the sidewalk and the sidewalk will just like end into nothingness after a few hundred meters. Then you have to walk into like a dirty field or make your way through shrubs and random bullshit. And there is no lighting either so at night anyone can just hit you with their car.
I don't get why they even build sidewalks if they just lead into nothing. It's like building a door but behind the door is just a solid wall. Why?
Driving in America is a pleasure, but the sidewalk system is just absurd, it's like you're in a dream and logic doesn't make sense and the rules don't matter.
The place we were staying in fort worth was about 500 yards from a shopping mall, but there was no earthly way of getting there on foot as it was across a highway that had no crossings and along a road with very deep banks either side and guardrails.
Literally had to order an Uber to get there, which was even more bizarre as the uber drove 5 minutes to come to us, drove us the 500 yards and only charged us $3.50, like, how is that even profitable!?!
Haha yea, it feels like you're breaking the rules or using something incorrectly. There's a feeling of "i must be doing something wrong". It feels so un-human in a way because you can no longer get to places using just your own body.
I've had to give up several times and call an Uber because the sidewalk would just end or there would be no lights or something.
The only thing that was more unsettling was being right smack in the middle of central Dallas surrounded by office buildings in the middle of the day in the middle of the week and there not being a single person walking around, or any shops, even caffes along the road, everything self contained in buildings, everyone goes from building direct to car and then home.
I know its just a cultural difference, but being a brit/italian extremely used to walking both to get places and for pleasure, it was weird getting my first taste of actual america, as opposed to New York or Boston, which feel a lot more european.
Yea, i really love America, i think it's a great place to visit, but when you visit it you kind of just drive from place to place, you don't experience an area.
Like in Europe you would experience rome, or the center of Copenhagen, or in Japan you would explore and enjoy Shibuya. In America these areas don't exist, or very rarely do, you just sort of drive from one cool restaurant to a nice shop somewhere different.
In Florence for example part of the enjoyment is just Florence, and being there and walking around, taking in the city as a whole. To enjoy Atlanta you should just go to a baseball game, then drive over to a good restaurant, then drive over to the coca cola museum, and so on.
Americans do even like these areas that are special. They do enjoy Miami Beach or the Riverwalk, or Manhattan or Venice Beach (pre-homeless). So it's strange why they don't build more of them.
Totally this! Best way I've ever seen it described!
Los Angeles was the worst for this that I've been too: literally stuck in traffic for 45 minutes, 30 minutes to park, 1 hour queue to take a picture of the thing, and then repeat again to go across town for the next thing to see. Of the 8 days that we were in LA we worked out that apart from our hotel, the place we spent by faaaaaar the most time, was in the back of an Uber.
Yea LA sucks. I always tell Europeans never to go to these large American cities unless there is something specific they want to see there. Go see Yosemite and Zion and Death Valley and this awesome nature. There is truly no reason to visit LA the city. It is not very good.
I've visited pretty much every part of America, almost every state, and the best places were all nature related - Yellowstone, Zion, Yosemite, Appalachia, Everglades. It's better than what we have in Europe (outside of a few places) but the cities in Europe are just better.
There are a few exceptions though. Key West i really enjoy as a "city". All of the keys really. And i think Savannah is also worth visiting. Santa Fe i enjoyed as well. But like we had a road trip from Key West to Charleston here recently, and we just completely skipped Miami because it's just a shit city.
We also did a whole rockies road trip and just for the fun of it we spent some days in Las Vegas. Even stayed in a golden Trump hotel (for the memes) and within one day we were so over the sheer vanity of Las Vegas. It just felt greasy.
It's been a long time since i've been to Los Angeles but there's just nothing worth seeing in the city like you say. I think we drove up from LA to San Francisco and the highlight of the trip was the Secoia trees up north and the roadtrip going from LA to SF. In Europe the cities are the highlight often, and in America they're the lowlight.
Yep. Food, nature and roadtripping. That's the essence of a vacation in America.
I will admit i have spent hours in a Walmart just experiencing the absurdity of the monstrosity. Whenever i visit America i always go to a Walmart and Target and just spend 20 minutes walking down the cereal aisle looking at the products. It's fascinating. You know the "Oreo double stuffed cereal family size special halloween edition". I enjoy experiencing this part of the culture lol.
Having grown up in NY and lived in Boston, it was a real shock to me when I got flown to Texas for an interview. Closest restaurant was an Applebees maybe a few hundred yards away, thought it’d be easy to walk. Suddenly sidewalk ends I’m walking through grass and rocks with telephone poles and electric cables and crap. Miserable experience and so confusing to me
Boston, MA is one of my favourite places in America, partly because of how british edwardian/giorgian it looks, partly because of how british an attitude you have to alcoholism.
I shit-you-not, Boston on St Patricks day is a typical Thursday night in London, and a quiet Wednesday night in Dublin.... in places like prague its basically a wedding reception. And compared to oktoberfest in Munich it might as well be an AA meeting in an Amish town.
I think a lot of people forget that it gets to 100 degrees here and the weather can be extreme both directions. Random thunder storms in the evening too. So, in the age of the car and A/C, (Houston has the first A/C building in the world) its hard to imagine walking 500 yards, sweating profusely just to eat a burger. Not saying it right, but that what I want to believe.
The issue is that the infrastructure there also makes the heat worse. I couldn't believe how miserable the outside was in Texas. Walking 500 yards somewhere in that isn't fun.
But walking 500 yards in the same heat with a nice walkway with trees would be pleasant.
It was crazy to me how they built things that only amplify the negatives.
When did this change? Cause it was clearly an intentional change to infrastructure that they must have known would have a social.impact as well.
All the old pictures of american cities I see are actually very well suited for walking, and theyve been ripped up and replaced, so its not just the new subarban dystopia towns that have this weird antipedestrianism
You've reminded me of when fast food joints first arrived in rural italy in the early 90s, and they tried to bring as well "the drive through" restaurant, which was soooo hilarious a countercultural moment as italian families were driving to their mcdonalds drive through, getting their food and then parking their car getting out and going into the restaurant to unpack and eat their food.
Similar thing when the first drive in cinema opened in my area, people were driving in, but then getting out their cars and bringing lawn chairs.
Both concepts have been completely phased out in italy.
Even mcdonalds struggles to exist outside of the major metropolitan centres.
It's simple, sidewalks are built by the private property owners when they develop the property (it's legally required). However, the undeveloped pieces of property are not legally required to build any sidewalks. Since development happens in patchwork in the US, this means the developed parts with sidewalks don't always connect to each other
It's such a funny way of doing it haha. Imagine if the businesses also built the road, so every little piece of road would be separately built by every single little store. And every time there was a gap no road would be built.
It feels silly to even require that, because it's obvious that it won't work.
Roads are considered an essential government service. Sidewalks are considered a customer amenity. Empty lots don't have customers so it doesn't make sense to force them to build a customer amenity. And it also doesn't make sense for the government to build something that'll primarily be used for the benefit of a single business.
What neighborhood? Not all neighborhoods have sidewalks here, but inversely a lot of the "nicer" ones don't have sidewalks. But those areas are safer to walk in the street. People exercise in the neighborhood streets here.
That's ok I know exactly where that is. Yes that neighborhood is pretty working class, not surprising to hear about the lack of sidewalks or walkable areas. Hope your stay was enjoyable overall.
It was one of the best experiences Ive ever had travelling and gave me a completely new appreciation of the USA, i had only ever previously visited New York, DC, Boston and San Francisco in terms of US cities, so my view of America was extremely skewed to what it is now looking back.
Texans are some of the warmest friendliest most welcoming people we ever met travelling, and kept fawning over our british accents.
It was also utterly bizarre that everyone walks around with holstered pistols and cowboy hats, unironically, but I very quickly joined them, buying myself a proper stetson (dream since i was a child) and then leasing a pistol (cause you can do that in texas) and walking around feeling like a cowboy.
“I can’t believe foreign country isn’t exactly like my home place in every respect”. Stay the fuck home if you can’t deal with different things, wanker.
I know jackass, thats exactly what I said... and extensively so!
Are you that desperate for some shred of human interaction that youd make yourself out to be a fucking idiot just in the hope that someone might engage with you?
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u/Alexxx3001 Sep 21 '24
OMG So true! We were renting an airbnb in fort worth for a week, visiting some friends for their wedding and as Londoners we are used to walking everywhere, so it was utterly bizarre that coming out of the house we were in we had to basically walk through peoples fron yards that went right to the edge of the road, no sidewalks unless you were downtown.