> My father-in-law used to like to come into the City to take pictures of people’s faces. He doesn’t come in much any more. Everyone is looking down at their phones.

>This raises a critical point: the loss of random encounters that are the basis of being what the French call a flâneur.

Maybe this is just the Seattle resident in me, but if a bunch of random people are trying to talk to me on my walk I would become annoyed very fast. I am trying to walk here, I am thinking!

I love walking aimlessly to no specific destination, I do it often. But don't "randomly encounter" me if I appear to be thinking.