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Comment by Turing_Machine | Hacker News Reader

In the future, when you're old and quite possibly disabled, you might rethink the whole "walkable cities" thing.

I mean, it's easy to say "just walk (or ride a bike)" when you're 22 years old and in prime health, but the population in most First World countries is rapidly aging.

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"Walkable cities" doesn't mean that everyone is forced to walk everywhere. It means that there are destinations (grocery store, restaurant, pub, library, cinema, hospital etc) you can reach within walking distance without having to play frogger on a highway. They are absolutely a boon to someone old and disabled. They can use assistive devices, public transport, and even cars to get around.

I think you have the wrong impression about what "walkable cities" mean.

A walkable city doesn't preclude driving. In fact it often improves it. If almost everybody is walking or biking or using transit that means there are few other cars and driving becomes much nicer too.

Many things incorrect here.

Better driving can only get you from 1 curb to another. You still have to walk to your actual destination whether it’s to the other end of the mall, or to your home’s door. In no way is this any worse in a walkable city which will not only allow you to walk everywhere when you’re able, therefore delaying any loss in walking capabilities, but will also include better and more accessible public and private curb to curb transportation.

A walkable city will also make the curb to actual destination far more walkable.

A walkable city will also mean a lot more options are accessible to the disabled through their wheelchairs, etc.

The biggest reason people loose muscle mass as they age is due to lack of use, so a built environment that encourages walking is going to help keep people in shape to walk as they age.

> a built environment that encourages walking is going to help keep people in shape to walk as they age

It's the reason New Yorkers live longer [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/29/health/life-e...

> when you're old and quite possibly disabled, you might rethink the whole "walkable cities" thing

Manhattan is incredibly senior friendly.

NY is an AARP top-10 most livable city alongside other pedestrian-centric cities like Boston and San Francisco. Orlando and Tulsa conspicuously absent. Aging in car cities sucks.

Old and handicapped people have lived before cars, and in less car-centric cities forever. Walkable cities mainly mean that things are close to you so you _can_ walk to them.

Actual car-free areas, like the access-controlled dense old towns in Europe, are possible (if built-out where they don't exist), but not necessarily to be walkable.

> In the future, when you're old and quite possibly disabled, you might rethink the whole "walkable cities" thing.

I am disabled, and like many other disabled people, I can't drive a car. Often times as people age they also lose the ability to drive a car safely.

That is precisely why walkable neighborhoods are so important to old and disabled people.

Many more disabled people are disabled in a way that prevents them from driving a car than in ways that prevent them from walking. There is also a huge class of people who are physically capable of driving but legally barred from it.

Yeah I wonder what people do, and have done, around the world in walkable communities predating the car. Perhaps people in these communities are on average more mobile into old age because they frequently walked?

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