Walkable Cities

About

Walkable Cities are a societal trend and city design concept commonly referred to in a series of memes about the foundation-level system of society that began to grow more prevalent online in the early 2020s. Typically such memes advocate for the benefits of walkable cities designed for pedestrians in mind with less emphasis placed on cars, including parking lots and roads. Though often used as a juxtaposition between European or Japanese cities and American ones, the trend has begun to grow as a larger push for a different lifestyle, particularly among social media users in the U.S. The concept has also inspired a viral debate surrounding the topic online, with those arguing for more pedestrian-friendly urban areas being perceived as naive or uninformed by some.

Origin

In 1961, the city planning and urban environmental design specialist Jane Jacobs published the book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which outlined very pro-suburban lifestyle planning policies that were pushed in the 1950s, as well as laid out what their generational impact would be, the failure to account for future hardships, and laid out a foundation for returning cities to pedestrian-led centers of civilization. A documentary series called American Masters did a small featurette on her that was reuploaded to YouTube by the channel Max Robins^[1] on August 15th, 2016, where it would explain some of her core fundamental ideals and would go on to garner over 36,000 views in six years (shown below).

Though the concept of walkable cities has long had a presence online, it became a growing topic of discussion, debate and memes around April 2021 and has continued increasing into late 2022.^[5] For example, on April 8th, 2021, the TikToker talkingcities^[2] uploaded a TikTok in which they go over the health benefits of walkable cities, based on comments that they've seen people post describing how they felt while living in a walkable city and being able to get to the things they like better (shown below). Accounts similar to this one, with a focus on city design and city meta-narrative, began to get more popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic, when travel was restricted and a greater emphasis was placed on things that are nearby to reduce travel time and exposure.^[6]

The advocation for walkable cities continued to rise online throughout the coronavirus pandemic across multiple platforms on the internet. For example, the YouTube^[7] channel Not Just Bikes uploaded a video titled, "Why City Design is Important (and Why I Hate Houston)" that discusses the concept, rapidly becoming the second-highest viewed result on YouTube when searching for "walkable cities" as of September 27th, 2022. The video, published on July 19th, 2022, has received nearly 4.7 million views in roughly 15 months (seen below).

Memes referencing the topic also became popularized alongside the rise of posts discussing walkable cities in the early 2020s. For example, on January 5th, 2022, the Facebook^[8] page Green New Deal uploaded a Drakeposting meme advocating for walkable cities, receiving over 3,600 likes and 900 shares in roughly 10 months (shown below).

Spread

Throughout 2022, the frequency of memes referencing walkable cities continued to trend online. For example, on April 5th, 2022, Redditor Slommee^[3] posted a meme to the subreddit /r/f---cars, which was created on February 25th, 2016, with the express purpose of sharing memes and trying to espouse the planning mentality first written about by Jane Jacobs in 1961. The meme uploaded depicted the perspective of an urban regional planner talking to someone online who talks about how great other cities are, completely oblivious to the walkability component of every place they mention (shown below). The meme received over 13,300 upvotes and 400 comments in roughly six months.

A few months later, the term "walkable cities" would become part of a copypasta meme known as "This Kind of Smart, Walkable, Mixed-Use Urbanism Is Illegal to Build in Most American Cities," which unironically outlined and explained one of the great downfalls with walkability: zoning code structure. This zoning code issue, often unknown by those outside of the profession, was touched on by the Boardroom Suggestion meme uploaded to the /r/politicalcompassmemes subreddit by Redditor DallasBoy95^[4] on April 11th, 2022, which accumulated over 8,100 upvotes and 860 comments in six months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References