Table Of ContentThe Walkable City
This book explores everyday walking in contemporary urban life. It brings
together important theoretical and empirical insights to understand how the
‘walkability’ of urban spaces can be imagined, planned for, and experienced.
The book focuses on the everyday experiences of the urban walker, the
bodily experiences of walking, and different walking research methods. It
goes beyond the conventional focus on walkable places by delving into the
ways in which urban space is consumed and produced through different
ways of walking. Drawing on fieldwork in the UK and international sec-
ondary sources, the book examines how walking is socially and materially
co-produced, focusing on pedestrian practices, infrastructures, and the
social nature of walking. Chapters in the book offer key explorations of the
cultural and social inclusions and exclusions of navigating the city on foot.
The book considers transport planning and policy promoting pedestrian
movement, pedestrian infrastructures, the politics of walking, and social
interactions of urban pedestrians. The book offers vital analyses of how
different but overlapping dimensions of walking and their relationship with
urban space are often overlooked, and the importance of centring the lived
experiences of walking in understandings of pedestrian practices.
This book provides a timely contribution to the field of mobilities due to
a growing interest in urban walking. It will be of interest to students and
scholars of urban studies, human geography, sociology, and public health.
Jennie Middleton is Associate Professor in Human Geography in the Trans-
port Studies Unit and the School of Geography and the Environment at the
University of Oxford. She is a human geographer with interests in everyday
mobilities, care in the city, and innovative methodologies for urban research.
Routledge Studies in Urbanism and the City
Neighbourhood Planning
Place, Space and Politics
Janet Banfield
Urban Neighbourhood Formations
Boundaries, Narrations and Intimacies
Edited by Hilal Alkan and Nazan Maksudyan
Urban Ethics
Conflicts Over the Good and Proper Life in Cities
Edited by Moritz Ege and Johannes Moser
Planning and Managing Smaller Events
Downsizing the Urban Spectacle
Edited by Stefano Di Vita and Mark Wilson
Mega-Events, City and Power
Nelma Gusmão de Oliveira
Mega-City Region Development in China
Edited by Anthony G.O. Yeh, George C.S. Lin and Fiona F. Yang
Eco and Low-Carbon New Towns in China
Sustainability Transformation in the Making
Yang Fu and Xiaoling Zhang
Overlooked Cities
Power, Politics and Knowledge Beyond the Urban South
Edited by Hanna A Ruszczyk, Erwin Nugraha and Isolde de Villiers
For more information about this series, please visit https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Studies-in-Urbanism-and-the-City/book-series/RSUC
The Walkable City
Dimensions of Walking and
Overlapping Walks of Life
Jennie Middleton
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2022 Jennie Middleton
The right of Jennie Middleton to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-69771-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-05536-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-51921-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
For David and Sue
Contents
List of figures viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
1 Introducing the ‘Walkable City’ 1
2 Pedestrian infrastructures 17
3 Walking as social differentiation 53
4 Walking rhythms and the politics of time 77
5 Pedestrian politics of (non)encounters 102
6 Walking bodies, emotional geographies,
and mobile methods 127
7 Stepping forwards: Some concluding thoughts 160
Epilogue 167
Index 172
List of Figures
2.1 Legible London scheme 27
2.2 ‘Walk Islington: Explore the unexpected’, Islington Council
walking guide 28
2.3 Transport for London walking poster 30
2.4 Map of transect 34
Preface
As an academic with an interest in walking, as both a topic and method, I
have been asked many times about the types of walking I undertake, where,
and how often, with the implicit assumption being that it is both an activity
I do and enjoy. People are often surprised, or in some cases shocked, to
learn that I don’t particularly enjoy walking, nor does it form a significant
part of my everyday life where I can help it! Many of my experiences of
walking have failed to meet the romanticised visions of walking as a conven-
ient, healthy, and sustainable mode of transport promoted in policy arenas
or as the emancipatory urban practice it is positioned as across much of the
academic literature concerned with cities. Writing this book has led me to
critically reflect upon how my past pedestrian experiences have shaped, and
emerge out of, my current everyday mobilities, and how cycling has become
the primary means by which I travel on a daily basis.
During my doctoral and postdoctoral studies in London, I walked not
from a desire to experience the city on foot but as a means to save money.
My everyday journey to the tube station could be done much quicker on
the bus but walking enabled me to save the bus fare. Laden with a heavy
laptop and books, I would have much preferred to be sat reading on the
bus as opposed to pounding the streets with an aching back! This feeling of
being encumbered when walking continued when I became a mother. As I
trudged through the streets of Oxford in the depths of winter with my first
born and in the (sometimes) blistering heat of summer three years later with
my second, I willed them to sleep through the continuous motion of pushing
the pram as I walked. I did not feel emancipated as I walked through the
city but encumbered, exhausted, and full of angst and anticipation of the
everyday encounters which might hinder their sleep: the drilling of road-
works, a shouting child, obstacles that hindered continuous movement such
as red lights, and any number of other combinations of endless possibilities.
I also became acutely aware of how gendered this form of walking is. With
the majority of parental leave still taken by women in the UK, despite the
changes entitling shared paternity leave, it is mainly women who walk with
babies and young children and who have no doubt had similar experiences
to my own. However, these feelings of being encumbered when walking and
