Walkability Movement: a desperately needed fix to a great loss

It occurs to me that we have been viewing the evaluation of how walkable a community is, namely walkability, as a forward urban-planning thinking and cutting-edge technology (for example, using GIS or Walkability Score as ways to quantify walkability). It actually renders a sad and desperate scene to begin with: we have lost reliable walkable environment (in many American cities) and we are looking for a fix.

What brought me to think of this is my current trip in China. I am staying in a second-tier city, Luoyang (population 1.93 million in the urban area according to 2010 Census), and I have been running errands with my mother preparing for the holiday. We walk most of the time. We take a ride (taxi or bus) or drive only when we choose to, but not because there's no safe walking environment. The streets in the entire city are well connected and all equipped with wide sidewalk. You can walk to anywhere you want until you are too exhausted.

A street in Luoyang, China

A street at night in Beijing, China

This makes me realize that sometimes, for example in the case of walking in the city, we work so hard towards becoming advanced, and  in consequence, we invent industries to fix our problems and to provide for our basic needs. We are more and more removed from our inherent abilities.

The advocacy for  walkability is not a trendy "smart" technology; it is a fix to a problem that desperately needs to be worked on. To point this out is not to criticize the effort in fixing the problem, but to remind ourselves to be more mindful as we head towards becoming "smart".

Walkability movement, obviously, is currently not a need in an environment like my hometown. But with the increased consumption of cars, we can be positive that walking (and the associated infrastructure) will reduce overtime. But it does not have to disappear, if we are careful.

A Quick Trip in a Slow Culture

In the past 10 days, I had the luxury to travel home in China with my husband. It was a quick trip, and we stayed in multiple Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Luoyang (Henan Province), Huizhou (Guangdong Province), and Hong Kong. From north to south China, we chose to take train rides (passing seven regions/provinces). I am very grateful for this somewhat slowing-down of our expeditious trip; by riding on the train, I had the opportunity to look outside of the window and breathe in the culture.

I appreciated seeing the traditional housing types at the countryside. Different regions have different architectural style, and they made me contemplate on the lifestyle that shapes the way how people build their house, architecturally: how they work in the farm land, how they come together as a family or a community, how they cook the family meal and what is the relationship between those people with their animals, etc. Yes, “their animals” are not just their dogs and cats, but also their buffalos, their sheep, their chicken, the birds in the sky and mice in the earth so on and so forth that they interact with on a daily basis.

I consider it a true luxury to be away from internet, Facebook, even photo taking, and take a break experiencing the culture that has been building upon itself for thousands of years. There is a sense of tranquility and calmness in letting the community to grow on its own, based on its own innate qualities. When it comes to building community, I am skeptical of copying something that is not original to the local, in order to speed up the growth. However, “copying” and “borrowing”, as common as it is today, could just be another form of culture, a manifestation of the current fast culture. Nevertheless, I also believe, time will settle instability and filter out things that are not sustainable.

Fast culture and slow culture are both cultural phenomena, and it is not my place to judge which is good and which is bad. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said “What is reasonable is real; that which is real is reasonable.”

(Created by author)

Urbanization and the evolution of cities across 10,000 years

Two Flight Catastrophes in Four Months: it's our loss

March 8, 2014: Flight 370 went missing with 239 people aboard.

July 17, 2014: Flight 17 shot down by military forces, with 295 people aboard.

These two catastrophes happened to occur to the same airline company: Malaysia Airlines.

Over 500 lives are lost. Over 500 families are devastated.

If each of these lives have 5 close family members, over 2, 500 people are suffering from huge pain. If each of the lives have 5 close friends, another 2,500 people are going through extreme sadness. Indeed, it is the loss of the whole world.

It is easy to point finger when things go wrong, and try to figure out who is the victim, and who is the responsible. But I think it is not the time to separate who is who: in the end, we all suffer, and we are all responsible, although some people are directly responsible and some are directly traumatized.

When we live big, our heart becomes big. We don't have a clear defense line between the "enemy" and ourselves any more. We don't say something like, "you are the Malaysian, we are the Chinese, and they are the Americans" - instead, it is "us."

To study Asian cities, is not to tell apart Asian cities from the rest of the world. It is to appreciate Asia, just like we should appreciate any other culture and the people, and bring them as part of "us."

Defense vs. Team mode (author's diagram)

Devastated families (picture courtesy of internet)

Anonymous people comforting the loss of the mankind
(picture courtesy of internet)

Why a new blog on "Asian Urban Study"?

I am running three personal blogs, a Youtube Channel, and a few facebook pages. On top of that, I have job and family responsibilities -just like everybody else. So why do I bother to start a new blog?

I seriously asked myself this question. Why? I do think, unless it is something I am truly passionate about doing, it will die, sooner than I would hope. The reason that I did want to start this new blogspot is because of the same reason - an undying passion for this topic.

I was born and grew up in Asian cities. Now I am now in the United States, and will probably spend the most of my time of the rest my life away from the places that gave me life and nurtured me. I miss home and have so much hope and best wishes for the places like home. So this is the emotional level of my passion to study Asian cities.

I studied Urban Sociology with a Taiwaness professor for four years at Texas Tech University, until he retired. We formed great friendship, on top of our mentor-student relationship. I observed and deeply admired his contribution to the study of Asia, in the forms of research, giving lectures and publishing papers and books in studying various sociological topics: urban studies, homosexual studies, suicide studies. He resides in the United States, but I can feel his love and concern for the place he calls root. I want to continue to do what my teacher was doing during his career; plus I have the educational background in sociology and urban study. This is the passion at intellectual level.

Finally, it is out of my passion for people, humanity and growth, in general. Asian cities and rural environment is just one aspect of the urbanization of the world. It is the biggest continent, contains some of the fastest growing and most populous countries. It would be interesting and worthwhile to study how the local cultures and globalization influences the evolvement of the urban environment in Asia. We will, for sure, observe the so called "good" and "bad" - but, in deed, it is nobody's job to judge or point finger - it all results from human choices, behaviors and cultures. When we pull back to observe, we will feel the compassion for the growth and pain that human society is going through - I just happen to want to choose to look through the lens of Asian society, because I am more familiar with it and have some experience with it.

It is my dream and goal to start a foundation for "Asian Urban Study" to encourage people that have the similar interest to participate.

This blog will probably build on a slower pace. But as long as I have the passion for it, it is worth to have the discussion open, and it won't die.

Would appreciate you comment, share and spread the words! Thanks for stopping by!

Yang
Sherwood, Arkansas, USA

Asian kids saying "peace!"
(photo from internet.)

Author (left), Taiwanese Professor Dr. Yungmei Tsai (center)
and Dr. Paul Johnson at Author's M.A. of
Sociology thesis defense in December 2011.
(photo courtesy of Yulan Bai)