Urban Walking as the measure of Quality

We would like to post an inspiring quote that was shared with us this week by Anne Warr, founder of Walk Shanghai.

"There is something liberating and equalizing about walking. The Athenian students must have enjoyed the simultaneous play of wandering and discursive unfolding as they walked in the proximity of their masters. They would glide through the space of the beloved while their paces would pump the blood and regulate heartbeats thus enhancing the experience of their bodies and of their minds.

In the spatial configurations of casual walking, there is no hierarchy usually associated with sedentary places. There are no fixed positions in informal walks. There is no high or low, left or right, nor are there social hierarchies that follow. Indeed walking allows for certain frivolities, spatial improvisations, temporary configurations and instabilities. Walking permits breaths of freshness, novelty and sparkle making people sense the texture of their living in an enhanced way. Consequently walking discourses are different from the sedentary ones. The sauntering conversation is usually less formal, more intuitive and potentially full of ideas. The discourse follows the rhythm of the steps and corresponds to the movement in space. Conversation generated by the dynamics and the configuration of walking pays debts to its spatial choreography - certain patterns of walking will produce certain patterns of thought. "

Gordana Korolija Fontana-Giusti  (ARQ vol 11 no3/4 2007, p255-264)