This article in the New Yorker talks about how walking stimulates thinking and creativity.
Because we don’t have to devote much conscious effort to the act of walking, our attention is free to wander—to overlay the world before us with a parade of images from the mind’s theatre. This is precisely the kind of mental state that studies have linked to innovative ideas and strokes of insight. Earlier this year, Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz of Stanford published what is likely the first set of studies that directly measure the way walking changes creativity in the moment. They got the idea for the studies while on a walk.
It goes on to talk about differences between walking in natural and park-like settings vs. city streets. But is it too much to ask for safe, park-like city streets where people can stroll and think and interact? Does this sound crazy? No, it just means picking some streets and getting all or most car traffic off them, which can be done if people live near where they work and shop. Then you drastically slow down the remaining motorized traffic, if any, plant lots of trees and provide occasional places to sit. Make those public investments, and complementary private investments will pop up. Even from a cynical economic perspective, the cost-benefit is there, I sincerely believe. And the more subtle effects that cost-benefit analysis will miss – a more creative, innovative, less-stressed society – will follow, I sincerely believe. These are really the fundamentals, I am pretty sure. Maybe we can unleash a new wave of creative problem solving. Let’s stop thinking cynically about how we can make cities a little less bad, and start thinking about how we can unleash their potential.
