Jennie Middleton, “Walking in the City: The Geographies of Everyday Pedestrian Practices”

Human geographer Jennie Middleton begins her discussion of walking, “Walking in the City: The Geographies of Everyday Pedestrian Practices,” by noting that

despite a growing recognition in the transport policy and research arena of the complexity of walking, and an increased awareness of how social and cultural theoretical writings engaging with notions such as affect and performance might usefully inform broader policy debates, there remains a disconnect between different bodies of research addressing different dimensions associated with walking. (90)

In this paper, Middleton continues, her aim is “to explore critically some of the multiple areas of work on walking,” and by doing so, to propose “an increased dialogue between, and wider acknowledgement of, different modes of enquiry relating to pedestrian practices” (90). 

Middleton suggests that this article “exemplifies both the overlapping dimensions, and disconnections, of different realms of engagement with walking through a detailed discussion of walking in the city” (90). First, it pays attention to “the types of transport research that inform current urban policy thinking,” arguing that while such research “has its place in examining the frequency of walking, it is overly focused on the built environment and lacks a much needed engagement with the actual experience of walking” (90). Ignoring what happens while people walk means that “the practice of walking is essentialised and the heterogeneity associated with different pedestrian experiences overlooked” (91). Middleton is interested in “how pedestrian movement is situated within writings concerning the democratic possibilities of urban public space; the role of walking in performative engagements with the city; pedestrian movement as a means of reading/knowing urban space; and the relationship between walking and art” (91). Her “overall aim is to address how these forms of engagement with walking translate, or provide a medium, for the broader concerns of those such as policymakers as to who walks and why” (91). Some form of rapprochement between seeing walking as a research subject and as a method of enquiry is necessary, according to Middleton, because it would “assist policymakers in their own declared interest in gaining a greater understanding of walking and the ways in which it can be more effectively promoted” (91). 

She’ll get no argument from me: I would like to take planners in my city on walks in some of the most dreadful places for pedestrian activity that exist here—places they have designed, or at least allowed to happen—to ask them what it feels like to ambulate on, for instance, a busy street without a sidewalk, or one with a broken sidewalk where uncovered access holes lie in wait to break unwary ankles; what it feels like to cross an asphalt parking desert on a hot summer day, or to have to run across a busy street because the green walk light gives you no time to make it across six lanes of traffic. That’s my dream, but I don’t know how to make it a reality. 

But that’s not all Middleton hopes to accomplish. She wants to think about how walking as a methodology “might be drawn upon to understand the practical accomplishment of walking, or ‘how’ people walk, in contrast to the current fixation on walking methods being used to uncover more ‘authentic’ access to experiences relating to a broad range of other concerns” (91). Her argument, she continues, is that “in focusing on what it is to ‘do’ walking,” we can see issues that are critical “for comprehending both ‘how’ and ‘why’ people walk” emerge,” which “include the material, embodied, affectual, political, and social dimensions of moving on foot” (91). Oh, add cultural to that list, please. Surely places that are walkable create cultures of walking, where it’s a normal activity and not a form of deviance.

Middleton notes that walking has attracted significant policy interest in the UK, and that surveys and other forms of research have attempted to collect data on pedestrian activities. “Whilst these types of data go some way in examining the frequency of walking, there is little relating to the meaning and significance of journeys on foot to different groups and individuals and how these journeys actually unfold,” she writes. Such issues “are paramount for gaining a greater understanding of how walking could be promoted more effectively” (91). However, most of the research assumes that walking is “a homogenous and largely self-evident means of getting from one place to another” (92). However, walking is complex, and it’s not just a form of functional transportation. For instance, while “situating walking in the broader context of people’s everyday lives is relatively new in the transport geography/transport studies arena,” Middleton writes, “the role of walking in relation to the socialities of everyday life has long been engaged with in social and cultural theoretical writings” (93).

Middleton goes on to cite several examples of “the emancipatory potential” of walking in urban spaces: the work of Richard Sennett on “the social heterogeneity of public urban spaces,” which “offers unpredictable encounters that are democratic and civilising” (93); Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City, which emphasized “focusing on people’s perceptions, sense of place, and mental images of the urban built environment” (93); and Jane Jacobs’s The Death and Life of the Great American Cities (93). “However,” she continues, “much of the literature on walking in the city reflects a romanticism whereby walking is often considered, without question, as a positive urban practice,” including Michel de Certeau’s essay “Walking in the City,” which “positions walking as a form of urban emancipation that opens up a range of democratic possibilities” (93). “In the context of the policy and transport planning concerns discussed in this paper, such as who walks and why, the writings of de Certeau on walking and the everyday raise some interesting issues relating to political resistance,” she writes (93-94). Do people who navigate city streets in their everyday lives really frame their walking as political resistance (94)? How much are “regimented and constrained” by their walking (94)? How are “bodily performances . . . ordered and regulated” in different social and geographical contexts (94)? What about the fear pedestrians experience while walking (94)? And aren’t there a multiplicities of urban walking practices that actually take place (94)? 

What about “the non-rational, non-cognitive, and embodied dimensions of travel behaviour?” Middleton asks regarding not theorists like de Certeau, but policy and planning research (95). “For instance, in policy terms an area might be considered more ‘walkable’ if a pedestrian is able to walk on autopilot and the flow of their movement is uninterrupted by an awareness of their embodied experiences,” she writes, but what about the way that walking is “a fundamental human activity and way of interacting with the environment,” a feature of walking that has attracted the attention of writers, artists, and philosophers (95)? “Therefore, in what ways can discussions that engage with the more embodied and experiential dimensions of walking inform more policy orientated research[?]” she asks. “Are there ways in which the long tradition of performatives and artistic engagements with walking [can] be drawn upon?” (95).

Middleton lists some artistic walking practices, acknowledging that “they constitute a poetic engagement with walking which is not necessarily suitable for exploring concerns relating to people’s everyday pedestrian experiences” (95). She cites Tim Edensor’s discussion of everyday walking and artistic walking (which is waiting for me to read) but feels it does not focus enough on the quotidian (95). She mentions the flâneur and psychogeography (96), but notes that “there are some who remain particularly critical of using the concept of the flâneur and pedestrian movement as a means of ‘reading’ the city” because it cannot be reduced to a methodology and is gender-biased (particularly the flâneur) (97). Besides, the continues, most urban walkers do not consider their movements in relation to the wanderings of the flâneur, according to empirical research (97). And yet, these various forms of artistic walking highlight “the need for a greater sensitivity within transport geography/planning research to the experiential dimensions of pedestrian movement and how there are other ways of understanding pedestrian movement than mapping and quantifying its frequency” (97). “In other words,” she writes, “how walking the streets can be drawn upon the study the city’s everyday rituals and habits, or to emphasise the sensory and sensual dimensions of urban life,” is something geographers could learn from these other walking practices (97). Many of the artistic practices she has listed aren’t about walking as such, but rather look at walking as a form of research (97). For that reason, they could be used to increase understanding of walking experiences that might usefully inform policy concerns with encouraging pedestrian movement” (97).

Middleton now turns to the “mobilities turn” in the social sciences, which has been presented as a theoretical position that challenges the stasis of previous social science research (97-98). The value of this new paradigm “relates to recognising what actually happens between A and B”: the ways that movement is entangled with questions of power, identity and embodiment (98). Examples of methodologies that have come out of this shift include walking interviews, mobile photography elicitation methods, and accompanied walks (98). Middleton discusses the pros and cons of these methodologies, according to social-science literature (98). I’m not so interested in those pros and cons; I’m already convinced that getting planners who are interested in walkability to have pedestrian experiences could only enrich their work. Besides, she continues, while these walking methods are not unproblematic, “there are numerous bodies of work that utilise the practice of walking, or mobile methods, as a resource or approach for research concerning other broader issues” (99). She lists quite a few research projects that use walking as a method, but despite this “rich range of theoretically sophisticated work drawing upon walking as a method, there is little that adopts walking as a method to explore the practice of walking itself” (100). “Can walking methods situated in social and cultural theoretical writings be effectively drawn upon by policymakers in gaining a more nuanced understanding of walking practices?” she asks. “And if so, how might this be achieved?” (100). Also, what are the implications of bringing theoretical writings on walking into a dialogue with “more policy orientated transport research” (100)? 

Middleton’s conclusion addresses that last question, returning to the distinction she made earlier between walking as a subject for research and walking as a research method (100). Much of this discussion is inside baseball (inside cricket?) to me, because I’m not concerned with the lack of dialogue between “transport geographers and mobilities scholars” (100). She returns to artistic projects in her conclusion—participatory walks organized in cities across the globe by URBAN EARTH, the participatory research project organized by Mywalks at Northumbria University, the Mis-Guides produced by Wrights & Sites—and the division between these walking projects and the concerns of planners and policymakers with “the mundane, everyday pedestrian movements of commuting, the school run, or trips to the shops” (100). “As such, it is perhaps worth considering how these creative engagements with walking can be incorporated into the habitual, day-to-day pedestrian practices of city residents as opposed to being ‘one off’ events,” she states (100). “With a surge of popularity and interest in mobile methods, and proliferation of promoting more ‘creative’ means of people engaging with their surroundings,” could ongoing, participatory pedestrian projects (she cites two examples) “be drawn upon much more explicitly be pedestrian planning and policy as a means of not only exploring the ‘how’s’ of walking” but as a way for the public to bring their concerns to the attention of planners and politicians (102)? “It is questions such as these that are proposed as a starting point to an increased dialogue between multiple engagements with walking in order to develop enhanced understandings of pedestrian practices,” she concludes (102).

Middleton’s article is useful—particularly its bibliography, which covers work in human geography particularly well—and it implies the notion of a culture of walking in the UK, without discussing that culture explicitly. The existence of heritage walks, or of an art project intended “to produce a visual walking guide entitled ‘Walk Islington: Explore the unexpected” (102), suggests that walking is normalized in the UK to the extent that people engage in pedestrian activities as a leisure activity—beyond simply walking around in parks. That culture doesn’t exist in this city, in my experience, and it’s one reason that I think it would be difficult, if not impossible, to engage in participatory or convivial walking here. How could one set up an art walk that parodies heritage tours without the existence of heritage tours in the culture already? Don’t the convivial art walking practices I’ve read about require the existence of other forms of walking as a norm against which they react?

Work Cited

Middleton, Jennie. “Walking in the City: The Geographies of Everyday Pedestrian Practices.” Geography Compass, vol. 5, no. 2, 2011, pp. 90-105. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x.