My eldest son, 19, is an avid skateboarder. He has used his skateboard for both transportation and recreation for 10 years. He knows the streets, happenings, people and buildings in Boise like no one else in the family. He wrote his college entrance essay about how these daily observations and interactions have influenced his chosen area of study and his vision of community.
I admire your family’s choice to live car free with little kids.
I really enjoyed reading your perspective about your year without a car. I'm trying a summer without a car and have been mostly biking but sometimes walking. I live in a college town that has put a lot of money into making the town safe for cyclists and pedestrians, and to be candid, utilizing the paths and bike lanes more frequently has made me less bitter about paying the higher taxes to live within city limits! It takes more time and I am much sweatier when arriving at my destination, but it's been a nice experiment and something I hope to continue as much as I can through the Ohio seasons. It also helps with easing my gas consumption, which is a small way to ease my dependence on oil and save a few dollars in my budget each month.
What a beautiful piece. One of the ironies of being a car-age rural resident is that there is no place I can walk to — no store, no church, no post office. Instead, I can only walk for pleasure.
We moved last year from a city where we lived in a very walkable neighbourhood (that also had great transit and bike lanes) to a city where we're forced to be mostly car-reliant (most of the residential streets around our home don't even have proper sidewalks for casual strolls, let alone commuting on foot!). I've really felt the difference in how I relate to my environment and how much like "home" the city does or doesn't feel to me. When we lived without a car, I felt such a deep sense of connection to the city—I *knew* it in a way that I had never known previously places where I'd lived with a car—and in this new city, even a year later I still don't quite think of any of these places as "mine." There are some great benefits to having a car (like being able to buy the cheaper 10 lb. bag of potatoes when I'm doing groceries without having to think about how I'll carry everything home, or having the opportunity to explore places that are farther away), but I'd trade those for the sense of deep connection to place and community that walking offers.
A few years ago we moved from a more densely populated suburb/university town to a traditional suburb. I do miss being able to walk and bike to more places, and making those random connections with people you know. But we're lucky to live near a park with a pond and walking/biking lanes going through it that make biking to the library and a variety of playgrounds with my 3 year old fun and easy—which isn't the case for many suburban families.
Thanks as always for the excellent newsletter. The Mozart Sinfonia Concertante is a revelation.
I love this, Gracy. We're entering year six of living in our small town, specifically near the town square, particularly because of its walkability. It changes everything. After traveling all over the place and living in all sorts of environments, from rural acreage to megacities, we've decided that small, walkable towns are where it's at because for us, they make us more human, more who we're made to be. Most of human history has been lived at three miles per hour, and cars deprive us of that pace. The walkable lifestyle is unmatchable.
My husband and I have a car, but I don't have a driver's license and we both strive to use the car as little as possible (to varying degrees of success). We're lucky to live in a supremely walkable & bikeable college town (with a fareless bus system) and the mild-ish weather of the PNW. It's expensive here, especially because we restricted ourselves housing-wise to a central neighborhood in close walking/biking distance to my work and a grocery store and the church. But the tradeoffs are so worth it to us.
Interestingly, on our corner we are surrounded by two carless households & one family that splits their transportation pretty evenly between a car and bicycles (taking their young son around in a burley or a tandem bike attachment). This makes us all more dependent on each other - my husband is asked to give others a ride when they need to haul furniture or make a short trip out of town; we offer to pick up groceries for each other when making an errand run; we borrow tools rather than buy our own because foregoing the convenience of a car incentivizes you to avoid trips across town whenever you can.
And we know the people around us. Most houses in our old neighborhood are set back on tiny lots (ours is 0.06 acres), so patio tables and gardens and lawn games and kids' playsets are all out front. We see our neighbors and they see us sitting on our porches and working on our yards; car-less garages get used as indoor/outdoor spaces to relax and work and exercise when we'd otherwise be holed up inside. We got a puppy in February and walk him several times a day, rain or shine (see again: no backyard), and even strangers to us know of and greet him by name - "Is this puppy-Paul?? He's getting so big!" - and then they aren't strangers anymore.
I have friends who live in the state capital in a 70s development neighborhood where there are no sidewalks. Houses are hidden from the street by large, hedge-filled front yards, so all that's visible is shrubs punctuated by driveways. If they want to walk their dog, they get into their garaged car and drive to the nearest park. Their neighbors are right there but they know nothing about them, not even what their house exteriors look like. Completely atomized and car-requiring by design. It makes me sad.
Gracy, this is spot on! I was an avid jogger and walker for many years before chronic tendonitis set in. Hearing choruses of bullfrogs, smelling garlic simmering on someone's stove, and sharing a wave and warm smile with folks tending their gardens, reassured me that even though I was not in my immediate neighborhood, I was welcome. I had a route and a schedule making me feel that I was almost expected to appear, perhaps fueling thoughts like, 'There's that lady again, doing her running. Right on time.' I like to think that any prolonged break in my routine caused even the slightest concern for my well-being or whereabouts. Maybe. Or that my somewhat regular appearances became a part of their weekly routine as well.
Over the years, I began to learn other people's habits, too. I observed owners with their dogs both become grayer and slower and toddlers playing in their yard grow taller. It felt like a tacit melding of our living in proximity to each other, a passive but warm acquaintance and eventually, for me, a sense of belonging to a neighborhood I did not live in. I still feel that way about that area, even though I haven't been on foot there in years. I miss it terribly and may just get back to walking there soon. Thank you Gracy - such a beautiful post.
I ride the bus to and from work. It's my reading time, and I'm slowly getting to know the other regulars at my stop.
My girls *love* riding the bus. They think it's a big adventure. We have a car, but most of the time just walk places. And so since it's not our usual thing, they have fun. Youth ride free.
I really enjoyed your piece.
My eldest son, 19, is an avid skateboarder. He has used his skateboard for both transportation and recreation for 10 years. He knows the streets, happenings, people and buildings in Boise like no one else in the family. He wrote his college entrance essay about how these daily observations and interactions have influenced his chosen area of study and his vision of community.
I admire your family’s choice to live car free with little kids.
I really enjoyed reading your perspective about your year without a car. I'm trying a summer without a car and have been mostly biking but sometimes walking. I live in a college town that has put a lot of money into making the town safe for cyclists and pedestrians, and to be candid, utilizing the paths and bike lanes more frequently has made me less bitter about paying the higher taxes to live within city limits! It takes more time and I am much sweatier when arriving at my destination, but it's been a nice experiment and something I hope to continue as much as I can through the Ohio seasons. It also helps with easing my gas consumption, which is a small way to ease my dependence on oil and save a few dollars in my budget each month.
What a beautiful piece. One of the ironies of being a car-age rural resident is that there is no place I can walk to — no store, no church, no post office. Instead, I can only walk for pleasure.
We moved last year from a city where we lived in a very walkable neighbourhood (that also had great transit and bike lanes) to a city where we're forced to be mostly car-reliant (most of the residential streets around our home don't even have proper sidewalks for casual strolls, let alone commuting on foot!). I've really felt the difference in how I relate to my environment and how much like "home" the city does or doesn't feel to me. When we lived without a car, I felt such a deep sense of connection to the city—I *knew* it in a way that I had never known previously places where I'd lived with a car—and in this new city, even a year later I still don't quite think of any of these places as "mine." There are some great benefits to having a car (like being able to buy the cheaper 10 lb. bag of potatoes when I'm doing groceries without having to think about how I'll carry everything home, or having the opportunity to explore places that are farther away), but I'd trade those for the sense of deep connection to place and community that walking offers.
A few years ago we moved from a more densely populated suburb/university town to a traditional suburb. I do miss being able to walk and bike to more places, and making those random connections with people you know. But we're lucky to live near a park with a pond and walking/biking lanes going through it that make biking to the library and a variety of playgrounds with my 3 year old fun and easy—which isn't the case for many suburban families.
Thanks as always for the excellent newsletter. The Mozart Sinfonia Concertante is a revelation.
I love this, Gracy. We're entering year six of living in our small town, specifically near the town square, particularly because of its walkability. It changes everything. After traveling all over the place and living in all sorts of environments, from rural acreage to megacities, we've decided that small, walkable towns are where it's at because for us, they make us more human, more who we're made to be. Most of human history has been lived at three miles per hour, and cars deprive us of that pace. The walkable lifestyle is unmatchable.
My husband and I have a car, but I don't have a driver's license and we both strive to use the car as little as possible (to varying degrees of success). We're lucky to live in a supremely walkable & bikeable college town (with a fareless bus system) and the mild-ish weather of the PNW. It's expensive here, especially because we restricted ourselves housing-wise to a central neighborhood in close walking/biking distance to my work and a grocery store and the church. But the tradeoffs are so worth it to us.
Interestingly, on our corner we are surrounded by two carless households & one family that splits their transportation pretty evenly between a car and bicycles (taking their young son around in a burley or a tandem bike attachment). This makes us all more dependent on each other - my husband is asked to give others a ride when they need to haul furniture or make a short trip out of town; we offer to pick up groceries for each other when making an errand run; we borrow tools rather than buy our own because foregoing the convenience of a car incentivizes you to avoid trips across town whenever you can.
And we know the people around us. Most houses in our old neighborhood are set back on tiny lots (ours is 0.06 acres), so patio tables and gardens and lawn games and kids' playsets are all out front. We see our neighbors and they see us sitting on our porches and working on our yards; car-less garages get used as indoor/outdoor spaces to relax and work and exercise when we'd otherwise be holed up inside. We got a puppy in February and walk him several times a day, rain or shine (see again: no backyard), and even strangers to us know of and greet him by name - "Is this puppy-Paul?? He's getting so big!" - and then they aren't strangers anymore.
I have friends who live in the state capital in a 70s development neighborhood where there are no sidewalks. Houses are hidden from the street by large, hedge-filled front yards, so all that's visible is shrubs punctuated by driveways. If they want to walk their dog, they get into their garaged car and drive to the nearest park. Their neighbors are right there but they know nothing about them, not even what their house exteriors look like. Completely atomized and car-requiring by design. It makes me sad.
Gracy, this is spot on! I was an avid jogger and walker for many years before chronic tendonitis set in. Hearing choruses of bullfrogs, smelling garlic simmering on someone's stove, and sharing a wave and warm smile with folks tending their gardens, reassured me that even though I was not in my immediate neighborhood, I was welcome. I had a route and a schedule making me feel that I was almost expected to appear, perhaps fueling thoughts like, 'There's that lady again, doing her running. Right on time.' I like to think that any prolonged break in my routine caused even the slightest concern for my well-being or whereabouts. Maybe. Or that my somewhat regular appearances became a part of their weekly routine as well.
Over the years, I began to learn other people's habits, too. I observed owners with their dogs both become grayer and slower and toddlers playing in their yard grow taller. It felt like a tacit melding of our living in proximity to each other, a passive but warm acquaintance and eventually, for me, a sense of belonging to a neighborhood I did not live in. I still feel that way about that area, even though I haven't been on foot there in years. I miss it terribly and may just get back to walking there soon. Thank you Gracy - such a beautiful post.
I ride the bus to and from work. It's my reading time, and I'm slowly getting to know the other regulars at my stop.
My girls *love* riding the bus. They think it's a big adventure. We have a car, but most of the time just walk places. And so since it's not our usual thing, they have fun. Youth ride free.