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Why and How to Walk a City

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Angus Lockyer
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Abstract

Walking in cities has a long history, but its organized form has boomed in recent years. Some walks aim to make a city more “open, accessible, and equitable” (Open City 2023). Top-ranked ones on Tripadvisor tend to focus on culinary, cultural, or historical highlights. Others push planned developments in Orlando and Dubai (Universal Studios 2023; Merex Investment Group 2023). This essay reflects on the experience of making a podcast, historicity, to argue that walking in a city can do more. It can reveal the connections between particular sights and the urban whole, the wealth and power by which a city is riven, and the links between it and the world. It can show how these things have changed over time. And by doing this, it can empower the walker. Understanding how a city got to be the way it is, on the streets, can provide some space to make a self at home. Exposing the multiple streams that lead to the present – and the seams that they have opened up in the urban fabric – makes it possible to imagine how things might be different. Any one podcast or tour can only do so much, however. There will always be more walks to take, streams to discover, and stories to tell.

Keywords

citiesurban historywalkingwalking tourspodcasting
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 21 , Issue 12 , December 2023 , e1
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2023

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