(And personally if I lived somewhere unwalkable I'd move home to address that, though I appreciate there can be reasons to either not want to move or to not be able to move.)
Unless they changed their mind to that state due to some major economic shifts after the move anyway.
And since when is rucking only 10kg? That’s just going for a walk?
Rucking has always been 40+ kg and involved some kind of serious terrain where I’m from?
Re: the "with kids" perspective, my mother used to haul groceries from across half a town (from which store happened to have something stocked) during Communist Poland times. She, like most other people, did not have a car. It was all definitely doable, as evidenced by 35m+ million population of Poland at that time, most of whom was families with kids an no cars.
Rucking originated as a military term for a long jog with a heavy rucksack (hence the name!) and was always pretty shitty because rucksacks suck and the military has no shortage of heavy shit to carry. I’ve heard stories of 80+ lb rucksacks and 8+ miles being the norm.
Weirdly, the military also coined ‘Vitamin I’ for ibuprofen. I wonder why?
Ah how the world changes. I can’t wait for it to mean going on a casual walk with a loved one while bringing along a nice meal and some wine. ;)
Thanks for explaining!
Also, it’s the year 2023 it is easier than ever to get a tv delivered to your front door without you needing to haul it anywhere.
I’m ready for your excuses.
Is it really better for the environment to double-up on all the packaging and have an even heavier truck (that has worse emissions and even worse tire-wear / microplastic creation) than the car that weighs like 1/4th the weight of the truck?
That's what I mean by the "last mile" problem. The alternative, big trucks that consolidate deliveries, isn't a clear cut win either.
I live in a neighborhood full of small apartments, single level duplexes, and single family homes. What stores are walkable? The liquor store, and gas station, and if i really feel like it, dominos and 7-11, both of which are at least 1/4 mile one way. Most others in this area, dont get those even. Past that its about a mile one way to the actual grocery store. And then after all the shopping, i have to walk back, now with 50+lbs of groceries.
Honestly, all this we need more walkable cities stuff, i get it, yes, you should be able to get places by walking, but really, its just not even feasible most times if youre going to be buying something. Im not gonna walk home from best buy 4+ miles away heaving a huge TV on my back, no one will. We invented transportation that didnt involve humans using their legs because we are slow, and easily over encumbered when carrying things. Theres a reason we saw an explosion of carriages way back. Its easier to haul more, and much faster, than if a person, or even many people at once, were to do it.
Housing density is a huge factor in a lot of this, but having swaths of tall purely apartment buildings is also not the answer. People want single family homes and other styles for many reasons. They wont be going away anytime soon. And even if they did, the only answer is very mixed use zoning.
One of my favorite examples, in downtown Denver, there is a tall apartment building, stacked on top of a large chain grocery store, it includes parking for the store, and spots for the building, under the building too. This is what i would consider peak use, and what people complain about walkable cities really need to focus on. Having a city you can walk anywhere is great, but you need to be able to get to the societal needs without having to walk far. Of course the grocery store also serves for a large part of that neighborhood, and distance to the store is a variable, but this mainly serves multiple buildings in a small area. The big problem is all the space we waste dedicating to parking. It might be more expensive, but you can gain a lot more use if you force parking lots to have shops above/below them, and that reclaimed flat land can then be used for the mixed use building. Parking is also not going away, like i said, we invented carriages for a reason. Howwwweeeeevvvveeerrr all of this comes with a number of caveats, like the ridiculous price to lease a storefront, build the building, etc, and of course its just a feedback loop that gets worse as we waste more space, space becomes premium.
All of this is to sum up my point, walkability is variable by person, and changes greatly depending on if youre going to have to be carrying things, and theres never going to be good "walkable" cities, short of nuking a city and starting over, you wont make it vastly better, especially with the politicians and government we have now.