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Beyond Vague Promises of Liveability: An Exploration of Walking in Everyday Life

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Book cover Space–Time Design of the Public City

Part of the book series: Urban and Landscape Perspectives ((URBANLAND,volume 15))

Abstract

This chapter analyses walking as an everyday practice, which might have potential to improve the quality of life of urban dwellers as is suggested by voluminous policy discussion and scholarly literature in the field of urban planning. It analyses this assumption through exploring the shaping of walking experiences in both the short and the long term by asking: How do the qualities of immediate spatial and temporal experience merge into the everyday life of inhabitants? Do the daily walking habits of urban dwellers have a role in how they believe they can shape their quality of life in the future? The analysis draws upon walking-interview data with inhabitants of two Finnish cities. Interviews illustrated the multiplicity of perceived, qualitative temporalities of walking. We use and manage our walking time to open possibilities for various other experiences. The analysis shows that walking can offer individuals possibilities to enrich their everyday life and their relationships with their environment and enhance their quality of life. However, the general promise that walking enhances the liveability of cities must be put to the test and evaluated in relation to local socio-material conditions and individual spatio-temporal contexts of everyday life.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Roihuvuori neighbourhood is officially part of the area of the Herttoniemi neighbourhood, but it also has its own character and a small local centre with neighbourhood services.

  2. 2.

    The concept of desynchronization could also be used, but I have chosen to use the term synchronization because it also refers to tactics such as purposely making things happen at different times. Desynchrony, on the contrary, means that events occur at unrelated times or independently of other events or cycles. Synchronization refers to a rhythmic interrelationship between activities, whether simultaneous or not.

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Correspondence to Jenni Kuoppa .

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Kuoppa, J. (2013). Beyond Vague Promises of Liveability: An Exploration of Walking in Everyday Life. In: Henckel, D., Thomaier, S., Könecke, B., Zedda, R., Stabilini, S. (eds) Space–Time Design of the Public City. Urban and Landscape Perspectives, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6425-5_11

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