Walkability as Readability

Running Head: Walkability as Readability Walkability as Readability: Reading in the Urban Environment Nabil Mahmood Interdisciplinary 2220F - Dr. Dan Mellamphy November 25, 2014 Huron University College, University Of Western Ontario !1 Running Head: Walkability as Readability !2 Introduction Urban environments are vast yet compact, diverse yet homogenous, and cold yet friendly. These are a select few contrasting readings of the urban environment, readings which depend on the perspective and physical experiences of the reader’s interaction with their city. In Sophie Fuggle’s essay on ‘parkour’, she suggests that “the idea of reading the city, [is] the concept that one’s physical surroundings can be read as a form of text” (Fuggle, p. 159). This paper will examine the perspectives on reading of the urban environment, and specifically demonstrate how walkability is the ultimate determinant of these perspectives. Moreover, it will seek to establish that differences in the physical urban landscape and built form significantly affect walkability, and consequently readability. Furthermore, these differences in reading influence all aspects of civic life, including opinions on urban design, transportation, and the reflection of such differences in the political sphere. These unique readings are in large part determined by one’s location within a city with respect to the so-called urban-suburban divide, and the numerous characteristics of the public realm associated with this binary division. By exemplifying the correlation of urban design and walkability with political affiliation, socioeconomic conditions, and perspectives on technology using Toronto as a model, it will be asserted that walkability and readability are synonymous. This paper will also discuss the ramifications of inhibited reading and the resulting desire to take elements from the hyperurban utopia of walkability and apply to the suburban, similar to Michel de Certeau’s concept of Reading as Poaching. As a further matter, it will be argued that Marshall McLuhan’s assertion, that people are bad at recognizing mediums, applies to reading and walkability as well. It is in the opinion of this paper that Running Head: Walkability as Readability !3 walkability and readability are interchangeable in the context of the urban environment and are the primary determinant of citizens’ opinions and perceptions of their city. Readability as Walkability: An Oral and Metic Experience Reading is imperative to the urban environment, as all individuals experience a city through their visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile perceptions. For society to function in any organized form in an urban environment, such perception must be paramount as “reading is at the beginning of the social contract” according to Alberto Manguel in his A History of Reading (1996, p. 7). Cities cannot exist without social contracts, as without such mechanisms the rule of law ceases to exist, and large scale anarchistic societies are at best hypothetical. Though Manguel refers to the literal meaning of reading regarding the social contract, it applies similarly to reading as perceiving an urban environment like a ‘text’ as described in Sophie Fuggle’s Le Parkour: Reading or Writing the City. Moreover, ‘text’ refers to any interlinked creation including both written and oral entities, however the written form is limiting in its detail compared to the spoken word. Marshall McLuhan explains in Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man that the written word is akin to a crutch, as it limits and flattens the scope and meaning of what is communicated (1962). Instead of the city being read from a written form, it is read or heard from an auditory perspective as the elements of the oral tradition and tribe culture still exist when a city is perceived by its inhabitants. As such, walking is the act of internalizing the surrounding architecture with respect to an individual’s prior experiences. Or in other words, reading the context figuratively as it applies to oneself, rather than verbatim. The oral realm is aligned with the metis or emotional elements and therefore better represents the urban Running Head: Walkability as Readability !4 environment, where individuals often have illogical attractions and assertions about their cities. For example, the perception of neighbourhoods due to crime is often misguided and not representative of a logical analysis of statistical information. Avoiding walking in certain neighbourhoods due to the fear of being victimized is irrational as the statistical likelihood of being a victim of crime is most often significantly lower than other risks taken in everyday life, such as driving (Warr & Stafford, 1983, p. 1033-1043). The metic nature of urban perception and reading, where logic is used solely when it is beneficial to one’s goals, is evident in Toronto’s political discourse over transportation. Transportation and Walkability Transportation is one of the vital elements that directly affects walkability in the urban environment. Poor access to transportation severely narrows the accessibility of the city, and in turn, limits the diversity of ‘texts’ that can be read. In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan explains how the expansion of the railroads changed human perception of other places which were not accessible before and how similarly this concept of “the medium is the message” applies to airplanes and all other types of technologies (1964, p. 9-12). Transportation services that a city facilitates include the building and upkeep of roads, freeways, and mass transit systems. Nonetheless, only one of these three vital transportation services most directly enhance walkability, mass transit. The vehicular nature of roads and freeways inhibits walkability, as they limit interaction between the individual and the public realm beyond the origin and destination of a particular journey. Conversely, mass transit allows for increased walkability in two ways, by creating conditions for mixed use development, and by being a ‘text’ Running Head: Walkability as Readability !5 in itself. Transit oriented developments, or TODs, refers to the patterns of mixed use development that occur in a half-mile radius from a transit station (Cervero, 2004, p. 2-5). The mixed use nature of these developments ensures that office, commercial, and residential units are concentrated within these dense neighbourhoods. As a result of all these amenities being available within such a compact area, walkability and the pedestrian realm are prioritized over vehicular access. Furthermore, while travelling between two TODs, individuals may still interact with their environment as trains and busses do not segregate riders from the outer world in the same manner as cars. Though subterranean tunnels may initially seem to restrict one’s reading of their city, the subway cars themselves serve as a text due to the diversity of people, advertisements and other elements of interaction. The politics of transportation and transit in Toronto has recently been divisive and tumultuous regarding suburban transit expansion, resulting in numerous revised and cancelled plans. Suburban Toronto is particularly automobile dependent, which is reflected in the built form of these areas. Walkability, and hence readability, is severely hampered due to long distances between commercial and residential zones. The discourse regarding suburban transit has become binary in nature where the type of transportation technology is contested, particularly between LRT, light rail transit, and HRT, heavy rail or subway, lines. Though either of these options will aggressively increase walkability in these neighbourhoods, residents of the suburbs prefer HRT as they have observed its implementation in the hyperurban and walkable downtown core of the city. In wanting to replicate downtown walkability within their surrounding vicinity, the suburban desire for subways attempts to poach from the hyperurban realm and implement in the suburban similarly to Michel de Certeau’s theory of Reading as Poaching (1988). Despite studies by the provincial Running Head: Walkability as Readability !6 transportation agency, Metrolinx, that the expected amount of ridership in suburban areas of Toronto only warranted LRT technology, supporters insisted on using HRT technology, arguing that the suburbs “deserved” subways (Peat, 2013). This type of emotional and metis response to the logos of Metrolinx’s research studies is a recurring theme when readability is inhibited. This division between the walkable hyperurban Toronto and the inhibited reading of its suburbs are visualized by the results of the 2014 municipal election. The results provide intriguing information regarding socioeconomic conditions and demographics, and their correlation with the level of walkability. Inhibited Reading As mentioned in the introduction, walkability is the architectural or contextual equivalent of reading in the urban environment, and as such, affects all aspects of civic life. Not only do unique readings provide different perspectives on urban issues and in turn political association, walkability correlates with socioeconomic conditions and demographics. The 2014 Toronto mayoral election was fought along the borders of the five former suburban boroughs which were amalgamated into the metropolitan city boundaries in 1998. Analysis of the election results show that the majority of residents in the suburban boroughs voted differently compared to the hyperurban core of the city. This is especially intriguing when discussing the disparate levels of walkability that align with these results. Moreover, the residents of these boroughs on average earn a lower income than parts of the city which are more walkable, and have actually experienced a decrease in income compared to the average since 1970 (Hulchanski, 2014). In addition to these already stark geographical divisions, the racial composition of the former Running Head: Walkability as Readability !7 separate municipalities is in large part visible minorities, compared to the minimum of fifty percent caucasian demographic makeup of the original city proper (Hulchanski, 2014). Though certainly not conclusive to create a general statement about walkability and its effect on ethnic composition, income, and political affiliation, it can be inferred that some of these characteristics can be attributed to the built form of the public realm and auto versus transit orientation of developments. Furthermore, it presents the idea that walkability and inhibition of reading due to urban built forms and transportation orientation somehow directly affect income and demographics, notwithstanding post hoc ergo propter hoc. The reasons for inhibited reading and their correlation with the built form of a location has been studied and disseminated. Friedrich Kittler contends that “media determine our situation” in Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (1999, p. XXXV). Inhibited reading, through the urban built form, is the media which deeply affects one’s situation. In a pilot study on Aboriginal health due to sedentary behaviour and rates of walkability, street connectivity, aesthetics, traffic safety, and crime safety were highlighted as factors directly affecting walkability. The study found that increasing leisure time physical activity, or LTPA which includes walking, “may be contingent on improving the built environment” (Canadian Public Health Association, 2010). Further studies have found that “[the] physical attributes of local environments may influence walking” and that “residents of high-walkable neighbourhoods rated relevant attributes of residential density, land-use mix, and street connectivity, consistently higher than did residents of low-walkable neighborhoods” (Leslie et. al, 2005, p. 227-236). The effects of the urban built form will be studied in detail in the section Public Spaces and Urban Design. Running Head: Walkability as Readability !8 Gentrification The physical characteristics of Toronto’s two environments, the hyperurban and the suburban are drastically different. While narrow streets and wide sidewalks lined with mixed-use commercial, office, and residential buildings line Toronto’s downtown avenues, the suburban realm comprises of wide highway-like streets, single use buildings such as strip malls or low rise and low density residential units along its avenues. Walkability is one of the main differences between downtown and suburban Toronto, as evidenced by the WalkScore ranking by a Seattle based mobile application company. Factoring in elevation changes and walking time to grocery stores, shops and cafes, WalkScore ranked Toronto the second most walkable city in Canada (Bosanac, 2013). Josh Herst, the CEO of WalkScore noted that suburban areas like Scarborough were to blame for reducing Toronto’s score. Not only does walkability provide options such as not using a vehicle for transportation, it allows for gentrification, as evidenced recently in Toronto and other cities around North America. Gentrification is the rise in desirability to live in a certain neighbourhood, which leads to a rise in property values and development and income of the residents. These higher incomes lead to a reduction in crime in the neighbourhood, and once again increases the desirability to live in the area, and this continues in perpetuity. Toronto is gentrifying at an unprecedented rate, however, much of this new development is concentrated in downtown Toronto and older surrounding neighbourhoods, like Riverdale, Leslieville, and Queen West, where the characteristics mentioned above are consistently present (Budak, 2014). Once again reiterating Marshall McLuhan’s sentiment of the medium is the message, the built form of the public realm in urban versus suburban Toronto determines the message, or sentiment, of the citizens who reside in the respective areas. Walkability and access to various amenities Running Head: Walkability as Readability !9 without requiring a personal vehicle changes one’s perception of their city immensely, especially when comparing the cost of owning and operating a vehicle and the income differential that closely follows the urban-suburban divide. Furthermore, when analyzing the gentrification patterns of Toronto, it is evident that residents who have the ability to pay more for shelter will choose to live in the walkable downtown core. Nonetheless, this a recent phenomenon in most cities as the importance of walkability was previously undermined due to other factors. While the majority of urban centres in North America experienced “white flight” during the latter half of the 20th century, with ramifications that persist to this day, Toronto remains an anomaly to this concept. “White flight” refers to the mass emigration of caucasians from the downtowns of cities to their suburbs, for various complex reasons including, but not limited to, racism (L.P. Boustan, 2010). This led to urban decay where the tax base was decimated and resulted in cuts to services and infrastructure in the affected area, essentially degrading the walkable city and creating automobile oriented development. In addition to this, the vast network of highways, the Interstate system, that was built in the 1960’s provided fast connectivity through the suburbs and further created an incentive for mass emigration out of the dense urban cores (Weingrof, n.d.). Cities like Atlanta, Cleveland, and Detroit, the most famous examples of this type of emigration, are predominantly accessible by vehicles and do not have extensive public transportation networks, therefore inhibiting walkability. Dissimilar to these cities, Toronto had a subway system by 1954 which may have been the key difference between urban decay and a lively walkable downtown core. Nonetheless, the previously mentioned cities are now attempting to revitalize their urban centres through investment in infrastructure and the public realm, which has now led to gentrification. Marshall McLuhan speaks to the transformation of prior media into Running Head: Walkability as Readability !10 a new medium, and how all prior elements are contained within this new medium (1964, p. 9-12). Gentrification as a whole embodies this concept, where old disused built forms are refurbished into a desirable outcome. While gentrification is occurring in these cities, the rate and scale at which it is engulfing Toronto’s downtown is incomparable, likely due to the lack of “white flight” during the late 1900’s and a culture of transit use. The urban centres of Atlanta, Cleveland, and Detroit are transforming into desirable locations, similar to McLuhan’s description of medium transformation. Toronto’s urban core is transforming from already desirable and dense to an even further extent due to technological advancements allowing for cost-effective construction of condominium skyscrapers to further enhance land use and promote walking. Technology and Walkability Advancements in construction technology and a reduction in high-rise construction costs along with gentrification has resulted in a building boom in Toronto over the last decade. So much so that Toronto has more skyscrapers under construction than any other North American city as of this year (Evans, 2014). George Landow explains in his Hypertext 3.0 - Critical Theory and New Media in the Era of Globalization that technology is an intervener between modern text and the reader (2006). The skyscrapers rising along Toronto’s arterial roadways and transit lines similarly act as an intervener between its residents and the city, being a technological innovation themselves. These vertical neighbourhoods have been tremendously successful and have further enhanced walkability due to their built form. By transferring the distance between two points from horizontal to vertical, walkability is increased as escalators and elevators transfer Running Head: Walkability as Readability !11 individuals between ‘layers’ of their city. In 2009, Toronto became the first city in North America to require all new residential, commercial, or institutional buildings larger than 2000 square metres to have green roofs (City of Toronto, 2013). Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari describe technology as being derived from nature and the rhizomatic origins of certain technologies in A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980, p. 6-15). The green roof mandate promotes the use of such technology which has been engineered after the tree canopies in rainforests. This diminishes the heat island effect that is experienced by large cities due to the retention of heat by concrete and asphalt, the primary materials within the urban environment, making for a more pleasant walking experience. Once again, these innovations increase walkability within their surrounding areas and provide clarity in reading the city. In addition to being derived from nature, green roofs on Toronto’s buildings visually represent the rhizomatic nature of the city. Residential, commercial, and office real estate all require one another to exist. Without one of these elements, the others are severely and negatively impacted, and therefore the non-hierarchical nature of the city’s buildings becomes evident. The rhizomatic nature of hyperurban Toronto further enhances walkability by allowing for work, play, and rest in a concentrated space. Technology has substantively altered Toronto and how its citizens read and use the amenities offered within the city. Perhaps the most important recent technological advancement has been the advent and popularity of the smartphone. Mobile browsing and the various functions now obsolete as a result of the smartphone have dramatically affected Toronto’s culture and experience, especially with respect to walkability. Uber, a San Francisco based ridesharing service, commenced operations and launched its smartphone application in Toronto during 2012. Running Head: Walkability as Readability !12 The application, which allows users to request transportation from one point to another using GPS functionality on their phone, automatically deducts fares from clients’ credit cards, resulting in a hassle-free experience. This type of service is an appropriate substitute to personal vehicles in highly walkable neighbourhoods where car ownership is minimal. However, the City of Toronto has long held that Uber was in contravention of city by-laws, resulting in 36 infractions to date. And recently, it has filed for an injunction at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to prevent Uber from operating within city limits (Manglone, 2014). Friedrich Kittler during his lectures on Optical Media explained that “it is we who adapt to the machine. The machine does not adapt to us” (1999). Toronto, like many other cities around the world, has recently been in a struggle to leave behind its archaic regulatory structure, particularly with respect to taxis. This struggle symbolically represents the conflict between an automobile versus transit oriented society. It seems that Toronto will learn to adapt to an ever evolving reading of the urban environment as the Mayor-Elect, John Tory, has come out in support of modernizing the city’s perspective on the ridesharing service (Manglone, 2014). Speed-walking The primary reason for reduced readability in an automobile dependent society is limited interaction between the environment and the individual. Unlike walking, driving is a speedreading of the urban space, where minute but significant details are skimmed over. Robert Zorn explains that “there’s no need for continued periodic practice or an annual retest” when describing techniques of speed-reading (1991, p. 7). Driving an automobile is very similar to literal speed-reading as operating a motor vehicle becomes muscle memory rather than an active Running Head: Walkability as Readability !13 process. Moreover, the path that a motor vehicle can take through an urban environment is extremely limited, only roads and freeways. Walking on the other hand can be very structured or, if necessary or for leisure, disorganized and ‘parkour’. Fuggle explains that the name ‘parkour’ originates from French military training dating back to the Vietnam War. The technique of crossing jungle terrain with maximum speed and efficiency was known as “le parkours du combatants” (Fuggle, 2008, p. 160) While ‘parkour’ can be considered a form of speed-reading as well, it is far removed from the automobile version of it. In fact, transversing the pedestrian terrain in a ‘parkour’ fashion requires intricate attention to detail of the public realm, as without such attention the likelihood of injury and harm is heightened. In Paul Auster’s City of Glass, the first novel in The New York Trilogy, the relationship between walking and reading the city is described as as the following: “New York was an inexhaustible space, a labyrinth of endless steps, and no matter how far he walked, no matter how well he came to know its neighborhoods and streets, it always left him with the feeling of being lost. Lost, not only in the city, but within himself as well. Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within. The world was outside of him, around him, before him, and the speed with which it kept changing made it impossible for him to dwell on any one thing for very long. Running Head: Walkability as Readability !14 Motion was of the essence, the act of putting one foot in front of the other and allowing himself to follow the drift of his own body.” (Paul Auster, 1990, p. 24). Auster’s character explains how walking in the urban environment is analogous to being reduced to “a seeing eye”. This further reinforces that walking is the urban equivalent of reading, or perceiving, one’s architectural surroundings. Furthermore, “the speed with which it [the world outside him] kept changing” speaks to the nature of speed-walking as external to oneself. Speedwalking does not necessarily have to be ‘parkour’ or an unorthodox manner of navigating the pedestrian space, but rather the continually evolving urban environment facilitates speedwalking. Even during routine walking, such as walking to work every morning, an individual experiences the difference in characteristics around them from their previous encounter with the same urban space, whether it be the people or the weather. As such, speed-walking is fundamentally and intrinsically distinct from driving or the literal speed-reading, because it involves a profound attention to detail rather than skimming over them. Public Spaces and Urban Design Public spaces are the most notable places in which to walk, in which to read the city around oneself. Lyn H. Lofland defines the public realm as “made up of those spaces in a city which tend to be inhabited by persons who are strangers to one another or who know one another only in terms of occupational or other non personal identity categories” (1998, p. 9). He goes on to define this space as a primarily “societal territory” and highlights the opportunities of not only personal, but even cultural interactions available within such spaces (Lofland, 1998, p. 3-4). Running Head: Walkability as Readability !15 Public spaces, whether it be Times Square in New York City or Stanley Park in Vancouver, all tend to favour the pedestrian experience over all others. This includes creating a space with design elements such as high-quality sidewalk pavers instead of simple cured concrete, and the addition of benched seating to attract the public. In Sergei Eisenstein’s The Cinematic Principle and the Ideogram, he describes filmography and how the shots of a montage are cells, which come together in conflict to create a motion which is comprehensible to the viewer (1977, p. 37). The public space acts as the placeholder of a film sequence in the architectural world, where individuals denote the ‘cells’ which come together. However, unlike Eisenstein’s description of conflict amongst the cells, the convergence of people in a public space facilitate interaction. The conflict in the cinematographic realm is equivalent to interaction in the architectural urban environment. Moreover, these ‘cells’ that are associated with individuals consist of their personal, cultural, political, and moral philosophies and interests which interact with one another and further enhance the urban environment. Public spaces increase walkability and promote reading of diverse ‘texts’ in addition to creating a focal point of convergence within a society. The design of these public spaces, with regards to pedestrian flow and landscaping constitutes an attempt to somehow shape or guide one’s path, or reading, through the space. George Landow in Hypertext 3.0, delineates the difference between what he considers writerly and readerly texts as possessing the ability to influence the meaning of a text (2006). If a reader is able to actively alter what is gained from reading, the text is considered to be readerly, as the reader has power over the text. However, if the reader cannot alter the meaning of a text, it is writerly as the author possesses a monopoly of power in influencing the text. Urban design can be categorized under either of these classes, depending on the architectural elements constructed Running Head: Walkability as Readability !16 within a space. Blank windowless facades of buildings adjacent to public spaces discourages walking spontaneous public convergence, and rather promotes illicit activities to take place within its vicinity. Open and airy lobbies, extending out to a foliage landscaped sidewalk promotes the convergence of people and improves walkability. As mentioned above, this facilitates interaction amongst individuals and their ‘cells’ resulting in a more readerly experience. The concepts of readerly and writerly texts are also proposed by Marshall McLuhan in Understanding Media as hot and cool media. Hot and cool media are terms used to describe media perception, where hot media is said to be of higher definition, such as film. In higher definition media, the viewer does not have to actively participate or contribute in order to ascertain the meaning or message of the film. Cool media, such as comic books, require viewers to interject their own experiences and perceive the media with regards to their own contributions (McLuhan, 1964 p. 22). McLuhan claims that “any hot medium allows of less participation than a cool one, as a lecture makes for less participation than a seminar, and a book for less than a dialogue” (p. 25). Once again, specific instances of urban design conforms to these definitions, where certain uninviting public spaces can be considered hot media. Vibrant lively and animated spaces are cool media, where participation, in the form of walking, is necessary and promoted. With respect to the specific example of Toronto, downtown and the hyperurban core consists of significantly higher amounts of cool or readerly spaces, whereas the suburbs are very much hot or writerly media. This rule is not universal, exceptions include suburban attractions such as shopping malls and amusement parks, but overall spaces such as Dundas Square, Riverdale Farm, and Cloud Gardens exist in far higher frequency in the hyperurban centre. Running Head: Walkability as Readability !17 Cycling, Walkability and the Brain Seemingly, cycling may be considered as a form of inhibited reading, like driving, due to the speed at which the environment is traversed. However, this assessment is incorrect due to the interactive nature of cycling with respect to the urban environment and the ease with which a cyclist can transform into a pedestrian. Cycling through the urban environment requires exposure to the elements, interaction with pedestrians, and navigation is not strictly limited to roads, rather bike-paths and trails are also accessible. The similarity of cycling and walking may explain the divergent mental and physical health outcomes as compared to driving, where cycling and walking result in reduced stress levels (Jackson, 2014). Maryanne Wolf in Proust and the Squid explains how reading is a technology, as it is not genetically transferred, but rather the neural pathways for reading develop separately in each generation. (2007, p. 1-25). Furthermore, the plasticity of the brain means that these neural pathways develop differently depending on the language with which one learns to read, and new neural pathways develop for new languages learnt throughout one’s life (Wolf, 2007, p. 1-25). As such, growing up in an automobile oriented society versus one that promotes walking and cycling must lead to a different perception of the world, as the configuration of the brain is unique to each instance. Therefore the long-term ramifications of car dependency and inhibited reading may explain lifelong patterns, the results of which may explain income inequality along with other statistical discrepancies between the suburban and the hyperurban noted earlier. Not only does car dependency’s physical consequences include increased levels of obesity, energy consumption, and carbon emissions, it may be possible that it interacts with the brain such that it justifies these negative consequences (Higgins, 2005). Maryanne Wolf also describes technology as a feedback loop, where humans Running Head: Walkability as Readability !18 create technology, which then alters our brains, leading to further innovation (2007, p. 25). Inhibited reading may subdue this feedback loop compared to an upbringing involving increased walkability. Nevertheless, the non-genetic nature of reading, and hence non-hereditary attitudes towards walking, ensures that a departure from the cycle of car dependency is bound to have an immediate positive effect on the children of reading inhibited parents. As an example, this provides justification for a transformation of suburban areas from car to transit orientation, resulting in better health and psychological outcomes for children as a result of increased walkability and uninhibited reading. Due to the plasticity of the brain, the levels of readability present during childhood growth significantly affect reading during adulthood, as demonstrated by the walkability in the urban environment. Walkability and Romance While physical elements in the urban environment predominantly determine walkability, other societal and emotional factors may likewise affect a reading of the city. These factors may include relationships, education, and social intangibles, such as networking and communication skills. In Paul Auster’s City of Glass from The New York Trilogy, Peter Stillman is depicted to have been raised while cut off from human contact for most of his life, and therefore presents a truly unique perspective on the urban environment. Stillman describes the urban environment of the novel’s setting, New York, in the following manner: “I have come to New York because it is the most forlorn of places, the most abject. The brokenness is everywhere, the disarray is universal. You have only to open your eyes to see it. The broken people, the Running Head: Walkability as Readability !19 broken things, the broken thoughts. The whole city is a junk heap. It suits my purpose admirably. I find the streets an endless source of material, an inexhaustible storehouse of shattered things.” (Paul Auster, 1990, p. 174). The cynical nature of Stillman’s description, calling the city a “junk heap” and the negative connotations from adjectives such as “broken” provide an example of a perverse reading of the urban environment. This is a result of his upbringing, where segregation from society, a form of inhibited reading, has altered his perception well into adulthood with respect to those who did not experience such trauma. Stillman’s description of the city is unromantic, such that the intense emotion associated with the aesthetic realm is strictly unfavourable to him. Friedrich Kittler in his historical recount of optical media explains how the same technology used to make a bomb is used in photographic film to capture the perpetrator (2010, p. 145). Similarly, the city can be read into either positive or negative interpretations, but unlike a simple dichotomy, the urban environment is more complex. The interpretation of the city, through walking, is neither qualitatively good or bad, but individual aspects are independent from one another. Walking and internalizing the interactive characteristics of the urban realm is a long held ideal in romanticism, where appreciating the aesthetic nature of the city is fundamental. Unlike Stillman’s experience of walking, traversing the urban realm is indivisible with companionship. This is due to the very nature of walking, or reading the urban environment: to internalize all texts or interwoven fabrications, especially emotion, thought, and philosophy. As such, walking is a very conjoined process, in the sense that one is always accompanied during this form of reading, whether it be with their pet, their significant other, or simply the audio playing through their headphones. Even Running Head: Walkability as Readability !20 without external companionship, one is accompanied by their thoughts that are brought about by the urban landscape around them. Reading is undoubtedly a romantic process, where companionship is integral in exploring and experiencing a ‘text’. Applied in the context of the urban environment, it must be that walking is a romantic process as well. Conclusion It has been established that readability in the urban environment is unique in many respects from literal reading, yet very similar in other aspects. As has been thoroughly discussed in this paper, the urban equivalent of readability is walkability, due to the architectural context of such an environment. Furthermore, the urban environment is an oral text, as opposed to the written form, as evidenced by the tribal and metic nature of the city. Perspectives in the urban environment with respect to urban design, transportation and the reflection of these unique opinions in the political sphere is predominantly determined by walkability. Moreover, statistical evidence reinforces the disparate levels of walkability between the hyperurban and suburban built forms, particularly in Toronto. The inhibition of reading due to the automobile oriented suburban built form has measurable effects on income and demographics, especially when compared to the transit oriented hyperurban downtown core. Walkability, and hence readability, is a desirable element, as proven by gentrification patterns in Toronto and around North America where increasing property values and unending development signify the importance of dense mixed-use neighbourhoods. Technological advancements, most notably with respect to skyscraper construction, have made residential high-rise developments feasible, and further increased walkability due to the transfer of horizontal distance to a vertical form. In contrast to Running Head: Walkability as Readability !21 automobile based speed-reading, walking allows for greater readability, as speed-walking involves attention to detail in the form of ‘parkour’ as described by Sophie Fuggle, or in observation of the changing landscape around oneself. The public realm is integral to walkability as public spaces can become a place of convergence or illicit activity depending on the built form and design. Various aspects of the public realm, including the quality of material and distance to amenities, influence walkability and the interaction between individuals and their ‘cells’ within such spaces. The effects of different levels of walkability are visible when exploring the connection between the brain and individual outcomes with respect to the different neurological pathways created during inhibited reading as compared to encouraged walkability. The link between romanticism and walking becomes evident by analyzing the inhibited reading described by Paul Auster in City of Glass and contrasting the cynical nature of his character with the ideal of companionship. As outlined in this paper, readability and walkability are synonymous in an urban setting, and serve as the primary determinant of perspectives of residents within the urban environment. Running Head: Walkability as Readability !22 References Auster, P. (1990). The New York Trilogy. New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Penguin Books. Bosanac, A. (2013, January 23). Toronto ranked second most pedestrian-friendly city by WalkScore | Toronto Star. Boustan, L. (2010). Was Postwar Suburbanization “White Flight”? 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