Walking for a Better World: Next Steps
What’s the best way to kickstart the creative problem-solving required to change the world for the better?
As you may have guessed, the answer is none other than… walking.
A Creativity Boost
Americans devote more than 10 hours per day to screen time, according to CNN. Sitting in front of a screen is simply not the optimal scenario for generating your most creative ideas.
Marily Oppezzo, a researcher at Stanford University, provides an alternative for creative idea generation in her aptly-named TED Talk: “Want to be more creative? Go for a walk.”
As Marily describes in the TED Talk, her research clearly demonstrates that walking improves one’s ability to think creatively. In her study, test subjects had four minutes to brainstorm as many alternate uses for everyday objects as possible, such as uses for a key other than opening a lock. The standard for whether an idea was creative was “appropriate novelty,” meaning that the idea had to be realistic and could not have been said by anyone else in the population surveyed.
Here’s one idea from the study that was deemed to be a creative use for a key: “If you were dying and it was a murder mystery, and you had to carve the name of the murderer into the ground with your dying words.”
Indeed, it fits the criteria of being both appropriate and novel.
Two rounds of tests were performed on three different groups of subjects who were either seated or walking on a treadmill. One group sat for both tests, while another group sat first and then walked, and the final group walked and then sat. Both of the groups that sat for the first test generated a similar average number of creative ideas, whereas the group that walked on a treadmill had almost twice as many creative ideas.
For the second test, the group that sat twice didn’t show any improvement from the first test. However, the people in the group that sat for the first test and walked for the second one almost doubled their creativity.
To Marily, the most interesting result was in the group that walked for the first test and then sat: “The people who were walking on the treadmill still had a residue effect of the walking, and they were still creative afterwards.” Even though their creativity did decline when they sat, those who walked and then sat were significantly more creative than the people in the groups that sat for the first test.
Despite the fact that the treadmill was located in a windowless room — seemingly an environment that would stifle creativity — the differences in performance between the sitters and the walkers are truly astonishing. In order to take advantage of the creativity-enhancing benefits of walking, Marily has five suggestions:
- Pick a defined problem to brainstorm during your walk ahead of time. This will add structure to your brainstorming session.
- Walk at a pace that is comfortable for you. “If I were running, the only idea I would have would be to stop running,” Marily jokes.
- Don’t lock in on your first idea. Keep coming up with new ideas.
- Speak and record your new ideas using a smartphone or other recording device. The act of writing down your ideas can be a filter to creativity.
- Don’t force yourself to keep walking if the creative ideas are not coming. You can always take a break and start walking again later.
Marily’s steps for walking to enhance creativity are practical and easy to implement. Still, a cultural shift is required to make walking for creative problem-solving a reality.
Envisioning Change
Demetrio Scopelliti, the Advisor to the Deputy Mayor of Milan, Italy, for Urban Planning, Green Areas, and Agriculture, recognizes the importance of walking in creative problem solving. As Demetrio knows, changing the world requires the ability to see the world differently and to recognize its potential.
Demetrio has a clear vision of a walkable, car-free future for the city. Milan has already adopted a section of walkable streets in the city center, and the Deputy Mayor has plans to transition the city towards a walkable future.
“I am fascinated by how architecture and urban design affect people’s behaviours and social life, particularly in streets and public spaces,” Demetrio states in his LinkedIn profile. Intuitively, this connection between urban design and social behavior makes sense. In a city, streets are the stage on which people live their lives, so cities should be designed in a way that permits people to thrive. But this isn’t always the case.
According to Demetrio, most city planners know everything about cars and how they move in a space and how to design roads for them. When it comes to pedestrians, however, planners have an incomplete understanding of how they use a space.
“If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places,” says Fred Kent, the founder of the Project for Public Spaces.
In his role as an urban designer, Demetrio cares deeply about how people move in a space. And the only way that Demetrio feels he can design a place that works for the people who use it is by walking in it. Being physically present in the space that he is designing — with the people for whom he is designing it — allows Demetrio to boost his creativity and to solve the problems facing the people who interact with the space.
“I cannot understand a place, and I cannot imagine the space if I don’t walk through it,” Demetrio states simply. For Demetrio, walking is a tool for discovery, understanding, observation, inspiration, and much more.
Demetrio cherishes the experience of walking in a public space — from exchanging a friendly smile with a stranger to knowing that he is minimizing his environmental footprint — and he wants to design spaces that give all people access to those kinds of experiences.
“There is no successful city where there is no life in the streets,” he asserts, recognizing that thoughtful design has positive implications for all of society.
Demetrio’s vision is already coming to fruition. The process of Milan’s pedestrianization is a slow and collaborative one, with input from citizens and competitions for public design solutions at the core of the city’s new urban strategy. In one experimental project called #nevicata14 (“snowfall of 2014”), Piazza Castello, the city’s second largest square, was temporarily made pedestrian-only. Free Wi-Fi, smart lighting, and public seating, as well as special events, performances, and classes transformed the square into a place that was appealing to pedestrians, increasing foot traffic and allowing citizens to congregate to collaborate on more projects with the common good in mind.
Walking opens up the potential for better design. And better-designed spaces facilitate the potential for more people to walk and engage in the creative problem solving required to transform the world.
Want to join me in walking for a better world? Email me at crc107@georgetown.edu or connect with me on LinkedIn. To read more about how you can change the world by walking, check out my latest book It Starts with a Step on Amazon.
