Elaborating on the Previous Walk and Brainstorming for the Chicago Field Guide

Last week, I walked my way to Chinatown from the north side of the loop, embarking on an hour long journey, exploring the south side of the loop along the way. You can read about that journey here.

This week I wanted to gather the thoughts of my experiences last week, and culminate them into a proper writing that can help me write the Field Guide Project.

One of the main topics I wrote about last week is the hidden bias I discovered within myself. I noticed my inherent sense of danger rise when thinking about travelling to the south loop. The south loop isn’t necessarily the south side of Chicago itself. But just the thought of “south” and “Chicago” alerted me to danger. That’s the work of a totalizing rumor at hand.

“The driver admitted to having alcohol and painkillers in his system (and to being legally blind in one eye) and pleaded guilty to the charge of hit-and-run. He served six months in prison. For the crime of walking three tired, hungry children home in the most efficient way possible, Nelson faced more jail time than the man who had killed her son” (Malchik).

When tales of pedestrians face the unjust sleight of hand of the law for questionable reason in addition to the notoriety of the area, the situation only worsens. If I’m to offer a field guide of Chicago, how can I open up the city for exploration, despite the work of rumors limiting people? “Go here, not there” is the actual answer not guiding the walker at all? Maybe get them to stay within the city limits?

But then what is the city, and what is not?

The second lesson of my walk is that I found the south loop streets to be more empty in my experience, comparatively to the north loop. Do more people live in the north loop than the south loop? Or is it a part of the culture?

Or perhaps, this is a sign of more unsafe streets. Malchik covers the topic of communities becoming less and less walkable. This is the slow death of a community when it is no longer walkable.

“We came to scorn walking, to fear it. Real Americans fold themselves into cars, where they feel safe and in control” (Malchik).

Walking is now seen as a risky form of transportation, and for the lower classes. This creates a fine line between communities. Better off communities have safer transportation, and can be built without walking.

But this comes at a cost.

Now people can’t communicate face-to-face consistently. People will shelter off in their safe, anonymous movement. Communities will gate off naturally, and people will lose the basic connections that allow for a community’s survival?

Should part of the field guide to be to get to know the people of the city? But how can this be done in a safe measure?

What furthers this issue is the attitude surrounding this. That gated communities are becoming more common. That society is looking down upon pedestrians.

“The car, the distrust of walkers, they’ve become the hallmarks of an everybody-for-herself, bootstrap-pulling, falsely self-sufficient American culture. Freedom to drive when and how we please is as American as apple pie and a gun holster; freedom to walk is not” (Malchik).

How can we resolve a Chicago, open to explore? A Chicago that is nothing more than the land in front of the eyes. But how can this be traveled in a city that is unequal to all? How can we guarantee safety, without restricting the city’s limits, or walker’s limits?

There isn’t a go-to answer… This dilemma is the one that has to be answered in the Field Guide.

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200–250 Word Response

Question: How might Malchik and Loerzel respond to the following questions: How does where you live influence how you live? How is a neighborhood’s infrastructure (or, built environment) linked to its social capital? What are the threats to walking?

Malchik and Loerzel would likely respond by listing the social and political impact of the situation, and how it can divide communities.

This influences where one lives by prioritizing safety. But safety now often means non-interaction movement. Silence. Cars. Rich-gated communities. This often means lesser social capital.

What’s the point in the middle for this? How can we a safe community with social capital? That’s the medium created by walking. A community that gets to know each other can support one another, and inherent social capital. Safety and support from within the community. The retracted community style richer America is enveloping is a threat to this.

The threats to walking are numerous. One, unequal active enforcement on the streets. Loitering charges against certain groups of people such as minorities. This makes the streets unsafe for certain groups of people, making the streets a form of segregation. This can further divide people into separated communities and ethnic enclaves.

This attitude towards walking that’s growing is a scary, enveloping threat to society.