Follow the stickers?
After moving to Chicago from a town with a population smaller than any Chicago Public High School, there were a plethora of things that came as a shock to me. First would be the smell — most streets always smell like must, or garbage, or old socks, while others smell like delicious, imported desserts and delicacies that I had never smelled before. The second thing, however, was the art that seemed to exist everywhere — even, as I soon discovered, on road signs.
It seems like almost every stop sign is decorated with stickers that declare political ideologies, conspiracies, cartoons, or even encouragement. It’s always interesting to see which stickers outrule the others, because to me it seems to be a reflection on the ideas of those who live there, at the very least some small percentage of that said population.
This particular sign, to me, seems to reflect the ideologies of “hipsters”, from the cartoon sticker of a typical hipster, a “rejected” clothing store, and a controversial sticker about religion. To me this makes sense, as it is located near a college campus where new ideas are, no doubt, being discussed and formed.
Then there are, of course, signs such as these. Filled with nonsensical pictures, or a bunch of ideas forming art? I couldn’t honestly tell you, but it are signs like these that often make me wonder what the person who put them there was like. Did their stsicker have a meaning? Did they put it there just to be funny? To get rid of it? Or was there some sort of underlying message they wanted sent? I think that these small pieces of art reflect a lot about the community and the diversity of people, and they can be found on nearly every corner in Lincoln Park — and I intend to map them out.
Question 2: In response to Malchik and Hollis, is walking a luxury, a privilege, a necessity, or a right, and why? What are the threats to walking? How does where you live influence how you live?
In response to Malchik and Hollis, walking is all of those listed above. It is a basic human right and natural occurrence to move one foot after the other, and it is natural for the body to need to do that. As explained by Malchik, not being able to walk for at least 30 minutes a day can become a health risk to our physical and mental state. Threats to walking are mostly what society has built: buses, cars, sometimes other pedestrians. Where you live also plays a factor into your walkability, For instance, people in the suburbs or cities may have everything close enough for them to walk, but if they somewhere that it is too crowded it becomes unsafe, as it did for Raquel Nelson in Atlanta. Contrarily, if someone lives in a rural area, although they may have lots of space to roam they are often subject to using vehicles in order to get to the places they need to be.
