Middleton-2011-Walking in The City

Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.
Walking in the City: The Geographies of Everyday

Pedestrian Practices
Jennie Middleton*
University of Plymouth
Abstract
Concerns with walking cut across both policy and academic arenas, ranging from its promotion as
a significant mode of sustainable transport to it being drawn upon as an artistic practice. However,
there remains a disconnection between different bodies of research addressing different dimensions
associated with walking, whereby a distinction can be drawn between understanding walking as a
topic and subject to research and drawing upon walking as a method of enquiry. This paper aims
to critically explore some of the multiple areas of work on walking, and in so doing proposes an
increased dialogue between, and wider acknowledgement of, different modes of enquiry relating
to pedestrian practices. More specifically the paper explores policy concerns with pedestrian
movement; how walking is situated within writings concerning the democratic possibilities of
urban public space; its role in performative engagements with the city; pedestrian movement as a
means of reading ⁄ knowing urban space; and the relationship between walking and art. In so
doing, the potential is explored for how these forms of engagement with walking translate into,
or provide a medium for, the broader concerns of those such as policymakers as to who walks
and why.
Introduction
Walking is currently high on both policy and academic agendas. In transport geography
and transport studies research there are increasing concerns with how people can be
encouraged to adopt more sustainable modes of transport such as walking and cycling. At
the same time walking continues to be engaged with throughout a broad range of social,
cultural and philosophical writings. Such work influences much debate within social and
cultural geography. However, despite a growing recognition in the transport policy and
research arena of the complexity of walking, and an increased awareness of how social
and cultural theoretical writings engaging with notions such as affect and performance
might usefully inform broader policy debates, there remains a disconnect between differ-
ent bodies of research addressing different dimensions associated with walking. This paper
aims to explore critically some of the multiple areas of work on walking, and in so doing
proposes an increased dialogue between, and wider acknowledgement of, different modes
of enquiry relating to pedestrian practices.
The paper exemplifies both the overlapping dimensions, and disconnections, of differ-
ent realms of engagement with walking through a detailed discussion of walking in the
city. First, particular attention is drawn to pedestrian policy and the types of transport
research that inform current urban policy thinking. It is argued that whilst this type of
research has its place in examining the frequency of walking, it is overly focused on the
built environment and lacks a much needed engagement with the actual experience of
walking. In other words, what happens between A and B is often neglected. As such,
ª 2011 The Author

Geography Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Walking in the city 91
the practice of walking is essentialised and the heterogeneity associated with different
pedestrian experiences overlooked (Cresswell 2006, 2010; Middleton 2010). An engage-
ment with the experiential dimensions of walking makes apparent a range of issues,
extending from the dominant focus on the built environment in current pedestrian pol-
icy whilst moving beyond pre-given assumptions and disembodied constructions of
pedestrians which ‘render them inert and lifeless’ (Bissell 2010: 271). The paper moves
on to discuss: how pedestrian movement is situated within writings concerning the
democratic possibilities of urban public space; the role of walking in performative
engagements with the city; pedestrian movement as a means of reading ⁄ knowing urban
space; and the relationship between walking and art. The overall aim is to address how
these forms of engagement with walking translate, or provide a medium, for the
broader concerns of those such as policymakers as to who walks and why. This focus
on walking and the city highlights how the main distinction between these fields of
research revolves around understanding walking as a topic and subject to research and
drawing upon walking as a method of enquiry. It is proposed that some form of rap-
prochement between these approaches would assist policymakers in their own declared
interest of gaining a greater understanding of walking and the ways in which it can be
more effectively promoted. As such, the paper moves on to provide a critical summary
of walking as method in relation to growing concerns with mobile methodologies that
have emerged from what has been broadly termed the ‘mobilities turn’. In so doing,
the opportunities are presented for how walking methods might be drawn upon to
understand the practical accomplishment of walking, or ‘how’ people walk, in contrast
to the current fixation on walking methods being used to uncover more ‘authentic’
access to experiences relating to a broad range of other concerns. The argument is pre-
sented that in focusing on what it is to ‘do’ walking, enables a series of significant issues
to emerge that are critical for comprehending both ‘how’ and ‘why’ people walk.
These issues include the material, embodied, affectual, political, and social dimensions of
moving on foot.
Pedestrian Policy and Transport Research

In the last 10 years walking has attracted significant policy interest in the UK with key
publications including the national ‘Walking and Cycling: an action plan’ (Department for
Transport 2004) and the Capital’s ‘Walking Plan for London (Transport for London
2004). Much current walking policy is informed by research stemming from the disciplin-
ary traditions of transport studies and ⁄ or transport geography. Examples of data that
informs such policy includes travel data such as the ‘National Travel Survey’ (DfT 2008,
2009), travel to work data from the 2001 UK Census (ONS 2001), the London Travel
report (TfL 2006, 2007), and localised pedestrian counts. The pro-walking organisation
Walk21 has even launched a project to ‘harmonise and standardise methods for measuring
walking’ (Walk21 2006). Whilst these types of data go some way in examining the fre-
quency of walking, there is little relating to the meaning and significance of journeys on
foot to different groups and individuals and how these journeys actually unfold. It is issues
such as these that are paramount for gaining a greater understanding of how walking could
be promoted more effectively. As such, it has been argued within both policy and aca-
demic arenas, that there is a lack of appropriate data on walking in terms of pedestrian
environments, activities and behaviours (Brog and Erl 2001; Desylass et al. 2003; Gemzoe
2001). For example, Gemzoe (2001) highlights in the context of research on the pedestri-
anisation of Copenhagen:
ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

92 Walking in the city
one of the key factors in understanding the complexity of areas for walking is that there is much
more to walking than walking… Numbers alone are not an indication of the quality of a place
(20).
Subsequent policy engagements with walking have provided more in-depth studies. For
example, GEHL Architects were commissioned by Transport for London (TfL) and the
Central London Partnership (CLP) to conduct a ‘Public Spaces and Public Life’ study in
London. The final report, entitled ‘Towards a fine City for People: Public Spaces and
Public Life – London 2004’ (GEHL Architects June 2004), detail empirical findings
drawn from pedestrian counts and surveys from which recommendations are made sur-
rounding public space and the pedestrian and cycling environments in London. However,
there is a distinct focus on urban design and little engagement with the actual practice of
walking in relation to its many different types and forms. Understanding the experiential
dimensions of walking is important for its effective promotion as a more sustainable mode
of transport. Subsequent research commissioned by TfL (2008a,b) focuses much more
explicitly on walking behaviour and the motivations and barriers to pedestrian movement.
However, walking is still largely positioned as a homogeneous and largely self-evident
means of getting from one place to another. As such, walking is assumed to be something
people ‘just do’ (Middleton 2010).
Lorimer (2010) makes similar claims in his ‘miscellany of walking studies’ (p. 20). He
identifies with Olwig’s (2008) proposition regarding the ‘current preference for a cultural
interpretive frame in walking studies’ (p. 19). Lorimer contrasts this framework with ‘the
earlier, fairly slim, treatment of the subject in social science research where the primary
significance afforded walking was as the locomotive means to very particular ends’
(p. 19). Lorimer highlights how previous transport research considered walking as a
functional mode of transport that could be understood in relation to rational choice and
economic demand. This understanding of walking cuts across several strands of transport
geography ⁄ transport studies engagements with walking. For example, there has been
work that has sought to forecast and predict future walking patterns and trends (Tolley
et al. 2001); other writings explore the implementation of walking and cycling policy in
the UK (Gaffron 2003); and several studies provide cost-benefit analyses of pedestrian
modes of transport (Sælensminde 2004). A key exception of policy informing research
that recognises the multiplicity associated with people’s pedestrian experiences, is that on
children’s walking. In particular, the work on walking school buses (WSBs) has been
instrumental in acknowledging the differentiation between children and parents walking
aspirations and experiences (see for example, Collins and Kearns 2001; Kingham and Us-
sher 2005; Mackett et al. 2003). WSBs were first proposed by the traffic activist Engwicht
(1993) as an opportunity for children to have the freedom to walk to school in an adult
supervised environment. WSB schemes have been adopted worldwide but have become
particularly embedded in New Zealand transport policy (see Collins and Kearns 2010).
However, there remains a body of transport geography ⁄ transport studies research where
walking is not only conceived of as a homogeneous form of movement, but walking and
cycling are often ‘bundled’ together under an umbrella of sustainable transport. This
broad overarching label is also in evidence in the policy arena. For example, the ‘Walking
and Cycling Action Plan’ (DfT 2004) deals with walking and cycling interchangeably
with little differentiation between each mode of transport as measures are discussed to
create ‘walking and cycling cultures’ (27). As their harmonious co-existence is promoted,
no explicit reference is made to the fundamental differences between the needs and expe-
riences of walkers and cyclists.

Although a recent interdisciplinary cross institution Engineering and Physical Sciences

Research Council (EPSRC) funded collaboration on ‘Understanding Walking and
Cycling’ also considers walking and cycling under the same heading, the overall aim of
the research is to unpack the complexity that has been identified in research on travel
behaviour as to how decisions are made to walk and cycle and ‘to develop a ‘‘toolkit’’
that helps planners, policy makers and others concerned with promoting more sustainable
travel practices in urban areas to target policies and interventions more effectively’ (Jones
et al. 2009: 6). Preliminary outputs from the project propose the importance of under-
standing ‘the nature of travel behaviour and how it is embedded in communities and in
everyday life’ (Jones et al. 2009: 10). Although situating walking in the broader context
of people’s everyday lives is relatively new in the transport geography ⁄ transport studies
arena, the role of walking in relation to the socialities of everyday life has long been
engaged with in urban and social and cultural theoretical writings, as the following sec-
tion illustrates.
Public Space and Urban Social Encounters

There is a strong tradition of concerns with urban walking within discussions relating to
the emancipatory potential of city spaces. For example, Sennett (1970, 1990) wrote about
the nature of encounters between strangers when walking and negotiating public space in
the city. He proposed that the social heterogeneity of public urban spaces offers unpre-
dictable encounters that are democratic and civilising. Much work on the social life of
cities has reflected broader shifts in urban design from a focus on the material form of
urban structures to an emphasis on the social use of urban spaces. Lynch’s (1960) ‘The
Image of the City’ is a key influence in such an approach as it proposes the importance
of focusing on people’s perceptions, sense of place, and mental images of the urban built
environment. Walking features heavily in these forms of engagement with the urban pub-
lic realm. For example, in ‘The Death and Life of the Great American Cities’, Jacobs
(1972) stresses the importance of streets and ‘sidewalks’ to the unplanned interaction of
strangers, and the role these interactions play in maintaining safe urban areas. The archi-
tect Gehl (1987), with Lars Gemzoe (Gehl and Gemzoe 1996, 2001), have spent several
decades focusing on human perceptions of the built urban form in a range of cities
including Barcelona, Copenhagen, and Melbourne, whilst arguing how sensitivity to
human behaviour can create more usable and walkable city spaces.
However, much of the literature on walking in the city reflects a romanticism whereby
walking is often considered, without question, as a positive urban practice. For example,
French social theorist de Certeau (1984) positions walking as a form of urban emancipa-
tion that opens up a range of democratic possibilities. In his writings on everyday life, de
Certeau (1984) draws specific attention to the practice of urban walking in developing a
‘theory of everyday practices, of lived space, the disquieting familiarity of the city’ (96).
He is concerned with how everyday practices such as walking are ‘tactically’ performed
and distinguishes between the ‘strategies’ of the powerful in their production of space and
the ‘tactics’ of pedestrians who disrupt the rational plan of the city. de Certeau rejects the
notion that pedestrians are shaped by urban space and control and explores walking as a
mode of political resistance against the planners and architects ‘imposing order’ on city
spaces. But, these perspectives on the everyday are not without their critics (see Crang
2000).
In the context of the policy and transport planning concerns discussed in this paper,
such as who walks and why, the writings of de Certeau on walking and the everyday

raise some interesting issues relating to political resistance. For example, it is questionable
the extent to which those who navigate and traverse the streets in their everyday lives
frame their walking practices in such a politicised way. de Certeau (1984) suggests that
pedestrian acts carry away and displace ‘the analytical, coherent proper meanings of
urbanism’ (102). As other studies have demonstrated (see Middleton 2009, 2010), it is
doubtful that participants understand their daily walking patterns as they commute to
work or do the shopping in such terms. Latham (2003) highlights how much research on
the everyday ‘unnecessarily romanticise’ it ‘as a mystical counterweight to domination’
(1998). Edensor (1998) also draws attention to this concern by exploring how de Cer-
teau’s ‘heroicisation’ of the ordinary walker overlooks the regimented and constrained
dimensions of pedestrian experiences. In particular, he contrasts how urban planning
relates to bodily experiences of control and freedom in Western cities, with walking
through an Indian bazaar in Agra. In so doing, an emphasis is placed on differences in
how bodily performances are ordered and regulated.
Bauman (1994) exemplifies the limitations in considering walking as an emancipatory
practice by focusing on the fear experienced by the urban pedestrian in the US; ‘it is
mostly about passing from here to there, as fast as one can manage, preferably without
stopping, better still looking around’ (148). Bauman’s argues that for those who cannot
afford the security of a car, the ‘street is more a jungle than the theatre. One goes there
because one must. A site with risks, not chances’ (148). There is no doubt that fear of
crime is a phenomenon that shapes cities and is highly significant to how, where, and if
people walk. In the last twenty years, academic research has increasingly engaged with
the complexities surrounding geographies of fear that are overlooked by policy and plan-
ning (see Pain 2001; Valentine 1992). For example, Pain (2000) argues that an over
emphasis on design solutions, such as improving street lighting and reducing vandalism,
ignores the wider social causation of fear. Pain’s (2001) research also examines why issues
associated with fear and the city only focus on strangers in public space and how urban
spaces such as city centres have varying meanings for different people at different times
(Pain and Townshend 2002). However, despite much of the work on geographies of fear
focusing on public space there remains scope to focus more explicitly on fear and pedes-
trian practices beyond limiting questions such as how safe someone feels walking in an
area after dark (see Ferraro 1995 cited in Pain 2000). Rather, a richer sense of how geog-
raphies of fear relate to walking in the city might be gained from examining the extent
to which issues associated with fear play out in individual’s walking patterns and practices,
and how these vary in and through time and space.
Furthermore, such work that situates walking in the context of everyday urban prac-
tices can be argued as presenting highly abstract renderings of pedestrian movement,
where the actual practice of walking is often obscured. For example, Morris (2004)
explores de Certeau’s ‘Walking in the City’ in a range of Australian urban settings, from
an entertainment complex to a gay and lesbian parade, in order to examine the multipli-
cities of urban walking. He aims to address ‘what we talk about when we talk about
‘‘walking in the city’’’ (675). However, what fails to emerge in this study, is just that;
accounts of the practice of walking from the people who actually walk within and
through these urban settings. This absence is more broadly reflective of the work of theo-
rists, such as de Certeau, that lacks an engagement with the routine, habitual and every-
day experiences of those people who actually walk in the city. That is, such discussions
do not examine the everyday walking patterns that form the focus of travel behaviour
and household research on walking concerning pedestrian policy.

The EPSRC project previously cited on ‘Understanding Walking and Cycling’ does
explicitly engage with in-depth accounts documenting urban households’ everyday pedes-
trian practices. However, to date, there is no mention of what might be considered the
non-rational, non-cognitive, and embodied dimensions of travel behaviour. Concerns
with practical decision-making that eschews more ‘rational’ and predictable accounts of
walking are important. For example, in policy terms an area might be considered more
‘walkable’ if a pedestrian is able to walk on autopilot and the flow of their movement is
uninterrupted by an awareness of their embodied experiences. There is an extensive body
of such engagements with walking practices with Bassett (2004) highlighting how ‘walk-
ing as a fundamental human activity and way of interacting with the environment, has
attracted the attentions of poets, essayists, artists, philosophers and social theorists’ (398)
(see also Careri 2002 and Solnit 2000). Therefore, in what ways can discussions that
engage with the more embodied and experiential dimensions of walking inform more
policy orientated research. Are there ways in which the long tradition of performatives
and artistic engagements with walking be drawn upon? The following discussion attends
to such concerns.
Practice and Performance

Careri (2002) provides a historical account of the act of walking as an art form, as archi-
tecture, and as the deliberate act of imposing a system of order onto a space. In charting
the history of walking, Solnit (2000) also draws attention to the relationship between
walking and art, and specifically how walking has been a medium for various conceptual
and performance artists including: both Alan Karpow and Carolee Schneemann’s work
involving building environments for people to walk through; Richard Long’s artistic
work which document his walks in photographs, texts, maps and sculptures (see also
Edensor 2000, 2010 on Richard Long’s work); and Mona Hatoum’s work which used
the street as a performance space to stencil her footprints of ‘unemployment’ as she
walked through Sheffield. In Macauley’s (2000) essay on ‘Walking the City’ attention is
also drawn to the relationship between walking and art as he proposes that to ‘understand
the role of walking in urban contexts and other domains’ attention should turn to ‘its
representations and transformations within art, literature and philosophy’ (40). However,
whilst these bodies of work are certainly of great value in research on everyday walking,
can it be argued that they constitute a poetic engagement with walking which is not nec-
essarily suitable for exploring concerns relating to people’s actual everyday pedestrian
experiences? For example, Edensor (2010) argues; ‘while much walking literature and art
focuses upon certain exceptional walking experiences, most walking is mundane and
habitual’ (70). This is an important point, as it is these forms of walking that policymakers
seek to engage with, understand, and promote. Edensor moves on to outline the ways in
which more mundane walking rhythms such as commuting, shopping, and leisure walk-
ing, relate to, and produce, experiences of place, but chooses to explore ‘the conventions
of walking and its unfolding, sensual and contingent’ nature via the work of artists
including Richard Long, Francis Alÿs, and Jeremy Deller (69). Thus, the question
remains as to how these performative engagements with walking translate, or provide a
medium, for the broader concerns of those such as policymakers, as to who walks and
why or ‘the role of walking in urban contexts’ (Macauley 2000: 40).
The performance art video installation of Alÿs (2004) entitled ‘Railings’, engages with
the practice of walking in such a way that raises relevant issues in researching everyday
walking. The piece is introduced by the following:

Alÿs has been walking the streets of London for many years, studying the city’s everyday rituals
and habits. In railings he explores its textures and repetitions – in this case as shown by a char-
acteristic feature of Regency London: its railings.
The videos feature the artist walking whilst running a stick along streets of railings. He
presents the recordings in such a way that the beats overlap to create new rhythms with
each viewing. It is Alÿs study of these ‘everyday rituals and habits’, and associated
rhythms that can be argued as providing a further perspective for engaging with the com-
plexity of everyday walking identified in more policy orientated research. That is, what is
the significance of habits and routines that cannot be rationally articulated in traditional
travel behaviour data? For example, there is a growing body of research investigating the
significance of unconscious dimensions of mobile experiences (see for example, Adey
2008; Bissell 2009a,b,c) that might be drawn upon in enhancing understandings of every-
day pedestrian practices and how walking could be promoted more effectively.
Walking has frequently been drawn upon as an artistic medium for engaging with and
understanding the urban. For example, in exploring the relationship between walking and
art, Phillips (2005) draws attention to the work of performance artist Tim Brennan.
Brennan often uses guided walks in his performance pieces. Phillips uses this aspect of
Brennan’s work to position her discussion in relation to broader concerns of how ‘walk-
ing has been and is being conceived of as an artistic device’ (507). Further illustrations of
the relationship between walking as an artistic practice and ‘knowing’ the urban are pres-
ent in Rendell’s (2006) discussion of art and architecture whereby specific attention is
drawn to the work of PLATFORM, ‘an interdisciplinary group of environmentally and
politically engaged artists for whom practice and research are intrinsically connected’
(181). Rendell participated in part of their research on the river Fleet in London and
explains how they used the practice of walking in ‘refining this knowledge’ (181) of the
river. Pinder (2001) is also concerned with urban walking and how many contemporary
artists and writers ‘take to the streets in order to explore, excavate and map hidden spaces
and paths in the city’ (1). He argues that the sound walk created by artist Janet Cardiff
throughout the streets of London, entitled ‘The missing voice (case study B)’, ‘emphasises
the sensuousness of walking as a mode of apprehending the city that is tactile, aural and
olfactory as well as visual’ (5). In exploring the work of these artists and writers such as
Janet Cardiff and Iain Sinclair, Pinder questions what lies ‘behind this interest in the art
of taking a walk’ and where ‘this spate of reinvented flâneurs and flâneuse’ has come from
(p. 8).
The concept of the flâneur originated in the work of the French poet Charles Baude-
laire and revolves around the concept of a gazing, male individual wandering through
the public spaces of the city in a detached, ironic manner. In his writings, Walter
Benjamin develops his own urban consciousness via the wanderings of the 19th century
flâneur: ‘cities fascinated him [Benjamin] as a kind of organization that could only be
perceived by wandering or by browsing’ (Solnit 2000: 197). Amin and Thrift (2002)
point out how ‘for some it is precisely the flâneur’s sensibility linking space, language
and subjectivity that is needed to read cities’ (11). Psycho-geography can also be under-
stood as a means of engaging with, and often attempting to map, the ambiance and
‘softer’ dimensions of the city. There is a strong tradition of psychogeography that has
developed from the Situationist movement (see Debord 1967; Pinder 1996; Wollen
1990) to more recent engagements in the work of Iain Sinclair (1997) in his walks
around different areas of London. The Situationists considered the ‘derive’ as a key
dimension in the construction of the psychogeography of a city whereby a drifting

motion around and through the city represented a political statement against rational,
ordered, capitalist urban space.
However, despite this ‘renewed’ interest and ‘spate of reinvented flâneurs and flâneuse’
(Pinder 2001, p. 8) there are some who remain particularly critical of using the concept
of the flâneur and pedestrian movement as a means of ‘reading’ the city. For example,
although Macauley (2000) discusses the ‘value of focusing on walking as a method of
understanding the city’ (211), he also warns that ‘it is important to keep the larger con-
text in view and not to ‘‘fall down’’ and become a purveyor of a reverse-privileging’
(211). Amin and Thrift (2002) are also critical of this approach to understanding the city
as they argue that ‘the walker possesses both a poetic sensibility and a poetic science that
is almost impossible to distil as a methodology for urban research’ (11). They call into
question the extent to which this method is in fact an emancipation away from the sup-
posed confines of urban theory as the flâneurs wanderings ‘were reflexive wanderings’
which were actually ‘underpinned by a particular theorization of urban life’ (11). Emmi-
son and Smith (2000) echo these concerns as they argue that ‘for all its promise of linking
the gaze with the city and with movement, sociological work on the flâneur is often
heavily theoretical. It is also overburdened with political interpretations’ (174) (see for
example, Scalway 2006 and Simonsen 2004 on gender-bias).
Furthermore, in the context of this paper it is possible to question the appropriateness
of the approach of flânerie for engaging with the pedestrian experiences that concern
policy and transport informed research. Do pedestrians in the city consider their
everyday movements in relation to the concerns highlighted in the wanderings of the
flâneur? Empirical engagements with urban walking experiences suggest they do not
(see for example, Middleton 2008, 2009). More significantly, the flaneur’s movements
are positioned and framed as a deliberate counter rhythm to the regular and quotidian
patterns of everyday life in the city thus resulting in the inappropriateness of such an
approach for understanding everyday urban walking even more apparent. However,
what they perhaps highlight is the need for a greater sensitivity within transport geogra-
phy ⁄ planning research to the experiential dimensions of pedestrian movement and how
there are other ways of understanding pedestrian movement than mapping and quantify-
ing its frequency. In other words, how walking the streets can be drawn upon to study
the city’s everyday rituals and habits, or to emphasise the sensory and sensual
dimensions of urban life. It is with these points in mind that attention now turns to
increasing concerns across the social sciences with mobile methods and how these
approaches might provide a productive means of engaging with the complexity of
walking practices. For aside from the largely quantitative policy orientated research
discussed at the beginning of the paper, the discussion thus far highlights how more
creative engagements with walking are not actually concerned with walking itself.
Therefore, rather than drawing upon walking as a means of gaining knowledge relating
to other concerns, in what ways can these methods be used to increase understanding
of walking experiences that might usefully inform policy concerns with encouraging
pedestrian movement?
The ‘Mobilities Turn’ and Walking as Method

Concerns with mobility have become increasingly established in providing critiques of
place-based accounts of social and cultural landscapes, practices and materialities (Cres-
swell 1999, 2006; Wylie 2002). As such, the ‘mobilities turn’ or the ‘new mobilities para-
digm’ within and across the social sciences is presented as a theoretical position that

‘challenges the ways in which much social science research has been ‘‘a-mobile’’’ (Sheller
and Urry 2006: 208). Sheller and Urry advance this ‘new mobilities paradigm’ as a set of
questions, theories and methodologies that seek to transcend ‘the dichotomy between
transport research and social research, putting social relations into travel and connecting
different forms of transport with complex patterns of social experience conducted through
communications at-a-distance’ (Sheller and Urry 2006: 208). The notion of a ‘new
mobilities paradigm’ raises a number of questions, not least in connection with what is
‘new’ about this set of theoretical perspectives (see Cresswell 2010) but also in relation to
method, methodology and epistemology (see Letherby et al. 2010). However, its value
relates to recognising what actually happens between A and B: ‘that mobility and move-
ment are entangled with relations of power, identity and embodiment that previous
approaches tended to either sideline or ignore altogether’ (Spinney 2010: 7).
Concerns with walking in relation to the ‘mobilities turn’ are most prominent with
respect to a growing engagement with mobile methodologies. The previous discussion of
walking as a means of knowing and understanding the city illustrates how drawing upon
walking as a method is far from new. For example, behavioural geography has frequently
drawn upon concerns with pedestrian movements through urban space (see for example,
Lynch 1960 on mental mapping) or accompanied walks as a method of data generation
(see for example, Vujakovic and Matthews 1994 on wheelchair accessibility and the built
environment). Furthermore, work concerned with children’s walking experiences in pub-
lic space has adopted mobile photo elicitation methods in order to explore the differenti-
ated risks and anxieties that emerge on the journey between home and school (see
Mitchell et al. 2007). However, it can be argued that the ‘mobilities turn’ has resulted in
a much more explicit and formalised identification of walking methods of what Kusen-
bach (2003) refers to as the ‘go along’ method (see also Carpiano 2009 and Neuwelt and
Kearns 2006). A recent edited collection entitled ‘Mobile Methodologies’ (Fincham et al.
2010) reflects this increasing interest with mobile methods across the social sciences in
relation to ‘methodological responses, technologies and representational strategies designed
to more fully inform our understanding of people’s experience of movement through
space’ (2). Interestingly walking methods receive scant attention in this volume besides a
brief description of a walking tour given by the musicians that feature in a chapter on
music, movement and the built environment (Lashua and Cohen 2010).
In contrast, Ricketts Hein et al. (2008) provide a comprehensive review of walking as
a research method for generating data. They argue that there has been ‘little appraisal of
the technique in its own right’ and attempt to attend to this by ‘rigorously analysing the
walking interview as a research method’ (1277–1278). In the context of a project explor-
ing people’s understandings of places that are facing change emerging from urban regen-
eration initiatives in Birmingham, they consider how how ‘walked interviews offer great
potential to explore environmental perception, biographies and social realms’ (1279).
They conclude by arguing that ‘while mobile methods intuitively ‘make a difference’ to
the research process by yielding different data to that which would normally be produced,
there is a need to explore rigorously exactly what difference mobile techniques make
compared, for example, with traditional sedentary methods’ (1280). For example, Watts
and Urry (2008) contend that the study of mobilities ‘as a wide-ranging category of con-
nection, distance and motion transforms social science and its research methods’ (862). In
contrast, Letherby et al. (2010) voice concerns about these somewhat grand claims
regarding the ‘transformation’ of research methods in mobilities studies. As such, they
seek to outline some of the implications for methods, methodology and epistemology
when seeking out ‘new methods’ to research mobility and in so doing question how

different it is to research mobility as opposed to any other social issue. Furthermore, they
explore the extent to which the ‘new’ mobile methods are in fact ‘new’ or rather adapta-
tions and developments of existing methods. They also seek to problematise how these
methods are being positioned as a novel means of somehow offering more ‘direct’ access
to ‘authentic’ experience.
Irrespective of the far from unproblematic nature of walking methods, there are
numerous bodies of work that utilise the practice of walking, or mobile methods, as a
resource or approach for research concerning other broader issues. These engagements
cut across both urban and rural settings. For example, Macpherson (2009) focuses on
visually impaired walking groups in the countryside in order to explore body-landscape
relations; Hall (2009) critically explores pedestrian movement as a research method via a
discussion of both urban outreach work in Cardiff and the experiences of young people
in the South Wales valleys against a backdrop of dramatic social, economic and physical
transformation; Moles (2008) draws upon walking as a method to gain a greater under-
standing of Phoenix Park in Dublin; Lorimer and Lund (2008) examine walking as a
means of understanding peoples relationships with, and knowledges of, the natural envi-
ronment; and Yarwood (2010) engages with the walking patrols of mountain rescue
teams in order to explore some of the geographies and practices of this form of volun-
teering. More explicit acknowledgements of drawing upon pedestrian approaches as a
means of knowledge generation include Anderson’s (2004) work that conceptualises
walking as a mode of knowing and understanding in his research on the places of protest
created by radical environmentalists. He suggests that ‘conversations held whilst walking
through a place have the potential to generate a collage of collaborative knowledge’ (254)
and how ‘‘‘talking whilst walking’’ can harness place as an active trigger to prompt
knowledge recollection and production’ (254). Ingold (2004) also engages with the
embodied practice of walking as a means of generating certain forms of knowledge. In
his account of ‘The World Perceived Through Feet’, Ingold’s principal argument is that
through history there has been a ‘detachment of persons from the ground’ (329). He
moves on to suggest that in adopting
a more grounded approach to human movement, sensitive to embodied skills of footwork,
opens up new terrain in the study of environmental perception, the history of technology, land-
scape formation and human anatomical evolution (315).
In a similar vein Wylie (2005) uses walking as a means of engaging with landscape, sub-
jectivity and corporality. In his account of a single day walking on the South West Coast
Path, Wylie, like Ingold, introduces the paper by discussing the heterogeneity that can be
associated with the actual practice of walking and how walking is ‘irreducibly multiple
and complex’ (235). However, he then moves on to explain how the primary concern of
his research is not the actual practice of walking per se: ‘this paper is not a sociological or
historical study of long-distance walking. It does not take as its focus questions such as who
walks, or why’ (236). Rather, the project uses pedestrian movement as an ‘experimental
approach to the performative milieu of coastal walking’ (235) and in so doing uses forms of
narrative and descriptive writing ‘as creative and critical means of discussing the varied
[emergent] affinities and distantanciations of self and landscape’ (234). That is, Wylie draws
upon his accounts of walking on that section of the coastal path in order to explore
broader issues concerning how we experience and understand landscape. Sidaway (2009)
builds on Wylie’s paper as he considers walking along an urban section of the South West
Coast Path as a means of exploring notions of affect and geopolitics. One of the principal

aims of the paper is to bring a vast array of literatures from cultural, social and political
geography in relation to concepts of being, dwelling, movement and place into some
form of productive dialogue via the narration of an evening walk ‘that shifts geographical
and temporal scales and perspectives’ (1091).
However, despite a rich range of theoretically sophisticated work drawing upon walk-
ing as a method, there is little that adopts walking as a method to explore the practice of
walking itself (although see Ingold and Vergunst (2008) that provides specific accounts of
walking in the city and the countryside in NE Scotland). Can walking methods situated
in social and cultural theoretical writings be effectively drawn upon by policymakers in
gaining a more nuanced understanding of walking practices? And if so, how might this
be achieved? Furthermore, in light of recent work on urban walking that attempts to pull
theoretical writings on walking, via empirical work, into a productive dialogue with
more policy orientated transport research (see Middleton 2008, 2009, 2010), what are the
broader implications of such a dialogue, particularly in relation to what is increasingly
positioned as a ‘transport ⁄ mobilities divide’ (see Shaw and Hesse 2010)? The final section
of this paper addresses such concerns.
Conclusion: Future Directions

In Lorimer’s (2010) informative review of new ‘walking studies’ it is proposed that this
type of work is ‘well set to continue – even to prosper – as a shared, interdisciplinary
field of concern, uniting social and geographical research and critical arts practice’ (30).
However, transport orientated research receives little attention in the piece and is dis-
missed as being a ‘fairly slim’ treatment of walking. Lorimer attends to this omission as he
moves on to highlight how ‘the compulsion to walk is all too easily confirmed as one of
life’s eternal mysteries if social enquiries are figured by the inquisitive researcher along
the lines of ‘why do you walk?’ (p. 27). It is these ‘why’ based questions that continue to
inform current pedestrian policy agendas. This paper has sought to explore critically some
of the multiple bodies of research on walking in relation to the broad fields of enquiry
that, in contrast to Lorimer, include both transport orientated studies and artis-
tic ⁄ performative engagements with pedestrian practices. The discussion has demonstrated
that, far from being ‘shared’ and ‘interdisciplinary’ there is often little connection between
these different modes of engagement with walking. A crude distinction might be drawn
between transport research revolving around concerns with walking as a subject and
much other work engaging with pedestrian practices drawing upon walking as a method.
This lack of dialogue can also be situated in part to, and be argued as both illustrative and
symptomatic of, current debates concerning a perceived divide between transport geogra-
phers and mobilities scholars (see Schwanen forthcoming and Sheller 2010).
Lorimer (2010) also perceptively argues that:
having a fascination for walking can therefore result in favouring the quest for underlying
meaning, and thus, a temptation to avoid the sheer physicality, the actual undertaking, of the
action of ‘getting along’ (p. 27).
He moves on to propose that a more insightful understanding of walking might emerge
from asking ‘what is a walk’ or ‘how do you walk’? His point is that ‘to alter its formula-
tion so, is to open up action and experience, becoming sensitive to the transience and
the durability of experience’ (p. 27). This is something that transport policy and transport
studies informed work might do well to take account of as they try to engage with the

complexities of walking in promoting more effective policies and interventions. Work

that acknowledges the practical accomplishment of walking in our everyday lives, or how
people walk, is far from new (see for example, Ryave and Schenkein 1974). However, it
is these concerns with ‘how’ people walk that can perhaps assist in providing more in-
depth understandings of the complexity of walking practices than currently engaged with
in the transport policy arena of research and practice. Walking methods provide oppor-
tunities to pay particular analytic attention to the different styles and conventions of urban
walking that emerge from focusing on the practical accomplishment of walking.
Ten years ago Tolley (2001) observed how walking policy fails to attract significant
budget allocations and receives less attention from planners than other transport modes.
As highlighted elsewhere (see Middleton 2009, 2010), public interest in walking has
grown significantly, however, there still remains scope for more creative approaches for
engaging with, understanding, and promoting pedestrian practices. In like terms as to
how transport planning and policy might shift their starting point to focusing on ‘how’
people walk as opposed to concerns with ‘why’ people walk, more cultural engagements
with walking could address how such work translates into planning and policy contexts.
As such, how might artistic and performative walking practices have relevance beyond
the audiences they were initially created for and how might that relevance practically and
productively extend beyond such boundaries of self-reflection?
There have been several artistic and geographically informed walking initiatives aimed
at encouraging people to engage with their surroundings in different and more creative
ways. For example, URBAN EARTH is a project that involves organised group walks
across large urban areas that have included London, Manchester, Mumbai, and Mexico
City. Participants follow a route that reflects different ‘levels of spatial inequality and
deprivation’ and are encouraged to take photographs to create an URBAN EARTH film.
The overarching aim of the film is ‘(re)presenting cities to show what they are really like
for the people who live there’ (URBAN EARTH, 2007). Mywalks is further example of
an ongoing project developed by a team of academics at Northumbria University that
encourages people to document everyday walks in their local environment through the
medium of photography and audiography in a bid to encourage people to engage to a
greater extent with their immediate surroundings (http://nuweb.northumbria.ac.uk/
mywalks/intro.php.). Are there ways in which these types of creative initiatives can be
linked more explicitly to walking policy agendas?
Wrights and Sites are a group of artist-researchers who have produced a series of urban
guidebooks called Mis-Guides that aim to put together different perspectives on how
people negotiate the city. The principle of the guides is to ‘help local people to discover
the unknown side of their city and to celebrate each person’s unique sense of place’
(Hodge et al. 2003). Policy and planning audiences have engaged with these Mis-Guides
at events such at the annual Walk21 conference whilst Wrights and Sites have performed
guided walks exploring filmic representations of Soho for Living Streets (formerly the
Pedestrians Association). The group of artist–researchers highlight how their urban
exploratory work on walking is simply ‘a manifesto for the active and creative pedestrian
– envisioning a walking that is neither a functional necessity (to shops, to work) nor a
passive appreciation of (or complaint about) the urban environment’ (Wrights Sites 2006:
121). In contrast, the concerns of planners and policymakers are the mundane, everyday
pedestrian movements of commuting, the school run, or trips to the shops. As such, it is
perhaps worth considering how these creative engagements with walking can be incorpo-
rated into the habitual, day-to-day pedestrian practices of city residents as opposed to
being ‘one off’ events. For example, Islington Council in London recently commissioned

a local artist to produce a visual walking guide entitled ‘Walk Islington: Explore the
unexpected’. The guide details six routes through the borough with ‘tips to motivate you
to get to know your borough better’ (Islington Council 2007) whilst encouraging every-
day journeys to be taken on foot. Waitt et al. (2009) explore nature-human relationships
in suburban Sydney and how everyday walking can be conceived of as a means of ‘doing’
nature. The research assesses ‘the use of photographs in order to capture the lived, experi-
ential and biographical understandings of the reserve derived from walking’ and the rou-
tine pedestrian practices of local residents (43). Their findings feed directly into policy
recommendations of the role residents can play in the environmental management of sub-
urban reserves and parks. With a surge of popularity and interest in mobile methods, and
proliferation of promoting more ‘creative’ means of people engaging with their surround-
ings, could these be drawn upon much more explicitly by pedestrian planning and policy
as a means of not only exploring the ‘how’s’ of walking but for ‘the public to bring the
problems walking faces to the attention of planners and politicians’ (Tolley 2001: 184)? It
is questions such as these that are proposed as a starting point to an increased dialogue
between multiple engagements with walking in order to develop enhanced understand-
ings of pedestrian practices.
Acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge doctoral and postdoctoral support from the ESRC (PTA-
033-2003-00014 and PTA-026-27-1500). Thanks also to Jon Shaw, Richard Yarwood
and two anonymous referees for their extremely helpful comments on a previous draft.
Short Biography
Jennie Middleton is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Plymouth. Fol-
lowing the completion of her PhD at King’s College London, Jennie held an ESRC
Postdoctoral Fellowship at Royal Holloway, University of London from which she
moved to a Research Associate role at the ESRC Centre for Business Relationships,
Accountability, Sustainability and Society at Cardiff University before taking up her cur-
rent post in 2009. Jennie’s research explores everyday urban mobility, focusing on how
to theoretically and empirically engage with people’s spatio-temporal and embodied
mobile experiences and the implications of this for urban and transport policy.
Note
* Correspondence address: Jennie Middleton, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK.
E-mail: jennie.middleton@plymouth.ac.uk
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Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.

Walking in the City: The Geographies of Everyday

ª 2011 The Author

Pedestrian Policy and Transport Research

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

Although a recent interdisciplinary cross institution Engineering and Physical Sciences

Public Space and Urban Social Encounters

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

Practice and Performance

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

The ‘Mobilities Turn’ and Walking as Method

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

Conclusion: Future Directions

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

complexities of walking in promoting more effective policies and interventions. Work

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

ª 2011 The Author Geography Compass 5/2 (2011): 90–105, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00409.x

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