Would a City Feel More Connected If People Walked Slightly More Often?
Connections grow through repeated encounters.
Possibly. More walking can increase casual interactions and awareness of local environments.
A resident who drives everywhere may pass hundreds of people without noticing them. Walking changes the pace of observation.
The hidden mechanism is encounter frequency. Small increases in face-to-face exposure can gradually strengthen familiarity and local awareness.
Many social connections begin as repeated recognition rather than deliberate introductions.
Communities rarely emerge from a single interaction. They emerge from enough interactions that people stop feeling like strangers.
