WHERE ARE OUR SIDEWALKS???

Really stuck?  Turns out talking a walk can be the best thing for you.  

I love reading books about how artists and other successful people make it happen and walking, as an indispensable tool, comes up a significant amount.  I find I can work out my most daunting issues while walking & it provides a huge sense of relief in my life.

How I Write The Secrete Lives of Authors Edited by Dan Crowe gives us a piece by Matt Thorne entitled Walking.  He describes how he was once told he had 'walking shoes' meaning worn down and 'like you spend a long time walking around in the rain.'  'Ever since I was a kid I've spent a lot of time walking and it's an important part of my writing process.'  He adds, ' my walks are most mundane.  I walk the same route to town every time and if I feel up to it come back the same way.'  

I think my passion from walking comes from doing so much of it as a child.  My friends were constantly meeting up, heading here, going there all on foot.  The town I grew up in, much smaller than Nashville, had sidewalks on every single street.  It was no issue to let the children go out.  

Not so much here in Nashville.  I don't find many parents willing to let their children wander.  Our lack of walkability is limiting our children's sense of autonomy, problems solving and plain old fun.  

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With all the new home building - seems like every street I go down has at least a few new houses in the works, many on what was once a single lot, I CANNOT understand WHY we are NOT putting in the sidewalks.  If the city of Nashville isn't going to ask the developer to do it (who are supposed to put in their piece of sidewalk when they take down one home & put up 2 or more), I suppose they have a plan to do it.  

I am very anxious to hear WHEN we are going to get sidewalks in the neighborhoods and WHEN we are going to STOP BUILDING A NEW NASHVILLE that is just as UNWALKABLE but is a whole lot denser...WHERE ARE OUR SIDEWALKS???????

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One more quote, 'and when I've completed something worthwhile there's nothing more satisfying than rising up and telling them (his dogs) I'm done.  They perk up immediately and jump about with glee.  Then we all head outside for a good long walk.  This is our reward for a job completed together.'  In a creative town, don't we want this for ourselves?