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I moved to Barcelona and living in a walkable city is such a life upgrade. My whole life is within the distance of a walk. The grocery store, gym, doctor, frien

I moved to Barcelona and living in a walkable city is such a life upgrade. My whole life is within the distance of a walk. The grocery store, gym, doctor, friends, restaurants, beach, movie theatre, shopping, everything. I can walk across the entire city in about an hour. Barcelona takes it a step further than just being high density with wide pedestrian streets lined with trees and outdoor seating at the expense of roads used for cars/trucks. At the end of every block on a rambla is a roundabout where people sit and hang out, with more trees. It really feels like cars are 2nd class citizens here. The mental tax of having to get into a car, navigate bad traffic and other drivers, finding parking, etc is hugely underrated. When I describe the above to people, it's easy to brush off as "not that big of a deal", but it is a big deal on general mood and wellbeing compared to what it could be if you remove those 'micro' stresses from your life. And finally, if you need to get somewhere quick, there are taxis everywhere, and the underground metro is pretty decent.

hombre_fatal 2y ago
I randomly moved from Houston to Guadalajara in my 20s and until then I didn't realize that all of my disillusion with life was because I had to drive everywhere and could walk nowhere. It changed my life to realize how much better life is when you can accomplish everything within walking distance. It impacts absolutely everything. You even lose weight when you can walk to the store to buy a can of beans and one avocado for lunch instead of having to drive to the grocer once a week and store tens of thousands of calories in your house at all times for you to graze on. It also impacted my social life because I would run into friends while walking around. Or I'd see friends in a bar while walking home and go join them. I refuse to settle down somewhere where I can't walk to live. Unfortunately this rules out almost all of the US.

hombre_fatal 2y ago

I randomly moved from Houston to Guadalajara in my 20s and until then I didn't realize that all of my disillusion with life was because I had to drive everywhere and could walk nowhere. It changed my life to realize how much better life is when you can accomplish everything within walking distance. It impacts absolutely everything. You even lose weight when you can walk to the store to buy a can of beans and one avocado for lunch instead of having to drive to the grocer once a week and store tens of thousands of calories in your house at all times for you to graze on. It also impacted my social life because I would run into friends while walking around. Or I'd see friends in a bar while walking home and go join them. I refuse to settle down somewhere where I can't walk to live. Unfortunately this rules out almost all of the US.