Having reason to move is important; especially given my career and hobbies, I spend a lot of time sitting. When I would go into the office, sure, there’d be some amount of walking involved and I’d usually make a point of parking as far from the doors as possible, just to get a few extra steps in. Working from home? Not so convenient…
I’ve never liked just walking. If given the choice between doing something at the computer and going for a pointless walk, well, the walk literally never won out. When I lived in NYC, there was lots of walking, often every single day. Since then? Not so much.
When we moved to our current house, we knew there were no sidewalks right outside of the house (or anywhere on the street) but we didn’t pay attention to routes we otherwise might want to leverage. As a result, even though it’s a 12 minute walk to the train station, it’s not. It’s 35 minutes due to the lack of sidewalks on a very busy main road.
Not that that’s terrible, but in context, every choice involving walking has to come up against that road and whether you want to triple the walk.
In considering any move from this location, then, we’re looking at walkability both in terms of being walkable as well as having reason to walk regularly.
Developing new habits is part of this move; making sure we’re at least passively physically active is key.