walking tall

This past Friday afternoon saw a terrific event here in Amman: a mass walk through the centre of the city to celebrate being a pedestrian! The occasion was triggered by a visit here of New York City-based architect, academic and writer Michael Sorkin, who (fairly) recently published a book called "Twenty Minutes in Manhattan". It is a book about walking, but also about cities and what makes them livable.

It was a beautiful afternoon, sunny, warm, clear. The route took us from the top of Jebel Lweibdeh hill, down a series of winding staircases into the old town, then back up more stairs to an opposite hill where the Roman citadel lies. Then back again along a different route. Hills are one thing this town has plenty of.

About 500 people showed up - not counting the extensive police escort - and the mood was incredibly happy. The group spanned a wide age range. People were making friends, chatting, happy to be meandering in the old town. A couple of my young female colleagues had never walked in this part of town before - had never felt comfortable doing so as the area is so stigmatized - so it was a whole new experience for them to see their own city on foot. Tremendous.

The event was co-organized by the Institute where I am working and - a new discovery for me - a group called 'fast walk' that organizes bi-weekly 3-hour walks on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights in Amman. In part their mandate is about health and exercise, in part it is about getting people walking, seeing the city, experiencing different neighbourhoods. Apparently they get about 200 people or more out each time. The one condition: you have to wear a flourescent yellow vest. No vest, no walk.

While I am personally not too keen on this "safety" element - for reasons which I am sure my biking friends reading this will understand - I am interested in checking this group out. It made me go back to my earlier post about walking in this city and made me think again: maybe there is something like a sustainable transportation movement afoot (no pun intended).

thinking about sidewalks and cultural imperialism

When I first came here, I was warned off walking by a number of people: no one walks, it just isn't done, it isn't safe after dark, it isn't safe for a woman alone. On my first day on the job at the Ministry, a driver was sent to pick me up to ferry me safely to work. It was then that I realized that the Ministry is about 4 blocks from my apartment - about 6 minutes door to door on foot. It is quite literally faster to walk than to drive.

At that point, good sense prevailed over fear. I told the office manager - to his visible dismay - that he didn't need to send the driver every morning, and that I could make it to work under my own steam. I was also fortunate to connect with a couple of ex-pats from Madrid and Quebec City who are also walkers. They helped me get things in perspective and figure out how to get around a bit on foot.

While it has been great to get outside and see the streets, it has also given me pause. First of all, this is a city dominated by drivers and its neighbourhoods are separated and fragmented by so many giant, fast-moving arterial roads. These virtual highways are impossible to cross and unpleasant but often necessary to walk alongside when I need to get somewhere outside of the immediate vicinity.

Second, the pedestrian infrastructure is crazy. Since so few people walk outside of the historic downtown - maybe a few teenage boys, some labourers, and asian maids, who look like they are mostly from Indonesia - the role and concept of the sidewalk is understood differently here. For one, sidewalks are not a public amenity - they seem to be the responsibility of individual property owners. Consequently, their heights and widths vary widely from frontage to frontage. For many property owners, the sidewalk that they are expected to maintain in front of their house - for no clear purpose from their perspective, I suppose - becomes an extended planter or parking pad. I have started to keep photos of the elaborate plantings that homeowners maintain on their sidewalks - here's a few sample pictures. There is an amazing amount of topiary and that stuff takes work to keep up! And, of course, it makes walking on the sidewalk impossible.

So, I wonder, am I wrong to want sidewalks to be pedestrian-friendly ? If I am importing my pedestrian ways to a country and a culture that doesn't share them, is it wrong to think that they should be improved?

a conundrum

It is my 3rd day in Amman and I am finding myself in a curious conundrum. I am staying in a (very nice) apartment that is outside of the downtown core - what Leaside is to downtown Toronto in a kind of way. ( Though that comparison really only works in an upside-down parallel Martian universe, because really Shmeisani is nothing like Leaside). There are a number of other ex-pat consultants from the team in the building and on day 2, I ask one of them: "so what's the actual address here?".

Response: "why would you want to know that?"

"well...in case I get lost or am somewhere by myself after dark and am feeling like I need to take a taxi to get back here."

This is when I learn that no one recognizes addresses. Or street names. There is no such thing as mail delivery. There are names on street signs and numbers on houses but they are quite academic and serve no functional purpose. Cab drivers (who rule in a city where there is no transit) know neighbourhood names - Jebel Amman, Jebel Lweibdeh, etc. - and major landmarks. And once you arrive in the general vicinity, you steer the driver in the right direction to get to where you intend to go. For example, the major landmark in this neighbourhood is a 24-hour (!) Safeway supermarket (which, by the way, is currently playing non-stop Christmas Carols -deeply incongruous) that is about 10 minutes walk around the corner and down a hill.

Here's the conundrum: this system only works if you actually know a city ... and you know what your destination looks like or where it is in relation to some other recognizable place that you know. I know nothing. I cannot describe what any place looks like. I also don't know anything that is nearby anything (except for the Safeway in Shmeisani, now my universal point of reference).

So for now, I am paying careful attention when I am being driven by someone else and just trying to figure out my personal way-finding system from point to point. It is a whole new way to decode a place.