For lovers of historic architecture, what can beat a stroll down one of the streets of the French Quarter or Garden District? And, of course, for people-watching, live music, a few of the good kind of Hurricanes (thanks, Pat O’s!) and general weirdness, there’s nothing like a walk along Bourbon Street, day or night.

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Pensacola’s a unique town, as far as both Florida and walkable communities are concerned. Tucked into the northwest corner of Florida, the City of Five Flags is so close to Alabama, it’s often treated not as if it’s part of the Sunshine State but L.A. (as in, “Lower Alabama”).

While it sometimes seems to be the Rodney Dangerfield of Florida towns, Pensacola does have a lot going for it, especially in its historic and compact waterfront downtown area. With numerous ancient live oaks and buildings often reminiscent of New Orleans’ French Quarter (Pensacola is equally old and went through waves of Spanish, French and English settlers), downtown Pensacola is a kind of walker’s diamond in the rough.

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Even within Santa Monica, the walk-ability factors vary greatly. In the Downtown area where I live, everything is within a mile. From shopping and restaurants to the Santa Monica Public Library (a LEED certified Gold building, by the way) and the beach, it’s all right here. Though the area’s real estate is outrageously expensive, the number of new green affordable housing complexes is on the rise. The schools are good. It rarely rains. Besides, traffic gets sticky during tourist season - all the more reason to walk! All in all, a very livable, walkable area (though I’d recommend carrying pepper spray at night…I guess you can’t have it all).

But this begs the question: is this local-only vision a good thing? Of course environmentally-speaking, it is. I’m not driving to the grocery store or dry cleaner. I get some easy exercise. I encounter my neighbors and say hi. It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

However, the Westside of LA is not generally known for its cultural diversity. In fact, the stereotypical Westsider rarely ventures east of the 405 and doesn’t know (or care) about anything going on in LA. The REAL LA. The LA where there aren’t just “two Americas” but probably more like 100 - only one of which is the plasticized Hollywood stereotype. In this new “global” village in which we all live, keeping a broad perspective is essential to learning, understanding, and communicating.

So, here’s my take: do your best to walk or bike, as you go about the every day. But at least once in awhile, get outside of your one square mile and take advantage of everything that LA has to offer. You might just learn something.

Related posts: ‘Walk This Way’ Week: How Pedestrian-Friendly is Your Town?

Photo credit: therealsparkplug under a Creative Commons license

If you missed the news last week, Google Maps has added a new feature letting users request walking directions rather than car or public transit directions for trips of less than 10 kilometers (a little over six miles).

The appeal of the new feature is that it gives you directions that don’t make you go out of your way because of one-way streets or paths that aren’t drivable. While a set of car directions might have to follow a circuitous path to get you from Point A to Point B, a set of walking directions lets you take advantage of routes that cars can’t travel but people can.

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Here’s a shocker (not really): living in a walkable neighborhood reduces your chances of being overweight.

It should seem obvious, but a new study from the University of Utah has tracked the connection between walkable neighborhoods and weight statistically. The researchers found that the average guy living in a walkable neighborhood weighed 10 pounds less than his more car-dependent counterpart, while the average woman weighed six pounds less.

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The question of whether to walk, bike or take public transportation is a no-brainer if you live in a city like New York, where driving can often be more of a pain than a pleasure. But what about the rest of the country? Not every community is large enough or dense enough to offer the auto alternatives the Big Apple does. And what about people who live in rural areas where everything is a half-hour’s drive away or more? Can we refashion our country’s way of getting around to be more European? Or are those of us in unwalkable communities doomed to either move elsewhere or live like so many billions do in the rest of the world, consigned to life in a radius of space measured in only a few miles?

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Whatever the cause (and there’s good reason to blame all three to some degree), most so-called experts these days aren’t expecting oil prices to drop anytime soon. In fact, Newsweek this week features a sobering article titled, “The Coming Energy Wars,” that predicts we’ll soon see oil prices top $200 a barrel. When that happens, the authors warn, we can expect everything about our daily lives to change.

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