For this activity, I took a walk around my neighborhood specifically for the assignment. I didn’t have much of a destination in mind. I basically made a circle, starting outside my house and continuing down the road before eventually going through a park and making my way back. My StoryMap starts right outside my house, then moves to the first stop sign, the beginning of another road, the edge of the park, and finally a sidewalk inside the park.
I honestly didn’t notice anything groundbreaking during my walk. My neighborhood is in a pretty family-oriented area, so it is already designed in a way that makes walking relatively easy. There are sidewalks, a park, and places where pedestrians can comfortably move around. What I did notice, though, was that the route I actually took didn’t always match the paths that were laid out for me. At one point, I cut across the park rather than completely following the designated path. It wasn’t a conscious act of rebellion against the sidewalk. It was just the way that made the most sense for where I wanted to go.
That small choice helped me understand de Certeau’s distinction between the way cities are designed and the way people actually experience them. A city can be planned from above, with roads, sidewalks, parks, and specific routes determining how people are expected to move through a space. The person actually walking through that environment, however, still makes individual decisions within it. De Certeau compares walking through a city to using language. There might be an established structure and certain rules, but individuals still find their own ways of moving within those rules.
I also experienced part of my neighborhood differently because I was walking instead of driving. There was an area within the park that I normally completely miss when I am in a car. Driving keeps me on the road and gives me a specific route through my neighborhood, while walking gave me the ability to move through spaces that weren’t accessible in the same way from a car. Even though I didn’t suddenly notice a million new things about my neighborhood, I was interacting with it differently.
What I found most interesting about this activity was that I didn’t have to make some huge decision to use the space differently than it was designed. Cutting across a park is an extremely normal and almost thoughtless decision. That actually made de Certeau’s argument more understandable to me. The way we experience a place isn’t determined entirely by whoever designed it. It is also created through all of the small choices we make while moving through it.
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