Walking as a Cure for What Ails Us

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/opinion/letters/walking.html

Version 3 of 5.

To the Editor:

Re “Whatever the Problem, It’s Probably Solved by Walking,” by Andrew McCarthy (Opinion guest essay, March 26):

I can’t quibble with Mr. McCarthy’s observations that walking is a kind of cure for what ails us. He is preaching to the choir in my case, since I walk a lot.

But I wonder if he’s published this essay in the wrong publication. He should consider one that caters to municipal officials and town planners who may be able to counter the effects of more than half a century of suburbanization, which, in America at least, has reduced the number of places where walking is pleasurable or even possible.

As Rebecca Solnit, whom he cites, sadly remarked in her seminal book, “Wanderlust: A History of Walking”: “The suburbs made walking ineffective transportation within their expanses, but the suburbanization of the American mind has made walking increasingly rare even when it is effective.”

Jeanne BonnerWest Hartford, Conn.

To the Editor:

Despite the adage “golf is a good walk spoiled,” my mother enjoyed the restorative qualities of sauntering the four miles for each 18-hole round. When some courses began to require players to use and pay for a cart, my mother still refused to ride. She hiked next to the others in the cart.

Strolling rather than riding allowed her for a few hours to forget her traumatic childhood, growing up in an orphanage because of poverty. Mom claimed, “Golf is my psychiatrist’s couch.” She won many tournaments, played into her 90s and clocked countless miles.

Candy SchulmanNew York

To the Editor:

Until recently, I would have agreed 100 percent with Andrew McCarthy that walking cures a lot of ills. I moved into Center City, Philadelphia, so I could give up my car and walk to work, to food shopping, to restaurants and nearly everywhere else.