Confessions of a Walking Dad - Why Walkable Cities Are the Key to Urban Happiness

Picture this: You're stuck behind a Karen in an SUV honking at a crosswalk because people are actually walking across the street. Meanwhile, the solution to our city nightmares isn't flying cars or hyperloops—it's something so ridiculously simple we've convinced ourselves it's impossible. In this episode, I confess my double life as "The Walking Dad" and reveal how walking—this thing humans have been doing for literally millions of years—has become an act of rebellion. From discovering hidden parks that are invisible from car level to nearly getting my son run down on a crosswalk by a reversing SUV, I share the personal stories that made me realize walkable cities aren't just better for our health and environment—they're the secret weapon for building communities that actually work.

But here's the plot twist: Walking was murdered, and it wasn't an accident. We've created urban environments so hostile to human beings that parents drive their kids to school not because they're lazy, but because they're genuinely afraid their children might die on infrastructure supposedly designed for them. From construction sites that prioritize car traffic over children's safety to the linguistic programming that makes us call them "sidewalks" (as if pedestrians are just sidekicks), I dive into the economic conspiracy that killed walking and why the 15-minute city concept is actually punk rock transportation. This isn't utopian fantasy—it's remembering how successful cities worked for thousands of years before we decided to organize human settlements around the convenience of automobiles.

Key Points:

• Walking is economic dynamite we're ignoring - Pedestrians are shopping ninjas who stop, browse, and buy, while drivers zip past businesses at 50km/h contributing zero dollars to local economies except when desperately searching for parking

• The 15-minute city isn't a conspiracy, it's how cities worked for millennia - Everything you need for daily life accessible within a 15-minute walk isn't some New World Order plot—it's literally how human settlements functioned before we decided metal boxes were more important than people

• Making walking cool again requires cultural hacking - We need walking influencers, Instagram-worthy urban exploration, and apps that gamify discovery instead of just guilt-tripping you about step counts, because cycling has cool gear while walking just has comfortable shoes

Links:

This is the article the episode is based on: https://iandebay.com/the-good-system/why-walkable-cities-are-my-secret-obsession/

These are my YouTube channels:

• https://www.youtube.com/@Ian_DeBay
• https://www.youtube.com/@Ian_Debay_Shorts
• https://www.youtube.com/@Ian_DeBay_Podcast

This is the link to my newsletter: https://iandebay.substack.com

Chapters

• (00:00:00) - The Simple Solution to Our City Nightmares
• (00:01:32) - I Am The Walking Dad
• (00:05:23) - The secret park that car drivers can't see
• (00:10:39) - The 15-Minute City
• (00:16:44) - Walking for People, Not Cars
• (00:24:19) - The Good System: Episode 20