American pedestrian streets. L’attivismo stelle e strisce da Jane Jacobs alle esperienze più recenti

Walking is an everyday practice through which we measure our living space and establish a relationship with our surroundings; it falls within the scope of sustainable actions, which give us a direct and sensory experience of places. Understood as a design strategy, the possibility of walking fosters the citizen’s independence, reducing the travel time in moving through the city. It is interesting to analyse this phenomenon within an apparently eccentric reality with respect to this issue, such as that of American society. The big American cities of the 1960s, developed on a model that favoured travelling by car – were the first scenarios that fostered the citizen protest movements which initially demanded greater protection of the pedestrian and better use of streets and public spaces. This paper aims to trace key moments that advocated pedestrian centrality in the US, from the pioneering role of Jane Jacobs to the metropolitan programs led by the DOT, NYC Department of Transportation.