The Lost Art of Exploring

Austin, TX. (Source: Unsplash/Mitchell Kmetz.)

As June came to a close, my husband and I packed up our essentials (books for him, spices and sourdough starter for me)—and drove two hours south to a large home in Westlake Hills, Texas, a small suburb next to Austin. We stepped inside and slid open a door where two large dogs greeted us. A half bag of treats later, the barks subsided and we began to settle into our three-week gig as Austin-based dog-and-house sitters. 

The gig was kind of random, to be honest. With a new baby on the way, I had started browsing house-sitting sites looking for a frugal way to see a new city between Rob’s semesters of teaching. We were lucky with this job—most gigs don’t pay and it was nice that it was so close to Waco, so I could make it back easily for appointments with my midwife. 

I was also excited for a chance to explore Austin. In my head, I was daydreaming of riding the bus, exploring the bike network, and popping into artsy cafés. But a few days in, it quickly became clear that exploring would be much easier said than done. Granted, some of the reasons were unavoidable—exploring looks different at six months pregnant, Texas summers make spending extended time outside nearly impossible, and a hilly city is just much harder to bike (I brought my French Motobecane, but it sat in the garage the whole time). 

Some of the barriers, though, had nothing to do with nature and everything to do with Austin’s car-centric pattern of urban design, something common all over North America. Having to get everywhere in a car made exploring—one of the most fun and natural human activities—tragically impossible. 

Failed Attempts

Shortly after arriving, I made a plan to station myself at a café downtown, not far from the house. I would run two quick errands first then park the car and walk to a falafel food truck downtown before setting up with an iced matcha. It would be a win-win: I’d have a chance to get work done but also a little bit of time to see downtown on foot. 

I completed the errands quickly albeit nervously: Austin drivers are fast and zippy, so even though I only traveled about two miles, it was pretty stressful getting around. I made it to the café after squeezing around narrow streets choked with parked cars and angled underground to a very confusing parking deck. By the time I had stepped out of the car and back onto the street, the blazing heat combined with the street congestion and speeding cars did me in. I gave up on the downtown lunch adventure and settled for working at the coffee shop then picking up groceries at a neighboring Trader Joe’s before heading home, feeling slightly defeated.

But I wouldn’t give up. A few nights later, I convinced my husband to check out Mozart’s, a popular lakeside café with live music less than a mile from where we were staying. The idea was easy enough: We’d have our family meeting over two iced drinks while sitting by the lake and listening to live music. What should have been a relaxing visit to a neighborhood spot quickly became overshadowed by the notoriously stressful hunt for parking and navigating through a crowd of tourists. By the time we got our drinks, we spent more time recovering from the hunt for parking, the congested streets, and the crowds than enjoying the music and the views. 

We would deal with something similar the next week during a Monday night trip for live Bluegrass at Radio, another café+live music set up with food trucks and pretty string lights. Naturally, the venue’s popularity meant the parking lot was full. We spent nearly as much time looking for parking as we spent driving there. I wasn’t frustrated at the café’s popularity; it’s a fantastic spot. But I was frustrated that driving was our only way to get there. 

Eventually, I came to accept that my dream of riding public transit or biking and walking around the city, discovering new cafés and parks, people-watching, and noshing at food trucks would elude me. It simply was too hot, too unsafe, and too unpredictable to get around Austin without a car. I had to accept that as I was dependent on a car, real exploring wouldn’t really happen.  

Modes of Movement = Modes of Mind

Every mode of movement around a city shapes what’s possible for us in terms of observation, participation, and reflection. Cars are designed to move us speedily from point A to point B, which can be valuable when our main goal is to reach a particular destination as efficiently as possible. There is a time and place for that kind of movement. 

But sometimes, that’s not how we want to move through a city. Sometimes, the goal is not to achieve a specific goal or to arrive at a predetermined destination. Sometimes the goal is to be in the city without an agenda, experiencing it spontaneously, letting it reveal itself to us. Unfortunately, as long as car-oriented design dominates our cities, specifically our downtowns, this kind of organic, exploratory movement will be nearly impossible to attain. 

For me, this was a tragedy. Exploring is one of my favorite activities, not just because I love cities, but because exploring a city on foot, by bike, or on public transit gives me an unparalleled opportunity to not just observe cities and people more closely, but to learn more about myself and to reflect on life’s bigger questions, including questions about what makes cities and societies at large work (or not). 

The Underrated Value of Exploring

Historically, various societies recognized this contemplative side to exploring and wandering. For thousands of years, we’ve had the role of pilgrim, which brought with it certain spiritual and reflective connotations. 

From the mid-1500s to the 1860s, the Grand Tour emerged as a model of travel designed to complete a wealthy young man’s (and a few young women’s) education. Accompanied by a tutor or guide, their trip would begin in England and take them all over Europe. It could last several months to several years. The point of it was not just cultural exposure, but also an opportunity to reflect on various complex topics from medicine and architecture to political theory and religion. The Grand Tour would go on to become the basis for modern-day tourism, although today’s version could perhaps benefit from more emphasis on reflection and fewer selfies!

Then there’s the Flâneur. As Bijan Stephens points out in this article for The Paris Review, 19th-century French literature introduces us to this artistic urban wanderer identified by fashionable dress, leisurely lifestyle, and debatable habit of wandering the city. Oft criticized for their unproductivity, Stephens suggests that perhaps there’s more to appreciate about them than meets the eye because of their role as observers of the city. In contrast to our modern influencer, who has the disposable time and money to adopt a similar pace of life, the Flâneur doesn’t move from “it” places and people to broadcast their “cultured-ness” or to promote goods to their followers. Rather, he wanders the city to watch people. Their “raison d’etre,” Stephens writes, was to “participate fully through observation.”

Understanding vs. Consuming the City

These modes of being in the city, whether as a contemplative pilgrim, curious tourist, or observant flâneur are valuable modes that we’ve sacrificed for automobiles. The dominance of car-centric design has meant not just fewer opportunities to explore and observe our cities, but it’s also had the effect of replacing contemplation with consumption. Having to drive everywhere requires us to give up spontaneous discovery. Instead, we must think about our desires and preferences in advance: do I want poke for lunch or Greek food? Unlike walking, there’s no point getting in a car if you don’t have somewhere you actually want to go. So we have to know our desires in advance, choose a destination, and select the most efficient route. 

This is not a judgment: most of us have no other option. Our built environments make adopting any other mode of movement nearly impossible. Taking the bus, biking, or walking around Austin would require a lot of courage and determination. It would be pretty risky: Who knows what kind of infrastructure might be available, if the buses will run on time, or if a walking route will require me to negotiate with four lanes of impatient drivers at a highway overpass? Despite how much cities try to embrace walkability, if these issues go unaddressed and if other modes of transit don’t hit a minimal level of predictability, safety, and comfort…then people just won’t take the risk.

The result is that not only do we miss out on the joy of uncharted, spontaneous discovery, but our orientation to the city becomes more transactional, more organized around how well it can satisfy our desires and deliver exactly what we want. The inevitable and unintentional outcome of having to drive everywhere is that we end up relating to our cities mainly as consumers. 

I don’t think this is what any of us want. Many of us want to build relationships of observation and understanding towards our cities, but how can we do that while constantly moving around the city at 45 mph and trying to avoid car accidents? When in such a mode, our eyes cannot wonder and observe… They need to remain glued to the road, to other drivers, and to the rearview mirror. 

Cities Need More Explorers

This is not a win for cities. When cars squeeze out other modes of movement, it leads to less exploring, which means less reflection, observation, and understanding, but also less of the other kinds of social and economic activity that cities need. There are plenty of dollars that won’t be spent at local businesses because no one knew they existed. They were a blur on the commuter route to work or to the grocery store. There are craftsmen, artisans, and artists whose work won’t be supported because folks couldn’t easily discover them. There will be fewer eyes and feet on the street, which will mean decreased public safety. 

Most seriously, though, there will be less robust civic dialogue because people aren’t being positioned to take the first Strong Towns step in this process: humbly observing where our cities, towns, and neighborhoods struggle. This kind of activity requires properly paced exploration and observation, but it can’t happen when we’re constantly forced to move from one predetermined destination to another at a high speed. 

Cultivating this kind of civic presence requires new, more human modes of movement: walking, biking, busing, light-railing…anything that slows us down. When seen as a precursor to the kind of observation that can lead to meaningful civic participation and improvements, it becomes clear that designing in such a way to foster such habits could be perhaps one of the greatest investments a city makes in itself.

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