The Key to a Healthy Community
By Jeannine Patané • 8 July 2007   

     The sidewalk graded down to the street level at the intersection, and the two children knew to stop on the yellow non-skid pad. They took my hands and we looked both ways before we crossed. On the other side of the street was a shiny 1961 Airstream trailer that was parked in front of the family home we were headed to.
     Passing through the gate of a white picket fence, we were greeted by a German Shepard and three pre-teen girls. Accepting our invitation to see the multi-structural playhouse that I was in the process of constructing, their mother permitted them to follow us back along the sidewalk.
     After the girls played for a half hour on our playhouse, they walked themselves back home with an invitation to come back in the future. Shortly after they went home, we heard a singing call from the front of our house. “Laurrren!”
     “Lauren, it’s Cheryl! Quick, lets get your shoes,” I instructed.
     We got to meet Cheryl about a month after my clients moved to this neighborhood. My clients moved here about six months ago, and we’ve already met a good portion of the neighbors. Cheryl, a retired teacher who lives a few houses down the street, walks her dog regularly along the sidewalk and often she’ll take my client’s children along for the stroll. The kids enjoy her company and look forward to spending time with her.
     When the kids go for walks or are out with their parents, I have time to continue working on their play structure. It’s an intricate design and for weeks I’ve been working at high levels. My view is ideal to see the road and passerby. I watch a neighbor use the sidewalk to push a wheelbarrow and other borrowed tools to another neighbor. I see joggers, dog walkers, kids on bikes, teens walking to and from school and elders out for a stroll. I see how frequently the sidewalk is used and how important it is in linking the community. The sidewalk is where we initially met all the neighbors we know.
     Zooming out farther beyond our street, my vision sees the layout of the community and how it is developed. We’ve been webbing Earth for centuries with our footpaths to food, water holes and other villages. Whether it’s a web of Aboriginal tracks in the Australian Bush or the crisscross tundra trails imbedded in the snow by dogsled, we depend on these pathways for our survival.
     If a developed community is to survive, then these pathways must develop alongside the structures. Subdivisions with irregular or no sidewalks are just that; they are detached homes with broken links. Pathways are the veins of human interaction. They are the flow of humanity and connectivity throughout the community. Planning pathways is creating the lifeline of a community and its health. Well-designed sidewalks are built with consideration to all users, have no obstacles in the way, and they flow throughout.
     We want to make a healthier global community for our Earth. We hear issues of traffic-caused air pollution and greenhouse gases, contagious fear to venture outside and child obesity in crisis proportions. As I work outside to build a social community structure, I observe day after day, how the local sidewalk is the connective link to this community’s healthy development. Pathways have always been with us and we will continue to have them. How we plan and develop the appropriate pathways for the applicable communities will dictate the future health for all of us.