> I'm really astonished that Americans don't do it the same way.
Americans tend to have strange ideas about walking. If they think about it at all, they tend to think of it as something that's only done in extremis.
I've discovered, for example, that, when I travel for work, it's generally useless to ask hotel staff if they can recommend any restaurants "within walking distance" when I'm staying in a suburban area. They will always say that there aren't any. Even when there are several within 500 meters of the hotel.
When I am visiting the main office (also in a suburban area) I stay about 1.5km away from the building. I choose to walk to get between there and the hotel. It's a lovely walk, all sidewalks, through a quiet neighborhood. My colleagues consider this to be very peculiar behavior. If someone recognizes me while I'm on the sidewalk, they'll stop, express concern, and ask me if I need a ride, and I generally have to assure them multiple times that I'm OK and I just prefer to walk.
I've grown the habit of telling people (in walking context) there are ultra marathons where people walk 5000 km and (in cycling contest) that I know low end cycling enthusiasts who do 300 km in a day - pushing as hard as they can. Their fitness is much closer to ours than to those winning the Tour de France.
In my mind that means looking up to 1.5 km walk or 10 km of cycling really says more about me and you than it says about the distance. The world walking record is 175 km in 24 hours. Think about it, that is much more than a hundred times 1.5km. Someone some day cycled.... over 900 km in a day! Climbing Mount Everest is only 20 km but it takes 55 days!
You have to be in terrible shape to look up to 1.5 km.
I screwed up the math. It's 28.6 days at the world record speed. I multiplied by 24 unnecessarily. Still a long time, but a lot more reasonable (and it agrees with your records).
Is that rue of all "Americans" (U.S. citizens) or is it just specific kins off places, like some suburbs? I have seen plenty of footage of people walking around large US cities. And what about rural places? Surely theree's nothing stopping people from taking long walks on the countryside if they live out in the boondocks, etc?
I find it's mostly a suburban and rural thing. Though, even large US cities can be quite suburban in their makeup. I found Phoenix to be surprisingly difficult to navigate on foot, for example.
There is recreational walking, but it can be odd. I have family members who live in areas without sidewalks, and they do regularly go for pleasure walks, but such outings tend to start with a car ride. Because the nearest place where space has been made for walking is several miles away.
Walking on country roads generally isn't pleasant. The roads are narrow, the traffic is fast, the drivers are discourteous and/or texting while driving, and the only place to put your feet where you're not in danger of being hit by a car is often a drainage ditch.
Cities out West in the States tend to be less dense because they were founded by people who generally had horses/wagons already to get there and because they were founded closer in time to the invention of the automobile, so their infrastructure was less solidified by the time it was introduced and thus they've adapted more to cars with a broader sprawl and less vertical buildup. Of course this isn't true of all cities in the Western US, but as a general trend it holds up.
In the suburbs I grew up in, walking, especially to accomplish practical tasks like grocery shopping, was seen a signal that you were "on welfare" - which was code for poverty.
Meanwhile, people drove to fitness clubs to walking miles on treadmills while slurping energy drinks.
>I have seen plenty of footage of people walking around large US cities.
Where, in the movies?
If you're talking about Manhattan, NYC, that place is absolutely nothing like the rest of America, except maybe for a few other large cities' downtown areas (DC, Boston, Portland, etc). These few places have entirely different lifestyles from the rest of rural and suburban America, where cars reign supreme.
You can walk in the countryside all you want, but you'll be walking on the asphalt roadway with vehicles zooming along at 70mph and limited sightlines, so you'll probably end up dead in a ditch by the side of the road if you make that a lifelong habit. The driver who killed you probably won't stop, and would not be punished by the legal system even if they did.
Hit by a car at 3pm, i.e. broad daylight. "Deputies ticketed Weaver for not being as far off the road as possible. The driver who hit him was not charged."
Americans tend to have strange ideas about walking. If they think about it at all, they tend to think of it as something that's only done in extremis.
I've discovered, for example, that, when I travel for work, it's generally useless to ask hotel staff if they can recommend any restaurants "within walking distance" when I'm staying in a suburban area. They will always say that there aren't any. Even when there are several within 500 meters of the hotel.
When I am visiting the main office (also in a suburban area) I stay about 1.5km away from the building. I choose to walk to get between there and the hotel. It's a lovely walk, all sidewalks, through a quiet neighborhood. My colleagues consider this to be very peculiar behavior. If someone recognizes me while I'm on the sidewalk, they'll stop, express concern, and ask me if I need a ride, and I generally have to assure them multiple times that I'm OK and I just prefer to walk.