In the city where I live (Portland), most people take buses or the light rail when they can't bike due to the rain. In the summer, there's a lot of walking. I've noticed less of it in the suburbs, but there's quite a lot of it in rural Oregon. Simple, cheap fun.

The Buddhists, whom Schopenhauer appreciated and modeled quite a bit of his metaphysical and psychological thinking on, also enjoyed walking a fair bit. The "four positions" of the body for meditative posture, which the early Buddhists reference, are 'lying down', 'sitting', 'standing', and 'walking'. They, the Zen monks, and others involved in philosophical and spiritual traditions, tend to share appreciation for walking forms of meditation, or a love of "pointless" walking, which is meant to foster a more concentrated state of awareness. There's quite a lot of walking involved in the homeless monk's life, as well, as many monks undertake a training rule to abstain from the use of vehicles, undertake a rule to collect food on an alms walk, and may just simply enjoy traveling. Such is the life of a wanderer. Walking on and on can help people drop attachments.

We often see depressed, anxious, obsessive, and manic sorts walking... or more, pacing... which I think resembles the walking of monastics, or shamans, wizards, and priests in "ritual walking". A lot of very creative and intellectual types can be seen to pace mindlessly... can be walking be a source of stress relief? It's a common form of training for the military, and also a common form of punishment for prisons, as marching (perhaps a bit faster pace than walking). But endless walking, marching, and pacing can't be all that good for the mind, as post office workers can "go postal" from too much of it.

Walking mindfully, which can promote philosophical or creative thinking, provide psychological therapy (as Wittgenstein said, philosophy is therapy), or lead to spiritual enlightenment and purity, is as easy as placing all your focus on the soles of your feet... down, down, down, down, or place, lift, place, lift, or left, right, left, right, left, right.

Portland isn't really dense urban, though, its has some nice neighborhoods, but you're best off bicycling between them through long stretches of residential houses with big yards.

Absolutely correct.

The amount of walking I do now after moving to the bay area has changed my life. Yesterday was particularly busy, I walked 5.8 miles, about 22k steps and 900 calories according to Moves. Most days, though, just walking from trans to office, walking to lunch, then trans to home is about 1.5 miles per day. It blows my mind that before moving here, living in the suburbs, there were literally days where the most walking I did was across the parking lot to my car.

Whenever possible I ditch the office in favor of walking during my weekly 1-on-1 meetings with my team. Getting out of the office for 45 minutes is good for everybody involved.

The article also says that just 17% of walks are made for the pleasure of walking. That sounds like a good number to me, should I expect a third of the people I see to be going nowhere?

To me, the connection between "purposeless walking" and creativity is beyond obvious. Every idea I had that was broad, far reaching, a game changer in many ways, I've had it while walking with no apparent aim. Not in the shower, not while sitting in an armchair, and definitely not in front of a computer.

There's something about this activity that expands the mind and jumpstarts the creative process. It doesn't help with narrowly analytic stuff - that's best left for when you're hunched down in front of the LCD.

Totally agree. When I lived in a large city I walked a lot more. Not for the reasons you say though. In my suburban home everything I need is at most a 5-10 minute walk away. Because a city is a much larger place it took 10-15 minutes to get from my apartment to most places (coffee, convenience store, public transport etc.).

Completely agree that driving can work just as well for generating insights. Whether I'm walking or driving, I've found the key for me is to force my mind to be active. An easy way to do that is having a clear intention in mind when I set out - like a problem I want to solve or a situation I want to analyze.