>>Now for our readers from most of the rest of the world - sidewalks in most of the USA are there because there's a city bylaw that requires them to be built. But you'll never see them worn out (except in big cities downtown). Nobody's walking. Running, maybe, jogging still has some diehard advocates, but not walking. Not alone. With a dog. Or you may get observed by a neighborhood watch, or a police patrol, and maybe become very suspect, depending on how you look and where you are.
>
>Maybe where you live. In my neighborhood, there are often people walking, even on my street that has no sidewalks.
>
>Tamar

I live in a very multicultural area of Toronto - a very large part being East Asian (Chinese, Phillipine etc), and there are always people out walking. I suspect it must be a cultural thing. In fact, in our area, there are a lot of bicycles too - again mostly East Asian, and they mostly ride their bikes on the roads (there isn't all that much traffic in the residential neighbourhoods). For some oddball reason for which I have no explanation, many of the elderly Chinese people seem to rather walk on the roads than the sidewalks too.

When you get to downtown Toronto (where I work), then you find people riding their bikes on the sidewalks.