Arent most single family homes in suburbs or similar places where there are no woods and often no sidewalks? Then everywhere you go, there are just more of single family houses and going to nearest wood requires a car.

I guess it depends on what is meant by middle America in the parent post. In my experience, if neighborhoods don't have sidewalks, they are more rural than suburban.

Indeed, you typically see fewer sidewalks near houses that are closer to woods/etc.

I also wonder what sorts of distances people think of as "far" in this thread. I've lived in both suburbs and in NYC. It's easy to walk a mile in the city without realizing it, whereas that is sometimes unthinkable to suburban folks. But if I walk a mile from my house I hit: woods, trails, the downtown area, the train station (to NYC), a school, fields, and etc.

At least in the U.S. - think it matters quite a bit where you are. Lots of areas in South and West were developed entirely around car use whereas suburbs in the Northeast can be quite tightly packed.

It doesn't help that suburbs aren't designed for walkability or ease of navigation. Even if something might only be 500 metres from your house getting there requires a twisty stupid path to one of the handful or perhaps only entrance to the subdivision. So that 500m can easily turn into 2KM.

That's a fair point. My town (outside of NYC) is very much like that. With that in mind, the 1-mile walk I mentioned in my original response is based on the paths available to me (twists, intersections, etc.) rather than straight lines.

In my mind, this is another the under-rated aspects of parts of NYC - grids. Simplify the process of walking, judging distance, knowing where you are.

This is actually part of the secret to making walkable neighborhoods - make them hell for cars (one entrance, have to snake around) but have paths that go directly through walls/hedges. I've seen some very nice housing developments that are literally 100 ft from a shopping center, but you'd never know it because it's hidden behind a gate.

Love it, agree, I wonder how many suburban towns are able retrofit their neighborhoods like this. My guess is not many based on ownership and configuration, but it would really cool to see pathways snaking through neighborhoods like that.

If you find older ones, you often find unofficial "secret" paths in convenient areas (the poor areas will have actual holes in fences, etc).

The main downside is often the houses are packed in such a way that there's no path without going through someone's yard.

In a lot of suburbs of Atlanta* (and even within Atlanta itself!) you will find residential neighborhoods with no sidewalks. And these are definitely not rural.

* The choice of city is due to personal experience, but I doubt it's unusual - e.g. I'm pretty sure it's exactly the same in/around Miami.

Most subrubs don't need sidewalks. there is zero traffic, so kids can play in the streets just fine. Stop the game when a car is coming. The car can even go slow (though it probably won't if there are no kids) as there is noplace to go on that street and so it doesn't have far to go.