The Bottom-Up Revolution
In Athens, Ohio, stroller struggles on broken sidewalks and a sea of parking lots pushed Stevie Hunter to become the city’s “sidewalk lady.” She joins Norm to talk about mapping every parking lot in town, auditing rebuilt streets with a homegrown SPACE metric, and pushing for curb ramps, benches, and daylighted intersections. Their conversation shows how one resident’s daily walks turned into real influence over how a city treats its walkers.
Transcript (Lightly edited for readability)
Hello. I'm Norm with Strong Towns, and I want to welcome you to this Bottom Up Short. Part of my work with Strong Towns is going around meeting all sorts of other people in our broader membership movement and the whole network of people that are taking aim at many of the core challenges that we face in our communities.
While I've not yet had the privilege of meeting our guest today, Stevie Hunter, I have heard from John Patterson, our community builder at Strong Towns. He said, "Norm, I spent time with Stevie, and you've got to share her story and introduce her to the Strong Towns community." That's what we're going to do today.
Stevie Hunter is an advocate in Athens, Ohio. A key part of her work is focusing on accessibility and advocacy for pedestrians, cyclists, and others with disabilities. She is on the Accessibility and Advocacy Committee of the Disability Commission — a committee within the Disability Commission's broader scope of work — as well as leading a task force on pedestrian accessibility and bicycles. I find this amazing. I'm excited to be able to chat with you, Stevie. Welcome to Bottom Up Shorts.
Thanks for having me on here today. Beyond just wanting to be out on a bicycle more, what are some of the core things that you are working at in your community?
We created a pedestrian accessibility plan in 2023 with a previous ad hoc committee. What we've been working on for the past couple of years is getting all the recommendations from that report implemented. We've got the first one done. We have a committee that's dedicated to it, and we've been working on getting curb ramps put in place in areas where the sidewalks don't have them.
We're also going to do a push for daylighting intersections, because Ohio has that on the books — that something 20 to 30 feet before an intersection you can't park. We've got to paint the curb yellow. That's something on our horizon. We've also been working with a couple of other agencies to get more benches in the city. There's just a lot to be done.
This past summer, we've been working with the Accessibility and Advocacy Commission to use Athens' homegrown walkability metric to audit a recent rebuild of one of our major artery streets, West Union. It got rebuilt, it got narrowed, and it got slowed down a bit. They kept the 35 mile-per-hour limit, but what we did was go for a walk. We brought our measures along and started measuring the intersections and finding out what speed cars were taking the corners.
The city was working on making sure we have a mixed-use path that's eight feet wide. Was it good? It was wonderful. But there were also some features that needed work — like most of the bus stop signs were missing. We wrote up a report and it's going to be delivered to the city. If it hasn't been delivered already, it
will be next week. That's amazing. One of the things that stands out is an article Michael Natelli wrote for Strong Towns and for his Substack. He was referencing the idea that heaven is a vulnerable-friendly place, because it's a place where weakness is allowed for. A good city needs to be vulnerable-friendly as well. "Vulnerable" actually captures each one of us — each one of us has vulnerabilities and needs. When we begin to really create the conditions for those vulnerabilities to be addressed, we actually create something great for all. Even if you don't have sight disabilities, it means you have a space that's easier to navigate.
What stands out to me is taking those walks and really witnessing and noticing what's going on around you. Can you share more about how you've begun to build up a network of people to work at this with you — so that you're not trying to do this on your own, but doing it with others?
As for the committee work we've done, I've been really lucky in that when the first walkability committee was formed, there were some really amazing people there. We had a city council representative, a woman who is the former head of ADA from Ohio University, which is in Athens, and a local advocate who is actually the one who started the curbside conversations in Athens a few years back. We had an amazing team, to which I was able to add, "Hey, I've been researching walking pretty hardcore for a while now. Let me help."
From the committee aspect, the people have been there, and I can't emphasize enough how important that has been. As we all know, if you're trying to do this all yourself, it's just too much.
Share more about researching walking, because that might be one of those things that other people can do from their home or in their own context, to be able to understand it as it applies to their communities. What does that look like for you?
Absolutely — this is something everybody can do. I've long been a person who walks around a neighborhood. I had a paper route when I was 12, probably one of the last of a generation to do that. Later on, I was walking dogs. Then I had the opportunity to move to Japan for four years and lived there without a car. I had my bicycle and I walked.
I had a funny encounter when I was visiting home, where someone asked me, "How do you get your groceries?" I said, "Oh, I just walk there." They said, "Well, but then you can't carry very much home." I said, "That's fine, because I just go there every day." They said, "Well, that sounds even more inconvenient." I couldn't explain at the time that actually it was much more convenient, because I didn't have to think ahead. I could just go and get things.
Anyway, I moved back to the United States and ended up living in an apartment building that was maybe three quarters of a mile outside of the usual town sphere — outside the city limits, but down a two-lane road that was posted 35, with a big steep hill and cars going way faster. I just felt so isolated. I hated that there was nowhere to walk. I hated that walking anywhere was difficult. I felt that there was literally no reason to go outside. I wasn't allowed to hang my laundry outside. There was nowhere to go in this apartment complex.
When we were able to move more into the center of town, I was thrilled. I could walk to the library. I could walk to the bike path. We didn't quite have a grocery store yet — we do now — but I could walk to a convenience store and get a gallon of milk. I started doing that, and then my son came along right after that. I'm pushing the stroller going, "Hold on, I can go places!" But I'm walking in the road with the stroller because the sidewalks are crumbling. There are no curb ramps. There are streets where there is a sidewalk, but it's so narrow or so tilted that I'd rather walk in the street. At first I thought I should persist on the sidewalk, but over time that feeling has diminished.
What I began to do was look at maps. My father was very into Strong Towns, and he had been sending me articles here and there for years. One of them caught my eye — it was about parking lot mapping. I sat there with a photo from Google Maps, like a screen capture, because I didn't have GIS, and just colored in every single parking lot in Athens. I went, "Wow, there's a lot of parking lots in Athens. This is kind of ridiculous." There's literally a mile of pavement along our main commercial avenue, East State Street.
From there, I began doing a couple of maps. I did one in my neighborhood with all the rentals at the time color-coded, just to see — because people were saying there are so many rentals in this one area. There are rentals in the whole neighborhood. People just don't know about them. There are duplexes everywhere. They don't look like it from the street, but they're here, and that's great.
All along, I was kind of asking people, "I have this interest and I don't know what to do with it." Nobody I talked to knew what a city planner was, or knew how to talk to city government. I don't know if I was just asking the wrong people, but these days I suspect it's just because people don't know how to really get in contact with city government beyond writing an email and hoping that does the trick.
I ended up seeing there was a community meeting. I got my son a babysitter for that day and went and found the city planner. I said, "You tell me what you do, please." He was very kind. He set up a coffee hour with me and walked me through what he did. I thought, "I've got to do this. I want to go to graduate school and be a city planner." But life is funny, and my —
This was 2019, and you can kind of see what's coming. The pandemic hit, there was no daycare for my son, and then I got pregnant with twins. All those plans got pushed back, and I was pretty crushed by that. I thought, "Well, okay, I can't go to graduate school right now, but graduate school can come to me."
I got online and found books that people recommended about city planning, walking, and biking. I probably read 15 to 20 books, just a chunk at a time — my kid wants to run around looking at bugs in the yard, so I've got 15 minutes with a highlighter. I started looking around as I was reading these and going, "Oh my gosh, it's real. It's true."
I was reading Jan Gehl — if you don't know Jan Gehl, he's from Copenhagen, and he's not a city planner, he's an architect. He's a very interesting architect, because when he met his wife, who's a psychologist, she and her psychologist friends would poke fun at architects, saying, "You design houses for people, but you sure don't like them. You take photos of your houses when nobody's there. Why don't you care about people?" He thought to himself, "Oh my gosh, they're right." He did a ton of studies about how people move through space, how they really interact with space, and what spaces compel or repel people. I loved it.
I started walking around town and looking at everything. Here are these slick surfaces of the parking garage — nobody wants to stand along here, everybody moves quickly past it. But here on the Main Street there's a group of people standing in a doorway chatting, and another group of people standing in a doorway chatting because —
they're seeking shade, seeking comfort, seeking some space that just breaks up that sense of, "I'm exposed, I'm at risk."
Yeah, and people are jostling them. We kind of like that. We say, "Oh, I shouldn't do this," and then we keep doing it — standing in stairwells and doorways and corners where people run into us. If you ask
somebody, "What do you think about blank walls? Should we have them in our cities?" they might try to respond in some way. But if you just say, "I'm going to watch you for a couple of hours," that'll show us a lot more.
It's the same thing on a street — what is it that makes you feel dignified or dishonored being there? I think that is a fruitful question: what would make you feel slightly more dignified as you walk down this street? Well, if it wasn't in terrible condition, at minimum. If it was just swept. I understand that concrete can crack, but we can do small things to pick up the trash. We can do small things together to just make this a more honorable space — where, if the Queen of England were walking it, she'd find it acceptable.
Think about it this way: what if we set that as a standard for the path to school? These children are doing something noble and wonderful, and we want to make it great for them. One of the communities I love — and I think this is catching on — began to name routes to school. There was the Turtle Trail, the Phoenix Trail. By naming it, they made it known. They put up little placards on fences: "You are on the Turtle Trail." It could have been any trail, but they gave it character. They gave it identity. All of a sudden that city sidewalk became something meaningful — part of a narrative of belonging and participating. That stands out to me in what you're sharing: taking notice and then asking, "Does this repel somebody or attract them?"
Absolutely. I ended up on the first walkability committee somewhat by accident. My sister, walking home one day, found a patch of ice and texted me — because I had become the person in my circle of friends who kind of knew what to do about things. She said, "This ice has been here for three days. What do I do about it?" I said, "You should contact your city representative. Send a photo, be really exact about everything." She did. That woman then emailed her back saying, "It sounds like you care a lot about this. You should come to this meeting." My sister said, "Ah, no — you go." I said, "Here I am. Yes, absolutely."
One of the things we found very quickly when we were doing this work is that we were looking at sidewalks. Athens has a stroad — luckily we really only have one — but it goes to our main commercial district, to Walmart and Lowe's and all the usual culprits. It had just gotten a brand new sidewalk on one side, and they put one on the other side, which it needed. The city was touting this as a wonderful new sidewalk. I kept looking at it and going, "Something's wrong here." It's a sidewalk. Do you want to walk on that sidewalk? I don't want to walk on that sidewalk.
Then I saw — Chris Arnaud was one of the keynote speakers this summer at Providence, speaking on walking. I saw one of his tweets about dignity, and I thought, "We've got to figure this out." Because if we, the people who are supposed to be recommending stuff to the city about sidewalks, can't talk about sidewalks — what are we even doing? Are we as Americans so removed from walking as transportation that we don't know how to talk about it anymore? We don't know how to say what makes a good walk and what makes a bad one, let alone how to build it.
We kept asking ourselves, "What do we want?" Trees — okay, but why? Why do we want trees? We want a smooth surface, but we have a smooth surface on East State Street and we all hate it. So clearly that's not enough. We all like walking on this one street — the sidewalks are terrible, but it's beautiful houses and shady, mature trees. What repels us? What draws us in?
We ended up coming up with our own homegrown metric to try to talk about things in a productive way and make recommendations in a productive way — not just say "plant some trees," but say, "Plant some trees to enhance the safety of this street, because it slows people down when they're driving, and also to make it easier for people to walk, because they provide shade."
The metric is SPACE — it's an acronym. It stands for Safety, Proximity, Accessibility, Connection, and Ease. I'm considering changing the C to Community. We were able to break down the problems we were seeing, connect them with a letter, and have the response built in. I love that. Like, we're walking next to a parking lot and the building front is 300 feet away — you don't connect to that. There's no connection. We've got to fix the connection.
That's great. The ability to bring diagnosis to then figure out what to do about it — that's really the core connection. I regret that this is a Bottom Up Short, which means I do have an obligation to keep it shorter. I'll have to come up with a lengthy edition so we can continue the conversation. As we start to wrap up, I've got two questions for you. The first: what are some tips you have for other people interested in taking similar steps to those you've taken on your journey?
My suggestion for anybody wanting to do this is pick a topic and become the expert on that topic in your town. Whether that's housing, sidewalks, rainfall mitigation, or community gardens — it can be a big topic or a small one. Every time someone says, "Oh, we've got to do something with the cherry trees," let's call so-and-so the cherry tree person. Become the such-and-such person. I'm the sidewalk lady.
I love that. We've had the courtyard lady — we've had Alicia Peterson, who is all about courtyards and courtyard urbanism in Chicago. We've had other people that are about finances and sustainability, and now you're the sidewalk lady. I like that a lot. Lastly, what is it that gives you hope in Athens, Ohio, and in your community?
In Athens, the number one thing I see when I'm out and about is that we are a city with good bones. We've done some things that aren't great — built a five-lane stroad — but we are hemmed in by hills. We are small, relatively dense for an American city. We have some beautiful buildings. We've got people who really love this town, and so we have all the tools we need to make this happen. We just have to make it happen.
That's right. Well, it sounds like a potential entry into the Strongest Town contest from Athens, Ohio might be en route, because it sounds like you're doing amazing things. Stevie, what is a way for people to connect with you or with the Strong Towns Athens group in your community?
We are on Instagram at @strongtownsathens, and I am the curator of that. We also have a Facebook group, which has just recently changed its name to Strong Towns Athens. If you want to connect with me personally, I am on LinkedIn under Stevie Hunter. If you want to look up newspaper articles that I'm in, I do go by Stephanie Hunter in my hometown.
Oh, there we go. Stevie, this has been wonderful. I'm so glad to be able to introduce you to the broader Strong Towns movement. Thank you for making time to be on Bottom Up Shorts. It's been wonderful.
Norm, thank you. I appreciate it.
I hope you're as inspired by what you just heard as I am. Even as you go out, take that walk. Walking is so valuable, and it's not costly, but we make it more challenging than it needs to be. Taking note of those things is such a powerful part of what we can do as Strong Towns thinkers and advocates within our communities. As always, keep doing what you can to build up your community, make it stronger, and take care of your places.
This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at strongtowns.org/membership.