Walking distance

One thing that differs greatly between California and Sweden is the definition of walking distance. As a Berkeley newbie, I've found myself asking directions to a lot of things. Stores selling towels, where a certain street is, pretty much everything except where the nearest WIFI-offering cafe is (that I can typically find by closing my eyes and leaning forward). And it strikes me that I'm often finding myself clarifying two things; I'm walking, and I'm willing to walk a couple of miles. The default unit of measurement for walking distance here is blocks, and the measurement is usually kept in low single digits. I knew this coming in, but something I underestimated is just how much the infrastructure here depends on transportation. I knew that US cities and infrastructures are planned for prevalent access to automated transportation, and that most families have more than one car, but it didn't occur to me to just what extend they're used within the city itself. In fairness, we should observe that US blocks are typically larger than Swedish blocks, and that I currently have way too much free time (hence the blog), but it's still an interesting phenomenon. People walk, but mostly just within the city center or on campus. Or their dog. Here are a few cars from the street. I could have taken a picture of any random street around here, and with the right angle captured at least fifty cars, but I went with these as they seemed more Californian. Note that the second picture depicts the driveway of a single-family house. It's all about the wheels.