HOW TO WALK, AROUND THE WORLD

CHRIS ARNADE IS a photojournalist and the author of the Substack newsletter Chris Arnade Walks the World. He spent a decade walking through American landscapes and documenting what he saw. Now he has expanded his project to include cities around the globe, whether they’re large or small, and whether they’re easily walkable or not. His newsletter documents his mileslong walks off the tourist-beaten paths, showcasing real people everywhere from the Faroe Islands to Albany, New York; from Phoenix to Nairobi, Kenya.

- Chris Arnade and Tyler Cowen on walking in unwalkable places

Arnade holds a Ph.D. in particle physics from Johns Hopkins University and spent years as a Wall Street bond trader. In 2011 he left finance to document the lives of lower-income Americans, a project that culminated in his 2019 book Dignity. Along the way, he developed what he calls the “McDonald’s test”—the idea that people’s attitudes toward the fast-food chain reveals their level of privilege.

In February, Arnade recorded an episode of the podcast Conversations with Tyler with host Tyler Cowen, the Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and the chairman and faculty director of the Mercatus Center. Cowen, himself an avid traveler, asked Arnade about what makes a city walkable, the “totalitarian anarchy” in China, and what he prefers when in other countries: McDonald’s or KFC?

Cowen: If you had to live in either Beijing or Shanghai for 10 full years, which one would you pick and why?

Arnade: Beijing ultimately, because there was just more there. The reason I liked Shanghai more initially was because I had a good location. I was right next to People’s Park, and I had a good four or five days. Beijing grew on me with time, though.

If you had to explain the fundamental difference between the residents of the two places, how would you explain it to an outsider?

I don’t have a good answer to that one, because I don’t feel like I know either of them well enough. How would you do it?

In Shanghai, status is money and conspicuous consumption. In Beijing, status is power. In a funny way, that intersects with making the city more intellectual—having better bookstores and having ties to more of China. Shanghai is more tied to the outside world, which is maybe better for the city, but for me, makes it less interesting.