I don't know harmonicon's situation but in my case the problem is a small town (metropolitan area now) that was built up without consistently installing sidewalks. It's difficult to walk more than a mile without having to compete with traffic. That is changing though, I believe all new development has to include a sidewalk and there is a slowly developing 'greenways' project that is building sidewalks of twice the normal width with some paths that are not next to streets.