New York
Gary Miller’s viral sidewalk campaign began with a nagging fear.
The heart specialist and longtime native politician couldn’t shake the thought that a younger little one was going to get hit by a automobile making an attempt to cross a busy stretch of highway in Danville, Virginia, to get to the grocery retailer. And what if he was behind the wheel?
“I go that way and go after dark,” the 78-year-old Danville councilman instructed me. “I was honestly afraid I was going to hurt somebody.”
So Miller started a four-year quest to construct sidewalks alongside Kemper Road, a traditionally disinvested, predominantly Black neighborhood in town. Along with the remainder of the world, I realized of Miller’s profitable push to put in 1,600 ft of recent sidewalks and crosswalks in his re-election marketing campaign video, which caught hearth on the web this week.
“When you think about public safety, the first thing to come to your mind may not be sidewalks,” Miller, in grey slacks tucked excessive above his waistline, turquoise Under Armour polo and slip-on leather-based moccasins, says to the digital camera. “A street with a sidewalk is a safer street and a healthier neighborhood.”
“What happened here?” a puzzled Miller asks, arms unfold extensive, as he steps off a sidewalk to an impassable lot with grass and weeds.
The video has greater than 4 million views on TikTok and X and a few 175,000 Instagram likes. Singers like Clay Aiken have commented on it.
“This man has achieved an incredible form,” one particular person said on X.
Miller is bewildered by his newfound fame. But the response reveals one thing greater about politics and authorities in America proper now.
He has turn into an unlikely avatar of excellent authorities as a result of Americans are offended that nothing appears to get constructed and we are able to’t have good, easy issues like a sidewalk. People are determined for a authorities that may ship fundamental providers and infrastructure. When somebody really follows by means of, it turns into a uncommon second to have a good time on-line.
The video, after all, has additionally blown up as a result of Miller has fashion.
“Biblically accurate waistline,” one particular person commented on X. “Is he hiding the sidewalk in his pants?” another stated on Instagram.
But lots of the on-line feedback present a starvation for native leaders who deal with on a regular basis issues like filling potholes. Miller has additionally tapped into the general public’s need for anti-performative politics.
“The American voter cries out for an old man with hiked up pants who has never once opened ‘The InstaFace’ and just wants to solve something tangible,” one user on X wrote.
National leaders of the “Yes in My Backyard” pro-housing motion and transit advocates have turned Miller into an unlikely champion and praised his communication fashion, evaluating him to Zohran Mamdani, the telegenic New York City mayor younger sufficient to be Miller’s grandson.
Danville, like most of America, was designed for automobiles, with pedestrians an afterthought. Each yr, 12 individuals are killed and 95 individuals are severely injured in visitors crashes in Danville, population about 42,000, making it considered one of Virginia’s most harmful metro areas for highway security.
Roads are worst for Danville’s pedestrians in socioeconomically deprived areas, in line with the Danville Metropolitan Planning Organization’s 2025 safe streets plan. Car possession charges are decrease amongst poor residents, and plenty of neighborhoods undergo from a lack of infrastructure and planning for secure highway designs.
In Danville, 81% of the roads accounting for many fatalities and severe accidents are situated in socioeconomically deprived areas.
Miller instructed me he needs to convey sidewalks to different uncared for elements of town.
“I can name a half dozen other places where people are forced to go out into the street to get where they’re going,” he stated.
Michael Pollack is amongst Miller’s new followers. A professor on the Cardozo School of Law, Pollack’s new book “Sidewalk Nation: The Life and Law of America’s Most Overlooked Resource” is a “plea to officials, voters and grantmakers to stop taking sidewalks for granted and recognize how essential it is for so many aspects of our lives,” he instructed me.
The humble sidewalk serves many features, he stated, together with locations of commerce, speech, neighborhood gathering and policing. Yet in many municipalities, accountability for sustaining sidewalks is a patchwork system, usually left to non-public homeowners moderately than native authorities.
Miller’s video made it straightforward to grasp the significance of sidewalks, Pollack stated.
“It was some of the best political media I’ve seen,” he stated. “The video is popular because people just want local government to work.”