What city walking experiences do you have in common with the writer? What in your experience is different from what he wrote about? What do you think of the power of serendipity to “expose our commonalities,” as he puts it?

The Brooklyn Navy Yard is the old industrial shipyard area that only one street away from where I live. I had been live in this neighborhood for almost eight years, and this area has changed a lot through years. When the first year that I lived here and walked down on the street, I were barely seeing people walking on the street since the area wasn’t well develop yet. Wasted buildings and factories were all along the street, and most common scene was just trucks and cars that went in and out of the factories.

Nowadays, Brooklyn Navy Yard had been reusing old buildings and factories to develop commercial area, as well as the DUMBO has been prosperity that brings a lot more people to this area. So as I have an walking experience on the street, I could feel the positive atmosphere that is in common with Cadogan: some people are jogging, some people are walking with their dogs, tourists are visiting the new look of this area. And sometimes it will hold food fair in the park that invite and gather people from the neighborhoods and visitors. The different between Cadogan and my experience is he interacted with people during his walking experience, and I didn’t have that kind of experience except visitors asking about the ways.

When Cadogan wrote the power of “serendipity to expose our commonalities”, I think as human being, we all share the similar wishes, goals and life that we want, but most people were just lack of interact with other people and didn’t have the similar experience as other people did. And we will realize we all alike once we have the experience and interact with others.