[wburg]

People aren't any less lazy in Midtown, San Francisco or New York than they are in Elk Grove. People in walkable places walk more because they don't have to walk one or two miles from a residential area to a shopping center, they walk a few blocks or just down to the corner store. Generally, neither the residence nor the corner store has a parking lot, so driving is less convenient. The person making the trip is just as lazy, but the balance of difficulty has shifted.

People walk around in places of interest because they like to walk around. They're still lazy, but if you make walking easier and don't subsidize driving, the lazy choice will be to walk rather than drive in their own neighborhoods, instead of driving to walkable places.