I just want to be clear about my ideas about barefooting.  I do believe that being barefoot as much as possible is healthy.  However, I also believe that shoes are necessary at times, and particularly in the types of environments we’ve chosen to build for ourselves.

Here in SF, people pee and poo on the streets.  I’m not interested in walking through that with my bare feet.

It’s not a great idea to go barefoot in the city for a number of reasons (aside from that one) – broken glass and other debris can cause real damage if you aren’t careful.  If you have to look down to see what you’re landing in all the time, you might be better-served to use some shoes (more on those later).

It also isn’t too good to run barefoot on concrete.  It’s an unforgiving surface (not at all like grass, dirt, or sand), and you’ll suffer for it, no matter what your form is like.

It is, however, physiologically more healthy to be barefoot as much as possible.  And, with regards to footwear, it is healthy to wear shoes that allow your feet to move freely, and to run in a way where you land on the middle of your foot instead of on your heel.

Something else to think about, though, is what our choice of footwear (or any clothing, for that matter) is doing to our environment.  Suddenly, when you have dense footwear, it’s okay that there’s broken glass on the streets.  It isn’t a big deal.  It’s okay to build time-, material-, and labor-intensive surfaces like sidewalks everywhere.  When your life revolves around an automobile, people on bicycles are annoyances.  It isn’t important if the roads are uneven or dangerous for cyclists.

Your choices necessarily exclude other things.  It’s important to pay attention to what you’re choosing to exclude.