Why America is obsessed with a grandpa in high-waisted pants who is building sidewalks

Gary Miller’s viral sidewalk crusade started with a nagging worry.

The cardiologist and longtime local politician couldn’t shake the thought that a young child was going to get hit by a car trying to cross a busy stretch of road in Danville, Virginia, to get to the grocery store. And what if he was behind the wheel?

“I go that way and go after dark,” the 78-year-old Danville councilman told me. “I was honestly afraid I was going to hurt somebody.”

So Miller began a four-year quest to build sidewalks along Kemper Road, a historically disinvested, predominantly Black neighborhood in the city. Along with the rest of the world, I learned of Miller’s successful push to install 1,600 feet of new sidewalks and crosswalks in his re-election campaign video, which caught fire on the internet this week.

“When you think about public safety, the first thing to come to your mind may not be sidewalks,” Miller, in gray slacks tucked high above his waistline, turquoise Under Armour polo and slip-on leather moccasins, says to the camera. “A street with a sidewalk is a safer street and a healthier neighborhood.”

“What happened here?” a puzzled Miller asks, arms spread wide, as he steps off a sidewalk to an impassable lot with grass and weeds.

The video has more than four million views on TikTok and X and some 175,000 Instagram likes. Singers like Clay Aiken have commented on it.

“This man has achieved an incredible form,” one person said on X.

Miller is bewildered by his newfound fame. But the reaction reveals something bigger about politics and government in America right now.

He has become an unlikely avatar of good government because Americans are angry that nothing seems to get built and we can’t have nice, simple things like a sidewalk. People are desperate for a government that can deliver basic services and infrastructure. When someone actually follows through, it becomes a rare moment to celebrate online.

The video, of course, has also blown up because Miller has style.

“Biblically accurate waistline,” one person commented on X. “Is he hiding the sidewalk in his pants?” another said on Instagram.

But many of the online comments show a hunger for local leaders who focus on everyday problems like filling potholes. Miller has also tapped into the public’s desire 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 movement and transit advocates have turned Miller into an unlikely champion and praised his communication style, comparing him to Zohran Mamdani, the telegenic New York City mayor young enough to be Miller’s grandson.

‘Sidewalk nation’

Danville, like most of America, was designed for cars, with pedestrians an afterthought. Each year, 12 people are killed and 95 people are seriously injured in traffic crashes in Danville, population about 42,000, making it one of Virginia’s most dangerous metro areas for road safety.

Roads are worst for Danville’s pedestrians in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, according to the Danville Metropolitan Planning Organization’s 2025 safe streets plan. Car ownership rates are lower among poor citizens, and many neighborhoods suffer from a lack of infrastructure and planning for safe road designs.

In Danville, 81% of the roads accounting for most fatalities and serious injuries are located in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas.

Miller told me he wants to bring sidewalks to other neglected parts of the city.

“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 said.

Michael Pollack is among Miller’s new fans. A professor at 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 told me.

The humble sidewalk serves many functions, he said, including places of commerce, speech, community gathering and policing. Yet in many municipalities, responsibility for maintaining sidewalks is a patchwork system, often left to private owners rather than local government.

Miller’s video made it easy to understand the importance of sidewalks, Pollack said.

“It was some of the best political media I’ve seen,” he said. “The video is popular because people just want local government to work.”

Some information for this report was gathered via edition.cnn.com.