I don't quite understand the connection to globalization or more rural communities. Urban cities, of course, generally offer the best walkability simply because of population density. In my experience in the United States, suburban communities and small towns are most literally unwalkable due to the design of the road network. In rural areas generally it's not feasible to walk simply because your place of work, grocery store, etc. are many miles away.
Before globalization, rural communities had walkable towns, maybe just a few blocks, but enough stores to fulfill daily needs without the use of a car. Now all those communities have is big box stores several miles away.
Those walkable towns are/were just a smaller version of what we have today: an urban core that most of an area's population lives too far away to reasonably walk to.
