Steps and the City

Urban streets are losing their social spark as pedestrians up their pace, a new study finds

- by LUCY NOTARANTONIO

ON THE MOVE Research shows faster daily pace leaves little room for spontaneous encounters, pushing social interaction onto phones (below left).

CITY LIVING HAS LONG BEEN described as fast-paced. Now, there's data to prove just how much faster it has become.

A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reveals that pedestrians in three major northeastern U.S. cities—Boston, New York and Philadelphia—are moving 15 percent faster than they did in 1980. They also found that fewer people are lingering in public spaces, with the number dropping by 14 percent over the past three decades.

Coauthor Arianna Salazar-Miranda, an assistant professor at Yale, told Newsweek that the findings suggest a shift in how people use public spaces. She said: “One interpretation is that public social life is weakening. The reasons for this shift are likely multifaceted—rising opportunity costs of time and the lure of indoor spaces like cafés—but the result seems to be less social interaction happening out in the open.

“This matters because public spaces like sidewalks and plazas have historically served as places for social mixing. When they start to function more like corridors than gathering spots, we risk losing that integrative role. That has implications not just for social cohesion, but also for cities’ ability to generate informal encounters that drive creativity, civic engagement and community.