Urban pedestrians are walking faster and doing less socializing, according to a new study of NYC, Boston and Philadelphia. Is technology to blame, or public space itself?
Are city streets places for pedestrians to hang out, or are they routes to be traversed as quickly as possible?
Americans are increasingly treating them as the latter rather than the former.
That is the striking implication of a recent interdisciplinary study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Applying modern artificial intelligence techniques to old video footage, the researchers compared pedestrian activity in 1980 and 2010 across prominent locations in Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. Their unsettling conclusion: American ambulators walked faster and schmoozed less than they used to. They seemed to be having fewer of the informal encounters that undergird civil society and strengthen urban economies.
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