Amazing stuff! Is this due to global warming? Or due to the jogging and fitness craze? What about suburbia? What about crime/vagrancy or loss of amenities (e.g. shops) in downtown areas?
What is the chicken and egg here? Did urban planning and construction result in this change of behavior?
It surprises me that the study stopped analyzing videos after 2010! Why not more recent videos? Maybe the speed decreased again in the past 15 years.
This seems to be an interesting new direction of research: Using computer vision to analyze older video footage.
Caveat: I did not read the study.
"The research ... shows that the average walking speed of pedestrians in three northeastern U.S. cities increased 15 percent from 1980 to 2010. The number of people lingering in public spaces declined by 14 percent in that time as well. ..."
From the significance and abstract:
"Significance
Urban public spaces have traditionally served as places for gathering and social connection, shaping the social fabric of cities. This study reveals important shifts in pedestrian behaviors over a 30-y period in four US public spaces.
By using AI and computer vision to analyze historical and contemporary video footage, we observe an increase in walking speed and a decrease in time spent lingering, along with fewer group encounters.
This trend suggests a growing perception of city streets as corridors for movement rather than spaces for social interaction. These findings highlight a changing urban dynamic, where efficiency increasingly shapes public space usage, potentially impacting social connections and the community-building role of these environments.
Abstract
We analyze changes in pedestrian behavior over a 30-y period in four urban public spaces located in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Building on William Whyte’s observational work, which involved manual video analysis of pedestrian behaviors, we employ computer vision and deep learning techniques to examine video footage from 1979–80 and 2008–10. Our analysis measures changes in walking speed, lingering behavior, group sizes, and group formation.
We find that the average walking speed has increased by 15%, while the time spent lingering in these spaces has halved across all locations. Although the percentage of pedestrians walking alone remained relatively stable (from 67% to 68%), the frequency of group encounters declined, indicating fewer interactions in public spaces.
This shift suggests that urban residents are using streets as thoroughfares rather than as social spaces, which has important implications for the role of public spaces in fostering social engagement."
Exploring the social life of urban spaces through AI (no public access)
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