Why People in Cities Walk Fast

[M II A II R II K]

Why People in Cities Walk Fast


Mar 21, 2012

By Eric Jaffe



Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/job...alk-fast/1550/

.....

Most work on urban walking speed dates back to 1976, when psychologists Marc and Helen Bornstein published a provocative paper on the topic in the top-tier journal Nature. The Bornsteins wanted to understand the relationship between a growing human population and an individual person's behavior. So they planted themselves in major activity centers of 15 different cities and towns in six different countries on warm sunny days, and timed how fast a couple dozen solitary, unsuspecting pedestrians covered about 50 feet of space.

- The Bornsteins suggested that the intense interpersonal crowding of cities might trigger behaviors that reduced "social interference," such as walking quickly. Other psychologists at the time bought into this idea: Stanley Milgram, for instance, believed that the sensory overload of the city prompted a social withdrawal response — in this case, a rapid motor action — to limit a person's environmental stimulation. In 1989 the geographers D. Jim Walmsley and Gareth Lewis pointed out some flaws in the "cognitive overload" theory. For starters, some people obviously thrive on an active, stimulating environment. Besides that, a very slow pace of life no doubt creates cognitive and behavioral changes of its own. So Walmsley and Lewis set out first to validate the Bornsteins's results, and, if they held true, to propose some reasons for urban walk speed of their own.

- As one possible explanation for the relationship between city size and foot speed, the researchers suggested that economic factors might play a key role. When a city grows larger, they wrote, wage rate and cost of living increase, and with that the value of a resident's time. As a result, "economizing on time becomes more urgent and life becomes more hurried and harried," Walmsley and Lewis suggest. The link between time, money, and walking earned even more validity in a seminal 1999 study led by psychologist Robert Levine of California State University at Fresno. Levine studied what he broadly called "pace of life" in various cities — typically the largest ones — from 31 countries around the world. Writing in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Levine explained that he simply wanted to know what other cultural factors, beyond simple population size, influenced the speed of urban pedestrians.

.....

The analysis indicated not only that life moves faster in the city than in the countryside, but that "pace of life varies in a regular fashion with the size of the local population, regardless of the cultural setting," the Bornsteins reported:

[Don B.]

Interesting.

[iheartthed]

My own theory is that people in big cities live by more rigidly defined schedules that are affected by things like transit and traffic jams. If you're anticipating a long drive/train ride or are trying to catch the next train/"beat" traffic then you are naturally moving faster to cut down your commute time.

[Austinlee]

Cause they got shit to do son. Makin' that money, money green.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

My own theory is that people in big cities live by more rigidly defined schedules that are affected by things like transit and traffic jams. If you're anticipating a long drive/train ride or are trying to catch the next train/"beat" traffic then you are naturally moving faster to cut down your commute time.

I think it's as simple as city people have a wider selection of things to do, so on any given day they're more likely to want to go see something from that selection. When I lived in a small down, I walked pretty slowly and enjoyed stopping just to look at a tree or something.

When I lived in a bigger town, I walked a bit faster because I had more things I wanted to do.

Now that I live in downtown Chicago, I walk very fast, and the only person I know who walks consistently faster than me is a friend of mine who live in midtown Manhattan, and we both like to go see and do things. I still also like to stop and smell the roses, so to speak, but now thy're just as likely to be some special roses in a conservatory across town as they are to be my neighbor's.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Cause they got shit to do son. Makin' that money, money green.

This.

I remember some comedian that did a bit about ordering in New York delis, pedestrians on the sidewalks, etc. The upshot was basically "New Yorkers aren't rude, they're just busy".

[mthd]

Originally Posted by austinlee

cause they got shit to do son. Makin' that money, money green.

+1

[vid]

Non-urban people are also fatter, and fatter people move slower.

[suburbanite]

Growing up in Suburbia I've adapted to walking very fast. I learned at a young age it was the only way to get places within a reasonable time frame given how far apart everything is.

[Xing]

I noticed I still walk fast when I'm at the mall with my parents back home. They always try and slow me down.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by Xing

I noticed I still walk fast when I'm at the mall with my parents back home. They always try and slow me down.

And if you're a good son, they *do* slow you down. Make no mistake, this is the way of the world.

[llamaorama]

But really I'd also like to vent that it is no fun going with my parents or other relatives to a mall, theme park, or any other destination that involves walking.

Also I am only in my 20's and they are only in their 50's. Nobody in question is so old or frail they can't walk at a normal pace anymore. It's a choice, to be as obnoxious as possible to other people in the mall who don't want to drag their feet behind a row of people blocking the "lane" , while I get all the glares...

[Boris2k7]

My family is slow as hell. I don't wait for them anymore.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Also I am only in my 20's and they are only in their 50's. Nobody in question is so old or frail they can't walk at a normal pace anymore.

Exactly, so many try to blame their slow walking on age ("oh I just can't walk as fast as you young people"), in reality thought it is just suburban auto-centric habits that make their legs so out of shape. If someone lives in an urban environment and walks everywhere there is no reason you can't be a relatively fast walker well into your 50's, 60's and even 70's. Sometimes I think auto-centrism causes pre-mature aging, like people in their late 20's/early 30's blaming their poor walking skills as a sign the age process is starting and state at me with envy that I look and move so good at age 31 compared to them, thinking I just have good genes or something, NO, well the looks might be genes, but my walking I attribute mostly to how much I use my leg muscles by walking all the time, there is no reason why most people my age can't walk as well as me if they just got in shape and out of the silly sedentary suburban lifestyle.

[glowrock]

Oh lord, seriously? Suburbia makes people's legs weak? Holy crap, I think you guys are grasping at straws here!

Why do people in cities walk fast? Time is money, it takes more money to live in a city (generally) than in a smaller town. What else is there to know? Seriously, can't we have one single discussion where cheesy stereotypes against everyone who lives in suburbia aren't taken as gospel truth?

Aaron (Glowrock)

[Rizzo]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

My own theory is that people in big cities live by more rigidly defined schedules that are affected by things like transit and traffic jams. If you're anticipating a long drive/train ride or are trying to catch the next train/"beat" traffic then you are naturally moving faster to cut down your commute time.

Exactly what I was thinking. Sometimes my walk to work feels almost mechanical. After 3 years, you know exactly how long each light takes to change and when it's going to change

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by glowrock

Oh lord, seriously? Suburbia makes people's legs weak? Holy crap, I think you guys are grasping at straws here!

Is it that hard of a concept to grasp? When you don't use any muscle, including legs, they become weaker. Now when you drive everywhere you use your legs a lot less and thus they become weaker. That is not to say there aren't some active people in the suburbs but it is much less a part of their routine. So yes I do think on average people have stronger legs in a walk able urban environment than in suburban sprawl.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by vid

Non-urban people are also fatter, and fatter people move slower.

^ One would think so, yet that's not always true.

In the past decade, the fattest I ever became was when I lived in Manhattan.

I now live in bumblefuck suburbia and I am the thinnest I have been in many years.

[vid]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ One would think so, yet that's not always true.

In the past decade, the fattest I ever became was when I lived in Manhattan.

I now live in bumblefuck suburbia and I am the thinnest I have been in many years.

Personal results my vary, but statistics only occasionally lie.

[gtbassett]

Yeah I think it's mostly to get to necessary destinations whether it be work, school or just social interactions and also as this increase of speed around you takes place the people around you also pick up the pace and it's a never ending cycle of increasing walking speeds to outpace the person beside you on the sidewalk.

I have noticed that when both bicycling and walking in San Francisco compared to my hometown of Sonoma, I go balls to the wall intense speed in the city, while it's usually a leisurely cruise in the sleepy town. Got places to go, people to see and money to make in the city, I have trees to look at and fruit to pick on a stroll in the town.