Fewer people are stopping to talk in city spaces

City life has always had a reputation for being fast. A new study shows just how much faster it’s become. The researchers found that from 1980 to 2010, the average walking speed in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia rose by 15 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of people lingering in public spaces dropped by 14 percent. Fewer people are slowing down to talk, relax, or meet others.

The research comes from scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Yale University, the University of Hong Kong, Michigan State University, and Harvard University.

What decades of data reveal

The team used machine learning to analyze how public spaces are used differently today than they were 40 years ago.

The researchers worked with old footage captured by William Whyte, a well-known urbanist who spent the late 1970s and early 1980s studying public spaces in major cities.

Whyte filmed four key spots: Boston’s Downtown Crossing, New York’s Bryant Park, the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Philadelphia’s Chestnut Street.

In 2010, researchers went back to those same locations at the same times of day to shoot updated footage for comparison.

“Something has changed over the past 40 years,” said MIT professor of the practice Carlo Ratti. “How fast we walk, how people meet in public space – what we’re seeing here is that public spaces are working in somewhat different ways, more as a thoroughfare and less a space of encounter.”

Fewer interactions in city spaces

The study used AI and computer vision to identify patterns in pedestrian behavior. One surprising constant: the number of people walking alone didn’t really change – from 67% in 1980 to 68% in 2010.

At the same time, the percentage of individuals who entered a space and then joined a group dropped from 5.5% to just 2 percent. “Perhaps there’s a more transactional nature to public space today,” said Ratti.

That shift reflects how technology has changed the way we navigate social life. Plans are often made ahead of time, and people tend to move with more purpose through public spaces.

“When you look at the footage from William Whyte, the people in public spaces were looking at each other more,” said Ratti.

“It was a place you could start a conversation or run into a friend. You couldn’t do things online then. Today, behavior is more predicated on texting first, to meet in public space.”

Meeting spaces for city people

Another possible reason for the shift? Starbucks – and places like it. Meeting up in an air-conditioned café is now the go-to move, far more appealing than hanging out on a hot or windy sidewalk.

According to the study authors, the proliferation of coffee shops and other indoor venues may be pulling people away from lingering in outdoor public areas.

That’s a major change from 1980, when large coffee chains were rare or nonexistent. Now, those third spaces are everywhere – and they’re often designed specifically to draw people in and keep them there.

Designing better city spaces

The research doesn’t just document a shift – it could shape how cities are designed in the future. Planners might use these insights to rethink how public spaces are built and how people move through them.

“Public space is such an important element of civic life, and today partly because it counteracts the polarization of digital space,” said Arianna Salazar-Miranda of Yale University. “The more we can keep improving public space, the more we can make our cities suited for convening.”

The team hopes this is just the beginning. Building on this study, researchers aim to broaden their understanding of how people interact with public environments.

“We are collecting footage from 40 squares in Europe,” said Fabio Duarte of MIT. “The question is: How can we learn at a larger scale? This is in part what we’re doing.”

The future of public space may depend on learning from its past – and adjusting to how people use it today.

The full study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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