Walkable City Design Increases Daily Steps More Than Personal Motivation

Researchers found that walkable city design—not personal motivation—was the key factor behind people taking 1,100 more steps per day. Neighborhood walkability is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: Does living in a walkable city make you walk more, or do active people choose to live where it’s easier to walk?

To investigate, researchers analyzed smartphone data from between 2013 and 2016 for two million people, including more than 5,000 people who moved among more than 1,600 U.S. cities. Tim Althoff, a computer scientist at the University of Washington, and his colleagues found that after relocating to more walkable cities, people took about 1,100 more steps a day, equivalent to 11 minutes of extra daily walking. What’s more intriguing is that these additional steps were part of brisk walks—physical activity that improves health and could contribute to a lower risk of death all around. Meanwhile, the data showed, people who moved between similarly walkable cities didn’t change their activity level. The findings suggest built environments, rather than personal choice alone, might affect not just the amount but the intensity of the exercise their inhabitants get.

Each square represents a relocation pair of cities. One axis shows the change in city walkability, and the other axis shows the change in daily steps. Those who moved to more walkable cities added about 1,100 steps a day, and relocating to less walkable places cut activity by a similar amount.

If all U.S. cities had Chicago’s walkability score of 78, the average person would walk 443 more steps a day and gain an extra 24 minutes of weekly moderate to vigorous physical activity: enough for 11.2 percent of people, or 36 million more Americans, to meet targets in aerobic-activity guidelines. And if everyone walked like New Yorkers, an even larger share—14.5 percent, or about 47 million people—would meet those targets.