The research, co-authored by MIT scholars, 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. The researchers used machine-learning tools to assess 1980s-era video footage captured by renowned urbanist William Whyte, in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. They compared the old material with newer videos from the same locations. 'Something has changed over the past 40 years,' says MIT professor of the practice Carlo Ratti, a co-author of the new study. '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.' The paper, 'Exploring the social life of urban spaces through AI,' is published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The co-authors are Arianna...
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