Walkable cities, and why people there move more
Suppose you could count one person's steps before and after a move across the country. Would the number change?
A research team led by Tim Althoff and Jure Leskovec did this for many people. Their results appeared in Nature in August 2025.
They used data from a free smartphone app that counts steps minute by minute. The app had 2,112,288 users. Among them, 5,424 people moved 7,447 times between 1,609 US cities. For each move, the team compared the same person's steps for up to 90 days before and after.
They rated each city with Walk Score, a number from 1 to 100. It is based on how many shops, schools, parks and restaurants lie within a short walk, and on block length and intersection density.
What happened to daily steps after a move (Nature, 2025)
| Move | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| From a less walkable city to New York City (178 people, Walk Score 89) | 5,600 | 7,000 | +1,400 |
| From New York City to a less walkable city | 7,000 | 5,600 | −1,400 |
| From a city at the 25th percentile of walkability to one at the 75th | not stated | not stated | +1,100 |
| To a city of similar walkability | not stated | not stated | no change |
For similar cities, the 95% range was −76 to +122 steps a day. The 1,100 steps equal about 11 minutes of walking.
The effect ran both ways. People who moved to a city of similar walkability did not walk more, which suggests moving itself did not make them more active. People who moved from New York City to less walkable places lost the same 1,400 steps.
The change held in most groups of age, body weight and past activity, and it lasted at least three months. The extra steps were mostly brisk walking. A large gain in walkability, 49 to 80 points, came with about an hour more brisk activity a week.
The team also modeled the guideline of 150 minutes a week of brisk activity. After a large gain in walkability, the share meeting it rose from 21.5% to 42.5%. That is a simulation and not a count.
Two cautions apply to readers over 50. The effect was not statistically significant for women over 50. The authors list reasons: more impairments, more caregiving, harder wayfinding and lower rates of driving, and transit routes built around commuters. They suggest pairing walkable streets with walking groups.
Most people also moved for other reasons. A census report cited by the authors says 77% to 98% of movers moved for housing, family or work and not for walking.
An earlier study used the same app in 111 countries. It covered 717,527 people over 68 million days. The average was 4,961 steps a day.
Average daily steps by country, app users (Nature, 2017)
| Place | Steps a day |
|---|---|
| Hong Kong | 6,880 |
| United Kingdom | 5,444 |
| United States | 4,774 |
| Indonesia | 3,513 |
App users are not a sample of each country's population. The study also found that more walkable cities had more steps across ages, sexes and body weights.
How much is 1,100 steps a day? One of the five habits in the Harvard study is at least 30 minutes of brisk activity a day. Eleven minutes is about a third of that.
The data have limits. The 2025 study covers US cities, not neighborhoods, and the app's users may differ from other people. The authors say earlier studies in other countries found similar patterns. The study cannot say which features of a city matter most.
So the answer to the opening question is yes, for most people. The same person walked more where daily errands were within a short walk.
Where could you walk to in ten minutes from where you live? Tell us in the comments. Someone may be weighing a move and counting what's nearby.
Sources we read
Althoff and others, Countrywide natural experiment links built environment to physical activity, Nature, 2025. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09321-3
Althoff and others, Large-scale physical activity data reveal worldwide activity inequality, Nature, 2017. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23018
Same 2017 paper, full text with the country table. https://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/activity-inequality-nature17.pdf
Stanford News, Stanford researchers find intriguing clues about obesity by counting steps via smartphones. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2017/07/stanford-researchers-find-intriguing-clues-obesity-counting-steps-via-smartphones
ScienceDaily, Smartphone data used in global study of physical activity. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170710113613.htm
Li and others, Impact of healthy lifestyle factors on life expectancies in the US population, Circulation, 2018 (the five habits). https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.032047
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