Moving to a more walkable city pays off for health, scientists find – CBC
Smartphone data reveals a boost in physical activity based on where people live
Aug 14, 2025
People who moved to a walking friendly city walked more, and at the brisk pace favoured to improve health and prevent disease, a new natural experiment shows.
Walkable cities allow you to access more amenities on foot for daily life, like going to school or work, buying ingredients to make dinner or heading to the park to play. But that’s not available to everyone, given many cities and suburbs in Canada and the U.S. have been designed to emphasize transit by car, urban planners say.
Teasing out cause from effect — whether walkable cities lead people to move more or if people who like to walk tend to live in more pedestrian-friendly cities — is important to nail down because it could help encourage more investment in safe sidewalks and zoning to encourage physical activity, medical researchers say.
To find out, Tim Althoff, a computer science professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, used data from a step-tracking app to compare daily steps of more than 5,400 people who moved between major U.S. cities.
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/walkability-cities-1.7608454
