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The world’s most, and least, walkable cities | The Economist
Those who want to ditch their car might want to avoid North America
Cars can be a nuisance. Just ask anyone stuck on London’s M25 motorway or Houston’s Katy Freeway. More cars create more polluting traffic jams, and the amount of space needed to drive them, park them and re-fuel them could be used for more pleasant purposes, such as parks and recreational areas. It is no wonder, then, that plenty of urban visionaries hype up walkability, or what is sometimes called a “15-minute city”, where residents can fulfil most of their needs without driving.
And yet the world can’t seem to kick the driving habit. A study of around 850m people from 794 cities across the world found that more than half of the respondents still commute to work by car every day. Variations in transport tend to follow regional patterns.
This chart shows how the cities—which are sized by population—are divided between those who commute by private car, public transport or active travel (ie, walking, cycling or both).
Cities in America and Canada are clustered in the bottom left corner, where cars are king and less than 4% of people walk to work, and just 5% take public transport.
Few people drive in Asia’s big cities, regardless of their income levels. Some of the most heavily used public transport systems in the world are found in this region.
Travel patterns are more diverse in Europe. In smaller cities people tend to drive, walk or cycle to work. But in big cities, such as London and Paris, public transport is the dominant way of getting around.
The study—by Rafael Prieto-Curiel and Juan Pablo Ospina, both researchers—is one of the largest of its kind. It uses more than 1,000 surveys to capture trends in global mobility. Messrs Prieto-Curiel and Ospina only included trips to work (comparable surveys on general journeys are harder to come by) and surveys conducted before 2019 (to avoid the effect of lockdowns, which hit various cities at different times).
The surveys show where people use the most active forms of travel (see table). The 100 least active cities in the study are all found in North America—a result of decades of pro-car policies and subsidies by governments. The least active city outside of North America is Birmingham, in Britain’s West Midlands, a region long associated with the country’s carmaking industry. The most active city is Quelimane, a small seaport in Mozambique. Other cities in the top ten are all in Europe, including four in Spain.
Most active cities
Transport to work by active mobility*
Our table can be sorted by population size, which shows that larger cities tend to be less active than smaller ones (where people can more easily whizz around by foot or bike over short distances). Income also matters: rich cities are correlated with more car journeys. In fact, the study found that, holding all other factors consistent, doubling a city's income is associated with 37% more car journeys.
But elected officials in the rich world increasingly want to ditch cars in favour of cheaper, healthier and greener options. Places from Singapore to Paris have, over several decades, used carrot-and-stick policies to encourage more people to go car-free (eg, by building pedestrian zones or enforcing congestion charges). Only 30% of people drive to work in Singapore, while just 20% do in Paris. Even America appears to be slowly changing: younger generations are driving less and more cities are building walkable neighbourhoods. (Though it will be difficult to connect sprawling suburbs in places where cars have shaped urban planning.)
Globally, the number of cars continues to rise. But so too does congestion. And with it, a recognition of the need for change. Peak car—the point from which the number of motor vehicles in the world begins to decline—may not be that far away. ■
Correction (May 13th, 2024): A previous version of this article stated that two Spanish cities made the top ten. In fact, it was four. Sorry.
Sources: Complexity Science Hub; “The ABC of mobility”, by R. Prieto-Curiel and J.P. Ospina, Environment International, 2024; The Economist