Measuring the Impact of Slow Zones on Street Life Using Social Media

24 Pages Posted: 4 Apr 2022

See all articles by Arianna Salazar Miranda

Arianna Salazar Miranda

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Urban Studies & Planning

Cate Heine

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Fábio Duarte

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Katja Schechtner

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Carlo Ratti

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 25, 2022

Abstract

Streets are fundamental to social and economic exchange in cities. Despite their importance for urban life, streets continue to dedicate more space to cars than people, raising concerns about their ability to host social exchange. In this paper, we study the extent to which slow zones (areas designed to be more pedestrian-friendly via speed limit reductions) affect human activity in streets. We study this question in the context of Paris, which implemented several slow zones covering a large portion of the city between 2010 and 2019. We exploit differences in the effects of the policy at the boundaries of the slow zones and their staggered introduction over time to identify their causal effect on human activity. Comparing street segments immediately within the slow zone boundary (our treatment group) to street segments immediately outside the slow zone (our control group) shows that human activity measured using Twitter is 44% higher in slow zones. This effect is driven by an increase in both the number of users and in the number of tweets per user, suggesting that slow zones attract more people and that people might be staying longer in these areas. We also show that slow zones draw visitors from a wider geographic range of neighborhoods, contributing to social mixing.

Keywords: human activity, pedestrian zones, social media, twitter, big data

Suggested Citation

Salazar Miranda, Arianna and Heine, Cate and Duarte, Fábio and Schechtner, Katja and Ratti, Carlo, Measuring the Impact of Slow Zones on Street Life Using Social Media (March 25, 2022). MIT Center for Real Estate Research Paper No. 22/05, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4072107 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4072107

Arianna Salazar Miranda (Contact Author)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Urban Studies & Planning ( email )

77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
United States

Cate Heine

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Fábio Duarte

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ( email )

77 Massachusetts Avenue
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
United States

Katja Schechtner

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Carlo Ratti

affiliation not provided to SSRN

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