Walkable cities and the impact on daily steps in Japan

A new U.S. study has found that moving to a more walkable city can add more than a thousand steps to your daily routine, and while the research focused on American cities, I couldn't help thinking about what it means for life here where walkability is built into the way most people get around.

The study tracked about 5,500 Americans as they moved between cities with varying "Walk Scores," a measure of how easily people can reach stores, schools, parks, and other essentials on foot. Folks who moved from a low-walkability city to a high-walkability one took an average of 1,100 extra steps per day, which equated to roughly 11 more minutes of walking. Some of the participants tracked saw even bigger increases, hitting the 7,000 step daily mark which is linked to lower cardiovascular risk.

For those of us living here in Japan, those numbers may sound pretty modest. Even without thinking about it, daily life often means walking to the train, transferring between platforms, popping into small shops, or detouring through a neighborhood park. I often find it's easy to glance at my phone in the evening and realize I've already exceeded 10,000 steps without having set foot in a gym.

Research study: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/moving-walkable-city-add-1000-steps-day-study/story?id=124549709