How social you are could depend on where you live, according to an article by U researchers published in the Journal of Transport Geography.
The study rated 42 U.S. cities by comparing the number of face-to-face social interactions that could happen in a city and how many actually take place based on the land use and spacial layout of the city.
Steven Farber, assistant professor of geography, said the study came out of work he was doing on people’s dependence on automobiles.
“People who were in their car for longer periods of the day typically spent less time socializing with friends and family with all other things,” Farber said.
He wanted to see how geography and other aspects of daily life affect social interactions. He said while urban sprawl has a negative impact on social interactions, it is not as detrimental as not having a central urban core.
“Most important for social interaction is for cities to have area of intense centralization of activities, dense urban cores where people live and work,” Farber said.
He also said social interactions provide personal benefits, such as friends, but they also increase the social and economic welfare of a city. Social interactions help build social capital, which allows people to, for example, borrow a tool from a friend, have a friend baby-sit or help fix a roof.
“[Social capital is] really important for finding jobs and finding your spouse,” Farber said. “[It] also comes from having healthy networks.”
Social interactions also benefit cities economically because more people are able to share ideas, which increases creativity and innovation, Farber said.
Large metropolitan areas such as New York City are not as friendly to social interactions as people might think. Farber said although large metropolitan areas have a strong urban core, many people have to commute long distances to get to them. He also said these cities are so large that people have to travel long distances within the city to get places.
“In fact, while there’s a lot of people at one place at one time, because of how far people are commuting, we do not see as much opportunity as one might expect,” Farber said.
He said one of the more surprising findings was that medium-sized cities, such as Salt Lake City, allow more social interactions than large metropolitan areas. Though medium-sized cities have smaller populations, people interact with a greater percentage of the population.
Farber said Salt Lake is “in the middle of the pack” in terms of social interactions. Even though Salt Lake City is sprawled, it does not suffer from the traffic congestion that other cities face.
Salt Lake received a similar rating to cities such as Detroit, Phoenix and Nashville.
Boston and Portland were among the cities ranked highest for social interactions. Farber said that although Boston is big, it is also compact, and Portland has a growth boundary that keeps people packed in the city.
Oakland and the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area were among the lowest rated because they have large, spread-out populations, making social interaction difficult, Farber said.