Marchetti’s Constant: Shaping cities in one hour a day

How long is your commute? How far are you willing to travel to work every day? Your answer may be complicated if your [in-person office schedule]( has changed, prompting thoughts of a move across town or [even further afield](. But if you look back over your career, chances are you’ll find that your commute has averaged about 30 minutes each way. We know this because in 1994, Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti [identified a nearly universal rule of human behavior](: People tend to travel for about one hour per day, in total (pdf). That won’t hold true for every individual, but recent data has indeed found that the average one-way commuting time in the US ([27.6 minutes](), [Canada (26.2)](, and the [UK (29.5)]( clocks in at just under 30 minutes. Marchetti’s Constant, as his observation is known, [explains the ways ancient and newer cities alike]( have developed through time. Whenever a new technology arrives that zips people to work at faster speeds, towns typically grow outward, but not so far that commutes expand past one hour per day. So how will this fixed variable shape the future of cities after the pandemic, when a larger portion of workers will work remotely at least some of the time? Let’s examine the possibilities—we’ll keep this journey short. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( [Quartz Weekly Obsession] Marchetti’s Constant September 08, 2021 Travel, timed --------------------------------------------------------------- How far are you willing to travel to work every day? Your answer may be complicated if your [in-person office schedule]( has changed, prompting thoughts of a move across town or [even further afield](. But if you look back over your career, chances are you’ll find that your commute has averaged about 30 minutes each way. We know this because in 1994, Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti [identified a nearly universal rule of human behavior](: People tend to travel for about one hour per day, in total (pdf). That won’t hold true for every individual, but recent data has indeed found that the average one-way commuting time in the US ([27.6 minutes](), [Canada (26.2)](, and the [UK (29.5)]( clocks in at just under 30 minutes. Marchetti’s Constant, as his observation is known, [explains the ways ancient and newer cities alike]( have developed through time. Whenever a new technology arrives that zips people to work at faster speeds, towns typically grow outward, but not so far that commutes expand past one hour per day. So how will this fixed variable shape the future of cities after the pandemic, when a larger portion of workers will work remotely at least some of the time? Let’s examine the possibilities—we’ll keep this journey short. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( By the digits [3 miles (5 km):]( Average diameter of Europe’s oldest cities, including Rome, Venice, and Berlin, before 1800, when people walked to work (pdf) [1-2 miles (1.6-3.2 km):]( Distance most people can walk in 30 minutes [50 sq miles (129 sq km):]( Area cities grew to when equipped with early streetcars, assuming commutes of one hour per day [8:]( Minimum number of US companies looking at hyperloop technology that could reduce four-hour car trips to 30 minutes [¥50,000 ($450):]( Typical monthly bullet train subsidy paid by Japanese towns like Yuzawa, in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture to help retain residents who commute [3%:]( Share of “super commuters” who spent over 90 minutes each day traveling to and from work in the US in 2019 [70%:]( Share of the world’s population that is expected to live in cities by 2050 [120 minutes:]( Average daily travel time for Indian workers who, with the longest commutes in the world, are an exception to Marchetti’s Constant Giphy Explain it like I’m 5! What is Marchetti’s Constant? --------------------------------------------------------------- [Cesare Marchetti, a Italian physicist](, actually credited Yacov Zahavi, an Israeli transportation analyst and engineer, in [his original paper]( about “invariants in travel behavior,” published in 1994. He called Zahavi’s [field work]( remarkable “because it shows the quintessential unity of traveling instincts around the world, above culture, race, and religion, so to speak,” Marchetti wrote. Marchetti meant “instincts” literally. He felt that the human propensity to spread out about as far as 30-minute jaunts could take us before retreating to our safe caves was related to an animal drive to establish an optimally sized personal territory. Jonathan English, a fellow at NYU’s Marron Institute of Urban Management and transportation policy director at Toronto Region Board of Trade, says he doesn’t fully subscribe to that theory, but the Marchetti Constant is a good rule of thumb when planners think about transit. English has mapped how Marchetti’s Constant gave us the city footprints we know today, beginning with the remarkably consistent size of ancient villages with diameters no greater than five kilometers, meaning the radius would be walkable in half an hour. Modern cities expanded rapidly with mass commuting options. First came subways and streetcars “that allowed people to jet out of the downtown core, and to live in one neighborhood and work in another,” [he writes for Bloomberg CityLab](. In the postwar era, faster commuter trains and expressways put more distance between city workers and suburban dwellings. “At every turn, speedy technology meant the city expanded and de-densified, and housing on the outskirts of town became affordable and desirable,” he writes. “But we know where this pattern brought us: to ugly sprawl and jammed highways in big urban areas.” Fun fact! People who live in big cities are less depressed than those who reside in rural areas, according to [a recent University of Chicago analysis]( that relied on pre-pandemic data. Giphy Pop quiz! Which country allows e-bikes to reach the fastest speeds? Russian Federation United StatesIsraelCanada Correct. Electric and manual scooters and bicycles could offer routes to efficient commutes that don’t involve driving or sharing the air with strangers in enclosed spaces. Some US states permit e-bikes that can reach speeds of 28 mph (45 km/h.) The upper limit is 20 mph (32 km/h) in Canada, and 15.6 mph (25km/h) in all other places on this list. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Million-dollar question Does Marchetti’s Constant still matter? --------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. Here’s why: 🍩 After the pandemic, people who will work in-person once or twice a week may be willing to tolerate a much longer commute. The 30-minute preference Marchetti observed likely has to do with time-budgeting rather than animal instincts, says Jonathan English. But if you’re working from home most days of the week, that changes the math. In fact, recent studies have suggested that the rise in remote work has led to growth and development in suburbs and rural areas, which ultimately should bring service jobs and other economic activity to those distant districts, [in a donutting effect](. 🚜 Marchetti’s Constant is also a useful rule of thumb for rural towns grappling with a shortage of retail and service employees, and an abundance of high-income remote workers who have driven up the cost of housing. Solving this imbalance in [so-called Zoom towns]( will require improving transportation options that offer reasonable 30-minute commutes, in addition to cheaper housing, says English. 🚆 City dwellers who can’t work remotely or need regular face time at work are meanwhile left paying high rents, at least until the next big innovation in transportation is here. Hyperloop technology, which can reduce four-hour drives to 30 minute commutes could be a game changer, but English is betting on high-speed rail, which has yet to reshape intercity commuting in the US, as it already has in France, Japan, Spain, and China. Charted Track changes --------------------------------------------------------------- The US lags behind other wealthy countries in adopting high-speed trains, but a long-planned project linking Houston and Dallas finally looks [ready to move ahead](. Inspired, Quartz reporter Camille Squires looked for other pairs of US metro areas whose locations and population sizes would make them excellent candidates for a similar service. She found 13 potential routes. [Read more](. Quotable “I know a lot of people who moved to cities, who did the whole next chapter, are really unsatisfied right now and feel really empty.” — “Laney,” age 22, quoted in a recent essay about [moving back to your hometown](, by [Rainesford Stauffer]( Brief history [3500 BCE:]( The wheel is invented, likely in modern day Ukraine or Poland. [2500 BCE:]( The city of Harappa, in modern Pakistan, develops as one of the earliest known urban centers in the world, with an estimated population of 60,000 at its height. Other [ancient cities]( in Mesopotamia and Egypt are established around the same time. [Late 17th century:]( The horse and buggy becomes a common mode of travel in towns and cities, but they do not make commuting much more efficient than walking. [1836:]( The London and Greenwich Railway opens. Its design and function—shuttling the middle classes to the suburbs and back—is soon replicated in cities across Europe and the US. [January 29, 1886:]( On the same day in different German cities, two engineers who have never met file patents for what would become the automobile. [1888:]( The world’s first electric streetcar begins service in Richmond, Virginia. [1950s:]( New expressways lead to car-centric master-planned communities in the US and other nations, giving us suburbs as we know them. American highways were typically built at the expense of Black neighborhoods in big cities, though racist [redlining]( practices kept Black residents from buying the new housing stock they made possible. [2016:]( Systems analyst Carlos Moreno introduces the concept of a 15-minute city—in which every resident can walk to fulfill their basic needs—to make cities more inclusive and humane. The idea will catch on in Melbourne, Portland, Shanghai, and Paris. [2019:]( Ascent, a Singapore-based startup, launches helicopter sharing in the Philippines for airport and suburb commutes, with plans to expand to other Asian countries. Uber also introduces UberCopter in the US. [2021:]( Feeling optimistic about its future in the metaverse, Facebook releases Workrooms, an app designed for corporate meetings in virtual reality. No commuting required. Alex Citrin-Safadi Members only Make the most of your non-commuting days --------------------------------------------------------------- That long-awaited day off is finally here, but you can’t fully enjoy it. As you struggle with FOMO, an over-stuffed schedule, being tethered to your phone, or feeling adrift during unstructured days, time slips through your fingers. The answer to getting more out of weekends and holidays is the same: Find ways to experience time as gloriously abundant. We compiled some of the best advice we could find from psychologists, time-management experts, and even a celebrity or two. ✦ Read all about it in the [most recent edition]( of How To, delivered to Quartz members’ inboxes every Friday. Become a member so you don’t miss a beat. Not yet a member? Get 40% off with code QZEMAIL40. [Defeat FOMO]( Try this! Do you live in a 15-minute city? --------------------------------------------------------------- If you left your home right now, would you be able to walk to medical services, schools, grocery stores, and public transit systems within a quarter of an hour? That’s the standard many cities are hoping to establish; if every resident of every income level had what they needed close by, cities would be more equitable and liveable. Here Technologies, a location data platform, [created this interactive map]( that [tells US residents]( whether their town or neighborhood qualifies. Reuters/Benoit Tessier Poll If your company asked employees to be in the office one day a week how far away would you live? [Click here to vote]( 30 minutesOne hour each wayTwo hours, and not a minute moreI see almost no limit 💬let's talk! 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