3 ms·
One thing that immediately sticks out to me is the pace at which the pedestrians move. There is the occasional brisk walker but most everyone seems to walk rath
by kleiba 9y ago
One thing that immediately sticks out to me is the pace at which the pedestrians move. There is the occasional brisk walker but most everyone seems to walk rather slowly, almost like strolling. In big cities today, you'll find that exactly reversed. Fascinating.
- thanatropism 9y agoPeople's expectations of travel time is dictated by the speed of cars (which also include traffic interestingly). I walk to work. Briskly, it takes me 20 minutes, leisurely 40+. Because of heavy traffic, it's pretty much impossible to drive there in less than 15 minutes, so that's the distance it's assumed to be.
- wklauss 9y agoIt is important to take into consideration that this is not a typical day in the city. Some of the pedestrian were aware that the movie was being filmed and traffic flow was actually staged (there weren't that many cars on the streets in the time, the cars in this movie circle around the frame several times). Some of these people probably went on a leisure walk just to see the filming. That being said, yes, it is likely that average walking pace was slower at the beginning of the 20th century. We have evidence that just in the last couple of decades, average pace of walking has increased around 10% in large metropolitan areas.
- kleiba 9y agoYou see some people taking note of the camera or even interact with it, especially kids. However, there are also a lot of people who just seem to be going on their everyday business. The cars were apparently staged but it's not clear that the rest of the traffic was as well: the reason for the former may have been to make SF look like a more advanced city than it actually was.