Downtown Foot Traffic Recovering Slowly, Report Says

Pedestrian activity in U.S. downtowns is still way down compared to pre-Covid levels, but the numbers are ticking back up month by month.

1 minute read

December 1, 2021, 12:00 PM PST

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


A man passes by a store in an empty mall. A sign in the window of the store reads "Covid-19 Essentials."

Kristi Blokhin / Shutterstock

"Pedestrian traffic in US downtowns strengthened in October to -38.1% below the 2019 level, from -40.7% in September and -44.7% in August," reports Paul Bergeron, citing a new report from retail data analytics company Springboard (their September report is freely available online).

According to Bergeron's explanation of the report, the increased foot traffic in U.S. downtowns can be explained by more workers returning to the office.

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