SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Aug. 5, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Researchers say Salt Lake City ranks No. 1 in the nation for one pandemic recovery measure: the return of downtown foot traffic.
Mayor Erin Mendenhall posted the news to her Facebook page Friday night.
“Salt Lake City’s post-pandemic foot traffic rate — nearly 140%, meaning it’s grown even beyond 2019 levels — is particularly remarkable,” she said. “We’re working hard for real results to make our city a better place to live and visit.”
The research by the School of Cities at the University of Toronto is chronicled in a story by online news site Axios. Salt Lake City, at 139.1% is not only No. 1, but among only four cities in the study that have returned to 2019 downtown foot traffic levels.
Bakersfield, California, is No. 2 at 127.7%; followed by Fresno, California, 115.7%; and El Paso, Texas, 107.1%. Jacksonville, Florida, was fifth at 93.4%, meaning it had not returned to its downtown foot traffic levels before the outbreak of COVID-19.
Nor had the 58 other cities ranked in the study. No. 17 Washington, D.C., was only at 76%; No. 24 New York City at 67% and No. 29 Los Angeles at 63%. At the bottom at No. 63 was San Francisco, 22%.
The study did not list the borders for the downtown areas in comparing data from March-May 2019 with March-May 2023. The complicated methodology was based on cellphone tracking.
