The popular running app taking on a new role: showing where life is best

Strava was designed to record runs, rides and other activities. Increasingly, users are also reading its maps as a guide to where a city’s most desirable neighborhoods may be.

The app’s Global Heatmap displays the routes most frequently used by its roughly 200 million users worldwide. The brightest lines often pass through parks, beside rivers and ponds, or along quiet paths and sidewalks. To many users, those patterns point toward places with pleasant surroundings, good infrastructure and a sense of safety.

They also appear to reveal something about wealth. The routes overlap with districts known for maintained walkways and cycling paths, fashionable cafes and restaurants, established brands and high-end spas. These are places where affluent residents live, exercise and spend money, often with the time and resources to make health and fitness part of their daily lives.

The result, the article argues, can look less like a simple exercise map than a map of social inequality. Strava’s data reflects not only where people move, but also who has access to attractive public spaces and who uses the platform in the first place.

Researchers and policymakers have already examined these patterns. Experts in the United States, Japan and China have used Strava data to study the relationship between preferred routes, greenery and water in places including Baltimore, Boston and Bengaluru. The same maps that help people consider where to live can therefore expose how urban amenities and affluent lifestyles cluster together.